Skilifts.org / SORT Forum

liftmech, on 22 April 2014 - 04:09 AM, said:

I am just saying that it has a much higher terminal speed than most detaches I have ridden.

Agreed. MHX needs to be a six pack.
I'd also like to see the Daisy chair replaced with a HSQ, and re-aligned with the base near the bottom of the carpet, up next to 5 bowl, crossing over Cascade Express, up through the canyon to the middle of Boulevard run.
This would:
1) service and increase lower intermediate terrain, including lower half of Boulevard, Dental Foss, SCUD, and Beaver Tail.
2) be below the tree line and still operate during storm cycles.
3) provide a more direct access to Cascade.
4) provide another lift out of the base area, and make it easier to move from the north side of the resort to the south side.

How wide would a twelve-pack chair be? You'd need very wide lift line right of ways, at least double or even triple that of a high speed six pack.

Phalanger, on 06 April 2014 - 01:27 AM, said:

Ridden Tommeuses many times, it was definitely needed. The original proposal was for a 8 person gondola to replace the twin double fixed chairs, but this was then changed to a 8 person chair. From what I can recall from the discussion on remontees mecaniques at the time, this was due to a proposal by Doppelmayr that the 8 person chair with the asymmetrical contour would be more efficient at loading than a gondola, and the main goal was to return guests to tignes as fast as possible at the end of the day. During the day the lift runs nowhere near capacity, but come 3:30-5pm there are very few gaps on the chair as its the only way back to get back to Tignes from that valley, unless you want to fight for a place on the ski bus. In the human cattle herd that is the 'queue', the angry russian oligarchs wives and the french make sure to push right into every available gate so empty seats are few and far between.

The vast majority of the stops were caused by people not clearing the unloading area and causing a pileup. For the flow of people at that hour from Tommeuses and the other 6 pack and gondola that share the same landing is quite compact.

The sheer amount of people that concentrate at that point at the end of the day is quite staggering due to the vastness of Espace Killy. Literally thousands of skiers descend on that one lift towards the end of the day. I think most north American resorts would struggle to meet the surge STGM experiences each day at that point.

Whistler could do with 8-pack replacements for Wizard and Solar. Those lifts can get very crowded from what I've seen.

The 8-pack in Australia is at Perisher resort and serves a low intermediate run. Despite that things run fairly smoothly and there isn't the carnage you would expect.

Snowy Ferries, on 31 March 2015 - 07:59 PM, said:

Yes we could.

I can see 8-Packs working great for areas that cover intermediate-expert terrain but defenitly not for beginners. People need to know how to read and comprehend the signs that explain/show how to load and unload.

Never understood the appeal of 8-pack chairs vs. gondolas, monocable gondolas have the same or higher capacity, are much more user friendly and can be used to transport foot passengers and cargo, even at maximum speed. The terminal and overall footprint is much smaller too, 8-10 passenger gondolas can be roughly the same width as a quad chairlift.

Also with such a wide carrier I could see wind being a huge problem.

The width of a gondola line is more like that of a high speed six pack than a quad.

Mike12164, on 18 August 2015 - 09:45 PM, said:

I would assume that it would relate to skier convenience, not having to remove skis every ride up, and weight on the line.

DonaldMReif, on 18 August 2015 - 09:50 PM, said:

Can be, but cabins are so much narrower that they can run on a quad line guage (and often do). I suspect you're referring to the big gondis at Vail.

I was thinking more about Red Pine Gondola, actually.