60 replies to this topic

[DonaldMReif]

Lift 6 generally has long lines whenever there's been a major snowfall. It's no wonder I've seen a number of people on Facebook wishing that once the Colorado SuperChair is replaced with a high speed six pack, the original high speed quad is used to replace Lift 6. I'm currently more inclined to go to the Kensho SuperChair if I want to do bowl terrain.

[sd40t-2]

I'll +1 to Silverlode at Park City. Great terrain, but the lift serves too much area for it's own capacity. It's better than it used to be but another lift for this area would be nice.

I hated the area even more when it was still serviced by both Prospector and Lost Prospector. I loathed this area 'back in the day' since one couldn't get to the top without riding the prospector lifts unless you wanted to burn an hour in the gondola line. No matter how hard I tried, my dad and I always seemed to end up in the 'hole' (as I called it). I remember when they installed the Cressent Yan quad-fixed (circa 1989 I think) and changed it's alignment just enough that one could ski down to Pioneer (which is usually empty) and totally bypass the Prospector / Snow Hut "mess".

I remember one day, long ago when one of the old double-chair Prospector's broke down and people were claiming an hour wait in line. They sent some 'mountain hosts' to divert skiers away from the 'claim jumper' runs but I don't know if it did any good.

Motherlode has always been a favorite and reliable lift to use as a alternative to the Silverlode/Prospector area if I wanted to ride similar terain. Aside from 'crush load' holidays, I've never waited more than two minutes in line; I come out ahead time wise with the slower lift ofsetting the time waiting in line at Silverlode.

[DonaldMReif]

I'm starting to think of adding Quicksilver Super6 to this list merely for the annoyance I have to do in EpicMix every time I ride Quicksilver: each ride gets duplicated, forcing me to go in and erase it out. That's why when I stay at my family's timeshare reservations at Grand Lodge on Peak 7, I always avoid Quicksilver when doing Peak 9, sticking instead to the Mercury SuperChair for the upper terrain and the Beaver Run SuperChair if I do decide to swing through the Peak 9 base areas.

[Nof]

Hmm. I'm gonna go with Victoria's Station now Molly's at Timberline. In its prior Riblit double life it was a fairly long lift ride for pretty underwhelming terrain. Plus it dropped you off just below all the facilities requiring a transit to another lift that would get you level with or above the lodges.

Next contender would be the double YAN Hood River Meadows lift at Mt. Hood Meadows. Lift rides were a sleep filled 20-30 minutes depending how many times it stopped on the way up. It was the only way out of that general area and on weekends the lift line could be 20-30+ minutes just to get on. It was a blessing when they moved the lift into Heather canyon and put a PomaHSQ in its place.

This post has been edited by Nof: 03 January 2014 - 08:51 PM

[boardski]

My least favorite is Sundown at Steamboat but it is not because of the lift itself but for their refusal to use Priest Creek (a FGD which parallels Sundown). There are so many good runs back there and then you get down to Sundown only to "get the shaft" by having a line out the ropes with people who need slows and full stops on a detatchable quad even though there are no beginner runs anywhere near there. The crowds could be managed so much better if they used both lifts. I would ride Priest Creek every time. I can understand not using both chairs on an ordinary weekday but it seems ridiculous not to use both on weekends, holidays, and other busy times. For now, Elkhead-to-Storm Peak-to the traverse is the alternative.

This post has been edited by boardski: 05 January 2014 - 12:52 PM

[DonaldMReif]

boardski, on 05 January 2014 - 12:49 PM, said:

My least favorite is Sundown at Steamboat but it is not because of the lift itself but for their refusal to use Priest Creek (a FGD which parallels Sundown). There are so many good runs back there and then you get down to Sundown only to "get the shaft" by having a line out the ropes with people who need slows and full stops on a detatchable quad even though there are no beginner runs anywhere near there. The crowds could be managed so much better if they used both lifts. I would ride Priest Creek every time. I can understand not using both chairs on an ordinary weekday but it seems ridiculous not to use both on weekends, holidays, and other busy times. For now, Elkhead-to-Storm Peak-to the traverse is the alternative.

There is one beginner trail off the Sundown Express lift - that is Sundial, which travels to the left of Tomahawk, then crosses the Sunshine Express lift's trails and becomes Rendezvous Way back to Rendezvous Saddle, then returns to the Sundown Express and Elkhead as Broadway.

