5 replies to this topic

[RibStaThiok]

Howdy folks-

Early this evening while watching the webcam at Steamboat that sits up at the top station of the Gondola looking down, I saw that they were parking Gondolas as there were none going downhill and eventually none coming up and according to the website info here, the 30 year old lady does have parking at the top. What was impressive to me was that they appeared to be running the lift at or near full line speed. Is this possible to do when parking chairs or cabins? Can the parking process occur that fast? Keep in mind this is on a 30 year old Gondola, and also the first 8 person Gondola in the world.. At least according to the info on this site. I don't know for sure if they park these cabins overnight everynight or if they will leave them staged on the line when there isn't any bad weather. 3 or 4 days of the week they do have dinner up at the top so it is normal to see them running until 10:30 or 11:00PM or so.

How does it work at your resorts? Do you park them at the end of every day or do you leave them on the line?


http://www.skilifts....ilverbullet.htm

[NHskier13]

That's an impressive lift.
I know some in my area, let's say Wildcat Express at the mountain with the same name, takes them off nightly and puts on different number of chairs on weekdays vs. weekends and low trails open / poor conditions vs. lots and good. Up here is the more extreme weather we face, can be lots of ice or snow overnight as well as a fair share of wind and whatnot. In the morning when they slip chairs on they take a bunch and run at what looks like max speed and stop to get another bunch. Based on observation. Not sure how taking them off the line goes, I'd imagine a similar process but obviously not putting chairs on, but taking em off

[snoloco]

Cloudsplitter Gondola at Whiteface (1999 Doppelmayr) has cabin parking at the bottom in a heated storage facility under the lodge. They take the cars off in high winds, heavy snow, extreme cold, or if the lift will be closed for a long period of time. When the cars are taken off, they run the lift in reverse at about 800 fpm. It runs forwards to put cars back on, at the same speed. System is rated for 1200 fpm, but I haven't seen it go over 1000 this year.

Northwoods Gondola at Gore (1999 Poma) has cabin parking at the top, but to my knowledge it is never used. The cars stay on the line overnight, even during snowmaking on the trail below. This sucks because if you get in a car that was encased in ice from the snowmaking, you can't see out at all.

[SuperRat]

At Loon the speed we take chairs or cabins off-line is determined by how many people we have to help push the carriers into the parking rails.

We take cabins off when we get freezing rain or rain that is going to be followed by cold temps.

Sometimes we take off our chairs for freezing rain.

In 1993 when I started working here the gondola was 5 years old. We took the cabins off every night winter and summer. That went on until sometime in the late 90s.

This post has been edited by SuperRat: 02 January 2017 - 11:18 AM

[_litz]

I remember as a kid watching the Lionshead Gondola at Vail send out the first carriers in the morning, and putting them to bed at night. They parked the entire fleet of carriers each night.

[snoloco]

How much extra does it cost the ski area to do the work necessary to take the chairs or gondola cabins off line at night? Some mountains take them off every night, as Killington and Stowe do. Others take them off sometimes like Whiteface, and others don't seem to ever do it like Tremblant and Gore. I ski Whiteface most often, and I wish they parked the gondola cabins inside every night. If you're there on a day when they brought them in the night before, the windows are completely clear of ice, as is the inside of the cabin. I like to see out of the gondola and not have the view blocked by ice or snow. It also makes the windows hard to open and close if ice and snow gets into the mechanisms. Whiteface has Gangloff cabins, and the majority of the windows on the front and back of the cabins won't stay open or won't stay closed. Snow can block the window from fully closing, and when that happens, people try to slam them shut and break the clips that hold them closed.