Lake Louise Closes for the Day - Dec 2
teachme
02 Dec 2017
Was skiing Louise today and at 9:45 all lifts stopped. After a half hour of waiting the resort told everyone to go home as they were closing for the day due to power issue. Used back-up to empty lift. Seems they were able to re-open one lift in the afternoon for the world cup race.
Heard a few conflicting reports. From staff and radios I overheard it seemed a junction box or such caught fire, cutting all power to the resort. CBC News said it was a tree falling on the power lines. Base lodge never lost power though.
Whatever the reason I am quite unhappy that they do not have 100% diesel back-up when the power is out on at least some key lifts. Lets be honest, trees do fall on ski resort power lines more than rarely. Was at Big White 20 years ago when a car accident downed a power pole. At least some of the lifts were able to run full speed on back-up. I also understand Sunshine has 100% diesel back-up on at least the gondola.
Actually getting more and more frustrated with Lake Louise. With the world cup races there the past two weekends, and prep for the races they have put in very little effort to groom and open runs for the public who pay for lift tickets and passes. I certainly will not buy our family seasons pass there next year....
Tried to some give info above for the forum, but sorry for the bit of a rant. Driving 4 hours round trip with my two little boys to such a poorly managed resort is more than frustrating.
TME
Edit to add they did finish the women's downhill, it seems by taking the racers up on a sled on the back of a cat - good to them for that. Also to add, this is not the only power issue at Louise so they should have learnt lessons by now. This past summer there was a problem one day I went up to go hiking, and I understand there was a power issue last year with the Larch chair, though do not know any details.
This post has been edited by teachme: 02 December 2017 - 09:02 PM
Heard a few conflicting reports. From staff and radios I overheard it seemed a junction box or such caught fire, cutting all power to the resort. CBC News said it was a tree falling on the power lines. Base lodge never lost power though.
Whatever the reason I am quite unhappy that they do not have 100% diesel back-up when the power is out on at least some key lifts. Lets be honest, trees do fall on ski resort power lines more than rarely. Was at Big White 20 years ago when a car accident downed a power pole. At least some of the lifts were able to run full speed on back-up. I also understand Sunshine has 100% diesel back-up on at least the gondola.
Actually getting more and more frustrated with Lake Louise. With the world cup races there the past two weekends, and prep for the races they have put in very little effort to groom and open runs for the public who pay for lift tickets and passes. I certainly will not buy our family seasons pass there next year....
Tried to some give info above for the forum, but sorry for the bit of a rant. Driving 4 hours round trip with my two little boys to such a poorly managed resort is more than frustrating.
TME
Edit to add they did finish the women's downhill, it seems by taking the racers up on a sled on the back of a cat - good to them for that. Also to add, this is not the only power issue at Louise so they should have learnt lessons by now. This past summer there was a problem one day I went up to go hiking, and I understand there was a power issue last year with the Larch chair, though do not know any details.
This post has been edited by teachme: 02 December 2017 - 09:02 PM
comeagain?
02 Dec 2017
How common is it for a resort to be able to run (any) lift full speed on a backup power, to continue operations? It seems like that would prohibitively expensive.
teachme
03 Dec 2017
Good question 'comeagain?', and one I would be interested to know from the community. I do know some lifts and even resorts run only on diesel (Baker?).
Also, cost of it needs to be compared to lost revenue. Assuming 3000 people on mountain yesterday at $50 average per ticket, that is $150 000 in lost revenue on tickets only. I suspect also they will offer us some small compensation also, say $50 a ticket. Total cost is thus $300 000. While perhaps covered by insurance so not a true cost to them, that would have gone a long way to having installed full back-up on at least the gondola.
TME
Also, cost of it needs to be compared to lost revenue. Assuming 3000 people on mountain yesterday at $50 average per ticket, that is $150 000 in lost revenue on tickets only. I suspect also they will offer us some small compensation also, say $50 a ticket. Total cost is thus $300 000. While perhaps covered by insurance so not a true cost to them, that would have gone a long way to having installed full back-up on at least the gondola.
TME
vons
03 Dec 2017
Most Standby drives can run a lift for a day so as long as there is fuel and enough battery power to run the control circuit some lifts have a way to power the control batteries from the aux alternator or a pto in the case of a detachable return terminal. Most standby drives only have 80% capacity as they will run the lift slightly slower. the resort I worked for had Standby drives on all detachable lifts and a few key fixed grip lifts.
Haven't looked at the Canadian code but they may also be required to have a third evacuation only drive if they wish to operate on a IC standby without electrical power
Having experienced a mountain wide power failure it is the loss power to other resort infrastructure that puts the kibosh on the resort running. Opening up a 1 or 2 lifts for WC is just face saving and possible simply because it is a small group of pros using them
Haven't looked at the Canadian code but they may also be required to have a third evacuation only drive if they wish to operate on a IC standby without electrical power
Having experienced a mountain wide power failure it is the loss power to other resort infrastructure that puts the kibosh on the resort running. Opening up a 1 or 2 lifts for WC is just face saving and possible simply because it is a small group of pros using them
Allan
03 Dec 2017
Canadian code does require an evacuation drive as well.
We don't have any full time auxiliary drives, but power outages are rare around these parts - I actually haven't done a full mountain outage evac in years. I better find some wood to knock on!!
We don't have any full time auxiliary drives, but power outages are rare around these parts - I actually haven't done a full mountain outage evac in years. I better find some wood to knock on!!
teachme
03 Dec 2017
Thanks Vons and Allen. Considering the base lodge still had power (as did the Magic carpet!), so services would not be a reason to close, and that once the lifts were started to do the evac after about 30 minutes they only ran at about 15% normal speed, my assumption would be that there was no auxiliary on any of the lifts, only the emergency evac drive.
Aussierob
03 Dec 2017
I think there are rules about storing diesel in the park at the lift for an Auxiliary drive. Most European lifts don't have an auxiliary drive for that reason.
Conrad
08 Dec 2017
I was at Sugarloaf a day they lost power a few years ago. Most of the lifts shut down, but they operated Skyline and SuperQuad on auxiliary. SuperQuad was probably 80% speed. For Skyline they couldn't operate the carpet, so the speed was likely the fastest allowable without the carpet.