Last time I was in Steamboat was three years ago, but I don't remember the Sundown Express or the Storm Peak Express having to make frequent stops and slows for misloads and misunloads. I was perfectly fine with all of Steamboat's high speed quads and six pack and their locations. However, the proposal to construct the Elkhead Express lift to replace Elkhead might be rather useful considering that unless you want to cross over to Storm Peak to use Rainbow and the Park Lane Bypass to get to Vagabond and the Thunderhead Express lift, Elkhead is your sole way out of Sunshine Peak.

[boardski]

By not having any beginner trails in the area, I meant to illustrate that the stops and slow-downs should not be as frequent as they are on Sundown lift. I was there over new year's eve and day and the stops and slows were horrific on that chair and Morningside especially. Oddly enough, on Elkhead they were not as bad. It seems as if Steamboat "babys" the tourists also and encourages people to ask for the lifts to be slowed down which is irritating to experienced skiers and riders on lifts which serve advanced terrain. Unfortunately I still have 4 days to use at Steamboat this year and hope this problem eases once the Winter-break tourism ends. We also skied Keystone, Mary Jane, and Copper and did not encounter this problem. Steamboat is a great mountain but their lift efficiency needs improvement.

[DonaldMReif]

What about with the other high speed quads? I thought that the Sunshine Express was a more likely target for frequent mis-loads at loading when I was there with its 90 degree load (or have they changed it to inline loading since then, like was done this year to the Peak 8 SuperConnect?). Same for the Christie Peak Express, which is a six pack with 90 degree loading.

[boardski]

Sunshine is still 90* loading. We did not ride that one a lot but did notice it stopped a lot. Storm Peak was not quite as bad. Christy had a lot of slow-downs since it serves the beginner hill, so some of that is to be expected. The frustrating thing about Sundown is the area could be served so much more efficiently by using Priest Creek and directing families and skiers with less experience to Sundown and encouraging the more experienced skiers to use Priest Creek. I enjoy several runs in that area such as: Shadows, Closet, 3 O-Clock, Twilight, Koose Cruise, but it is hard to ski all of these in 1 day with 20-25 minute lift waits. My apologies if I have digressed off topic.

[DonaldMReif]

Honestly I would be more fond of the Ruby Express at Keystone if they would convert it from 90 degree to in-line loading or reconfigured the queue line to something that is more efficient.

Wayback seems to be qualifying. It's about a ten minute ride on a slow fixed-grip quad, and slows seem to be very common, plus it's your only way of returning to North Peak and Dercum Mountain from the Outback. I sometimes think it should have been upgraded to a high speed quad years ago. I believe that upgrading it and turning the lift into the Wayback Express lift is still on Keystone's master plan.

This post has been edited by DonaldMReif: 06 January 2014 - 07:51 AM

[snoloco]

Although I like the Kaatskill Flyer 6 pack at Hunter Mountain, I do not its loading ramp one bit. It is a 90 degree load and it is a pain in the a**, literally. You need to be in the exact right place on the ramp in order to load it without getting slammed in the legs really hard. The chair is only in this position for a fraction of a second. This causes lots of slow downs and stops. It has counterclockwise rotation and the queue feeds directly into the 90 degree loading ramp. The high speed quad that it replaced ran clockwise with in line loading. They should have moved the bottom terminal further uphill and used counterclockwise rotation which it does now but, with in line loading. It could still be converted today, but it would be hard and create a turn in the queue. It has 90 degree unloading, which works very well, since you no longer need to make a 180 degree turn every time you unload, like you did with the high speed quad.

[snoloco]

boardski, on 20 November 2013 - 05:43 PM, said:

many don't like taking singles up and edge them out

Happens all the time at Mountain Creek. It isn't their fault, it is the people's bad behavior that causes this. Nothing at a ski area gets me more angry than chairs going up with empty seats on crowded days. They should clip everyone's ticket who edges out chair mates when there is a line.

[SkiDaBird]

Albion at Alta...they run it at about 400 and it is really long...not to mention that one should not be in the area in the first place...

[snoloco]

North Quad at Gore Mountain. It is 3,765 feet long and serves a low intermediate trail pod. It isn't really super long for a fixed grip, but it is always stopping constantly because the lesser skiers who ski that section cannot load or unload it. The chairs do not have any padding, unlike almost all the other lifts at Gore Mountain which makes for some pretty rough loads and even more stops. It runs less than 400 fpm at full speed and takes about 10-12 minutes to access only 600-700 vertical. Unfortunately because it was only built in 1997, it isn't that old, and because New York State (who owns and operates Gore Mountain) doesn't have enough money, it isn't going anywhere. I like the trails on that section, but I will still pretty much avoid it until they either speed the lift up with a carpet load, or make it a detachable. Good riddance to this thing when it finally disappears.

