20 replies to this topic

[SkiBachelor]

Here are some pictures of the East Broadway Triple at Squaw Valley, CA after it was damaged in a high wind storm in 1995. Pictures are from SAM Magazine.

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[floridaskier]

Ouch
The third picture, is that from a separate storm?

[SkiBachelor]

No, it's from the same storm, but that's what happened at the return bullwheel from when the tree fell on the line.

[snowboardguy]

Now I know why the close lifts in High winds

[KZ]

Its like the Eskimo video, but in real life. Thats some crazy stuff, never heard about that, I wonder how they covered it up.

[SkiBachelor]

Well when this accident happened, the wind was blowing at 152 mph at the top of the mountain but where East Broadway is located, it was blowing 68 mph.

[floridaskier]

Thats crazy. Was it during the ski season? How did they manage to keep us from hearing about it?

[SkiBachelor]

Well the 1995-1996 season wasn't a great one and winter came late, but when it did, it produced all this damage you see above. I don't think Squaw was open yet do to lack of snow and the lift was fixed when it did open during the Christmas/Winter Break period.

[floridaskier]

Any ideas on how long it took them to fix it up? One destroyed tower, and two damaged ones

[SkiBachelor]

It actually only took 13 days to get the lift operational again. But there was more work than just replacing a tower. A section of the haul rope was badly damaged, so it had to be replaced with a new section of haul rope that was 125 feet long. The returnbullwheel was also damaged, so a new bullwheel was needed and don't forget about the 40 or so damaged carriers.

[floridaskier]

Thats pretty good, work hard for 2 weeks to fix a badly damaged lift and keep it all quiet. I forgot about all the chairs

[KZ]

Im sure they used chairs from one of the lifts they had take out, or they probably had so me others laying around the mountain. I think its kind of wierd that it was only East Broadway was damaged. They probably had the chairs off of Siberia and KT-22, but what about Emigrant, Headwall and C2?. I wouldnt be suprised if a tower or 2 on Emigrant was badly damaged because on the lift there seem to be several towers with they "Y" yan towerheads, while others do not. I just wonder if more happened, but i guess not.

[Kelly]

Thoughts on some of the posts from above -
There is no grand conspiracy theory to hide information as was published in the article from SAM that had pictures SkiBachelor has gratefully downloaded for the site.
The fact that Mr. King wrote the article is a pretty good indicator that there is nothing to hide.
The pictures indicate that the tree falling on the lift did the damage, not the wind. Other lifts might have been effected but not to the extent that a 6' diameter or larger tree would have made falling on them. In fact the other lifts mentioned (in the above posts) have very few large trees if any in high wind areas.
What the article and pictures imply is that extreme weather events do happen and ski areas routinely deal with them in the course of operation.

Ryan B

[Allan]

Yes, we had almost the exact same thing on the Granite chair happen... there were no efforts to keep it quiet, however we didn't take a bullhorn downtown and yell it out :) Our tree didn't wreck the bullwheel, but it did damage the gearbox and BW bolts & stuff like that.

[liftmech]

KZ, on Aug 15 2004, 09:57 AM, said:

I wouldnt be suprised if a tower or 2 on Emigrant was badly damaged because on the lift there seem to be several towers with they "Y" yan towerheads, while others do not. <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's not necessarily the case as Yan sold just the lifting frame as an aftermarket upgrade. Copper did that on E lift when Yan upgraded the older Heron.

[floridaskier]

Did the Y-shaped lifting frame become standard in the mid 80s? Seems like only older lifts have plain crossarms

[liftmech]

Yup- most companies started adding lifting frames around the same time, in the early-to-mid 80s. You could get them before, but they were usually placed only on towers which would be difficult to get a portable A-frame to. Old chair 5 at Crystal had four or five of them, all on remote towers.

[floridaskier]

Could you get a lift from dopp/CTEC or Poma now without lifting frames?

DV's Snowflake double doesn't have lifting frames, instead it has steel I-beams for crossarms. Maybe it's so that it matches with the older Yan next to it

[Allan]

I think lifting frames are required now, as are some sort of catwalk I believe!

[liftmech]

Could be, although I think only the catwalks would be required as they are now considered a safety issue. As far as Snowflake goes, I believe that's a CTEC package deal where you got a drive/tension terminal, three towers, thirty chairs, and a fixed return for a bargain price. The lift was featured in the old CTEC catalogue and marketed as a no-brainer beginner installation- all you needed was a place to put it.