5 replies to this topic

[Peter]

Lift woes halt Red Lodge skiing

Quote

After delaying its winter opening by one week because of warm weather, Red Lodge Mountain had to shut down Saturday after just a few hours of operation.

Electrical problems with the chair lifts forced the ski area to close “until further notice,” officials said.

“We've had to temporarily shut down,” spokesman Kevin Aukema said Monday. “We had problems with the lifts after opening Saturday morning.


The ski area had a big crowd Saturday, including the Cody High School ski team, and both parking lots were nearly full.

After the electrical problems occurred some skiers had to be evacuated by the ski patrol from the chair lifts by the rope and sling method.

Temperatures were about zero with a breeze blowing.

The crowd remained upbeat with many people jammed into the base lodge and bar next door. A special party for season pass holders scheduled for the midway lodge was cancelled.

“We are working to get the lifts back up and running,” Aukema added. “It's a disappointing start to the new year.”

The resort was purchased in October by JMA Investments of San Francisco. The company is planning major improvements, including more snow making equipment, but the lift problems were unexpected.

“The lifts had undergone inspection and were operating fine at the start of the day,” Aukema said. “Then the problems hit.

“It kind of snowballed after that,” he added. “Everything seemed good and was in order to start.”

One lift, Willow Creek, was still operational.

“But we didn't think one lift was enough to stay open,” Aukema said. “We want everything to be right.”

The new owners were in Red Lodge for opening day.

A special crew has arrived to repair the lifts.

“Right now we are trying to keep our spirits high,” Aukema said. “We had a good crowd for opening day and hope to repeat that once we open again.

“There isn't a timetable for re-opening,” he added. “It could be as soon as Tuesday, but we don't know.”

This seems odd to me...

[tahoeistruckin]

electrical problems?? A 'brown out'? OR a surge of pwer the transformers couldn't handle? Does seem strange. Even more so to shut down the entire resort. One lift is better than no lifts.

[RibStaThiok]

tahoeistruckin, on Dec 3 2007, 10:23 PM, said:

electrical problems?? A 'brown out'? OR a surge of pwer the transformers couldn't handle? Does seem strange. Even more so to shut down the entire resort. One lift is better than no lifts.

Willow Creek is an old 68 Riblet double, it could in no way handle the capacity if they were as full as they stated they were. Definitly find it interesting and wonder how it could be lift related, sounds like a bad transformer somewhere. Really a shame, its not a bad small resort to ski..

http://www.skilifts....mt-redlodge.htm

This post has been edited by RibStaThio: 03 December 2007 - 09:36 PM

[shoemaniii]

wow, that was spun pretty well, give that kevin guy a raise.
-- it's always "electrical"
-- "the crowd remained upbeat"
-- "temp was about zero w/a breeze blowing" uh, ok.
-- it's not our fault, the lifts were inspected

bobp

[Emax]

shoemaniii, on Dec 4 2007, 05:07 AM, said:

wow, that was spun pretty well, give that kevin guy a raise.
-- it's always "electrical"
-- "the crowd remained upbeat"
-- "temp was about zero w/a breeze blowing" uh, ok.
-- it's not our fault, the lifts were inspected

bobp

Yeah, yeah... yeah - blame the electrons. They only do what they're told.

[Phoenix]

tahoeistruckin, on Dec 3 2007, 09:23 PM, said:

electrical problems?? A 'brown out'? OR a surge of pwer the transformers couldn't handle? Does seem strange. Even more so to shut down the entire resort. One lift is better than no lifts.

I checked out the trail map at Red Lodge and this lift is up the mountain from the base. Odd how that lift could be working but the one's below it were not operational.

This post has been edited by Phoenix: 04 December 2007 - 03:58 PM