21 replies to this topic

[jaytrem]

Skier, on Apr 6 2009, 03:54 PM, said:

There is now one at The Canyons. I've heard that they wanted to have the most six packs of any area in North America so they just made McConkey's a six pack in 1998. 2 other areas, Blue Mountain and Squaw Valley have since tied PCMR but none have 5.

Stratton also has 4 of em.

[floridaskier]

They don't advertise that fact at PCMR, so I'm guessing they built it so they could use the same kinds of spare parts as the other six packs, which has come in very handy for them over the years. When the other six packs all had their gearbox problems back around 2005 or so, each time one of the important lifts failed, they borrowed the parts out of McConkey's to get the other three back up and running and closed McConkey's until the new gearboxes came. My personal theory is that McConkey's was built as a six pack with a future Deer Valley interconnect in the back of their minds, since the traffic up there right now nowhere near justifies a six pack, or even a quad.

I wouldn't mind seeing King Con replaced with a six pack one of these days, there's plenty of slope capacity at PCMR and they could use the old lift to replace Motherlode, which is a nice but underutilized area because of the 13 minute lift ride. To see how much a high speed quad can spread out the crowds, look how Crescent really opened up the front side terrain this year, which nobody went to before. A Motherlode HSQ would take a lot of pressure off of Silverlode, which is the busiest lift by far right now. Just an idea