[Peter]

snoloco, on 23 November 2014 - 02:53 PM, said:

Unfortunately because it was only built in 1997, it isn't that old, and because New York State (who owns and operates Gore Mountain) doesn't have enough money, it isn't going anywhere.

The State of New York has bought 7 new lifts in the last 8 years including 3 detachables.

[snoloco]

Most of those lifts were either on new sections, or replaced super old lifts that were falling apart. The only one that was an upgrade from fixed grip to high speed was the Superchief at Belleayre, and that was a conversion, not a new install.

[DonaldMReif]

boardski, on 06 January 2014 - 07:29 AM, said:

Sunshine is still 90* loading. We did not ride that one a lot but did notice it stopped a lot. Storm Peak was not quite as bad. Christy had a lot of slow-downs since it serves the beginner hill, so some of that is to be expected. The frustrating thing about Sundown is the area could be served so much more efficiently by using Priest Creek and directing families and skiers with less experience to Sundown and encouraging the more experienced skiers to use Priest Creek. I enjoy several runs in that area such as: Shadows, Closet, 3 O-Clock, Twilight, Koose Cruise, but it is hard to ski all of these in 1 day with 20-25 minute lift waits. My apologies if I have digressed off topic.

I haven't skied Steamboat in four years, but even I think that the Sunshine Express lift's bottom terminal is in a location where inline loading would be more appropriate.

sd40t-2, on 02 January 2014 - 03:33 PM, said:

I'll +1 to Silverlode at Park City. Great terrain, but the lift serves too much area for it's own capacity. It's better than it used to be but another lift for this area would be nice.

I hated the area even more when it was still serviced by both Prospector and Lost Prospector. I loathed this area 'back in the day' since one couldn't get to the top without riding the prospector lifts unless you wanted to burn an hour in the gondola line. No matter how hard I tried, my dad and I always seemed to end up in the 'hole' (as I called it). I remember when they installed the Cressent Yan quad-fixed (circa 1989 I think) and changed it's alignment just enough that one could ski down to Pioneer (which is usually empty) and totally bypass the Prospector / Snow Hut "mess".

I remember one day, long ago when one of the old double-chair Prospector's broke down and people were claiming an hour wait in line. They sent some 'mountain hosts' to divert skiers away from the 'claim jumper' runs but I don't know if it did any good.

Motherlode has always been a favorite and reliable lift to use as a alternative to the Silverlode/Prospector area if I wanted to ride similar terain. Aside from 'crush load' holidays, I've never waited more than two minutes in line; I come out ahead time wise with the slower lift ofsetting the time waiting in line at Silverlode.

Perhaps the upcoming high speed quad upgrade to Motherlode and high speed six pack upgrade to King Con as part of the PCMR-Canyons interconnect will shift some of the skier traffic away from Silverlode.

[llamborghinii]

Chair 5 at Loveland, because it never spins. Not sure of the last time it spun either, even for maintenance purposes.


I heard that the reason it stopped running was that it ran over a creek (clear creek?) and stuff was getting dropped from the lift into it, so the forest service said Loveland couldn't run it anymore. Yet the MDP shows that chair 5 will be shortened in the future, so does this mean that the issue has been worked out?

This post has been edited by llamborghinii: 22 January 2015 - 02:15 PM

[RibStaThiok]

I am almost certain they run the lift every few months. I head up loveland pass several times a year and the chairs never appear to be in the same spots that I note from the previous time. Next time, I'll stop and record chair numbers so that I can confirm.

This post has been edited by RibStaThiok: 22 January 2015 - 04:07 PM

[snoloco]

One of mine is the Granite Peak Quad at Mountain Creek. Of their 4 peaks, Granite Peak is the only one with only a fixed grip lift. This lift is really an annoyance to ride when the connecting from North to South since the two lifts you ride before and after are both high speed. It is 3,900 feet long and stops constantly. Mountain Creek gets a lot of beginners from being close to NYC which cause the stops. Because of this, they cannot run at full design speed or it just stops even more. The chairs are extremely heavy and the lifties have a hard time holding them which causes a pretty rough load and even more misloads and stops. The chairs do not have any padding or footrests which means that when you sit on it for north of 10 minutes that your legs feel like they are going to fall off. I really wish that they'd get a loading carpet for this lift so it could run slightly faster with fewer stops.