Skilifts.org / SORT Forum

sseguin613, on May 6 2008, 09:34 PM, said:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=MP1aDQVqoiY

Personally, I found that the consistency of the carpet changed as the temp and wind did. One load you would slide smoothly to a stop, and the next time you took a lap, the carpet would be much more "grippy" and you would stop faster. It might not always be this way though.

Both of ours acted jst like you describe.

Okemo says they are adding both a loading carpet and an unloading carpet to the South Ridge Quad. Has anyone ever seen or heard of an unloading carpet?

I wonder why you would need an unloading carpet unless there is no hill getting off the chair.

I found two pictures from doppelmayr yearbook 2008 that they have unloading carpet.

4-CLF Biela Púť
Jasná Nízke Tatry, a.s.
Demänovká Dolina, Slovakia

 carpet1.JPG (16.01K)
Number of downloads: 53

8-CLD Neugarten
Gerlitzen-Kanzelbahn-Touristik
GmbH & Co KG
Sattendorf, Austria

 carpet.JPG (41.81K)
Number of downloads: 63

They look like loading carpets in the picture!

I skied Crystal when they had theirs, it was turned off, which mad it more difficult to load. It must have broke during the day, it wasn't covered with snow for some reason.

You remember which lift?

liftmech, on Aug 24 2008, 07:16 PM, said:

It was shortly after the new FGQ was installed out of the base area, I don't recall the name then, it's now Chinook Express.

Midway Shuttle?

I was hiking around Okemo Yesterday and they have the top return all dug up on the B Quad getting ready to put in the carpet. They also have the drive deck marked up with lines where the loading carpet will be. I will see if I can snag a friends camera next time I head up there... or maybe a friend.

Look at the picture...

Mt. Buller Resort, Australia has loading carpet...

video:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6...vt=lf&hl=en

It looks like the loading carpet allows a detachable lift to run faster in the terminal, or maybe the video's just sped up.

Also it looks like snowboarders have to take their boards off and walk onto it?

No, snowboarders can generally ride onto them the same as skiers. In theory each person should get the tip of their equipment on the conveyor at the same time and then it pulls out all out evenly. It doesn't work quite the same in practice, and because the carpets are designed to have a certain amount of grip to pull you out, they are harder to slide around on to even out than plain old snow.

Having skied in Europe quite a bit, I'm pretty familiar with loading carpets. On most detachable lifts and as seen in the video, the carpet takes skier to the “loading line” where the skiers stop and await the lift. In this case it doesn’t matter if everyone gets on the carpet at the same time since all passengers meet up at the “loading line.” Since all the riders are back on snow at the loading line, the loading is just like any other lift. Snowboarders do not have to remove their board. I guess the idea is that the carpet helps anyone who might be slow at getting to the loading line without a carpet.

In fixed grip installations, the loading carpet works a bit differently. The riders are still on the moving carpet when they load the lift. This sounds quite crazy but actually works pretty well. I never saw or experienced any loading problems due to uneven loading or due to the carpets having too much grip. Although some will note that carpets on FG lifts are to make a more comfortable loading or allow faster line speeds, in practice carpets seemed to be used to avoid the need to bump chairs. In fact I never rode a FG lift in Europe that was bumped. They either run FG lifts at slower speeds (around 300 fpm) or use a carpet. I found this to be true in Switzerland, Austria, Sweden and Norway.

Skier, on Sep 16 2008, 09:56 PM, said:

me, too when I first saw the video and noticed two snowboarders carried their boards and walked to the loading area. It made me wonder why.

I saw the other video about at the top of the lift, one snowboarder (female) removed her board while rode the lift, got off, walked, and carried the board. I will find the video to post later.

I just found one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OwniRRKtrY...feature=related
This post has been edited by Skiing#1: 17 September 2008 - 05:45 PM

No doubt there is a big cost savings in installing a carpet, as opposed to installing a detach. Couldn't you also speed the lift up having installed the carpet?

I recognize there is the problem of high-speed chairs flying around the bullwheel--but I think there must be able to squeeze out a little more speed if the grips are designed right. . .

Insight by industry experts?

The fastest I have seen a chairlift with a loading carpet operate is 2,7 m/s, which is not much faster than standard speed for a fixed grip. It is not possible to run a fixed grip lift at 5 m/s for the exact reason that you said; chairs flying around the bullwheel, and also the problem of unloading.