26 replies to this topic

[DonaldMReif]

http://www.fs.usda.g...prdb5333683.pdf

http://www.fs.usda.g...prdb5333697.pdf

This map illustrates what Keystone has proposed. Almost all of it sounds reasonably attractive:

1. Replacement of Argentine with a high speed quad turning near the top of Haywood to end at the top of Paymaster, with an additional trail to cut over to Mozart and Diamondback, allowing one-lift access from Mountain House to North Peak.

2. Upgrading Wayback to a high speed quad and increasing capacity on the Outback Express

3. Adding a high speed quad in Bergman Bowl and a triple in Erickson Bowl

4. A surface lift in the Outback to replace the snowcat shuttle

5. Cutting new trails between Wild Irishman and Paymaster.

I see the proposed Argentine replacement as benefiting since it would relieve traffic on the Peru Express and Montezuma Express lifts.

[boardski]

All that sounds really good. It would definately manage the masses a lot better than currently. The new terrain sounds good too. It has been quite awhile since Keystone added any new terrain. The Argentine HSQ sounds like a good place to start. Then, hopefully they'll start opening some of that new terran, maybe in Bergman bowl. After some of this is added, I will have to ski there again and check it out. Last time I skied Keystone was the season the Ruby HSS made its debut.

[DonaldMReif]

boardski, on 18 September 2012 - 07:02 PM, said:

All that sounds really good. It would definately manage the masses a lot better than currently. The new terrain sounds good too. It has been quite awhile since Keystone added any new terrain. The Argentine HSQ sounds like a good place to start. Then, hopefully they'll start opening some of that new terran, maybe in Bergman bowl. After some of this is added, I will have to ski there again and check it out. Last time I skied Keystone was the season the Ruby HSS made its debut.

I take Diamondback instead of Mozart to avoid the bottlenecks of Mozart where it merges with Prospector, the exit run from the North Peak blue runs. Of course, it would make more sense for the Argentine replacement to start at the bottom of existing Argentine, turn with a midway load at the bottom of the defunct St.'s John line, and run up St.'s John to the Summit House, allowing a one seat ride from Mountain House to Summit House, since the proposed alignment would mean that you would take either the Argentine Express or Peru Express, then ski down and take the Montezuma Express (or take a proposed learning lift that's probably a double or triple).

This post has been edited by DonaldMReif: 25 September 2012 - 02:19 PM

[2milehi]

It is pretty rare to see a full maze at the bottom of Peru. When it does happen Argentine is turning to help out with the crowds. Before River Run Village, Mountain House was where skiers started. Now the masses enter at River Run Village. I also agree with Argentine Express running the old Saint John's line but the demand isn't there.

To me the biggest bang for the buck is "Bergman Express" along with the surface lift at the top of Outback.

With the new Gondola Mid Station, I figure skier traffic would have lightened up at the bottom of 'Zuma but I haven't seen those dynamics since the install of the new Gondola.

And no plans with West Ridge....

This post has been edited by 2milehi: 19 September 2012 - 04:05 AM

[DonaldMReif]

2milehi, on 19 September 2012 - 04:03 AM, said:

It is pretty rare to see a full maze at the bottom of Peru. When it does happen Argentine is turning to help out with the crowds. Before River Run Village, Mountain House was where skiers started. Now the masses enter at River Run Village. I also agree with Argentine Express running the old Saint John's line but the demand isn't there.

To me the biggest bang for the buck is "Bergman Express" along with the surface lift at the top of Outback.

With the new Gondola Mid Station, I figure skier traffic would have lightened up at the bottom of 'Zuma but I haven't seen those dynamics since the install of the new Gondola.

And no plans with West Ridge....

I think part of the reason why the mid-station on the gondola doesn't appear to relieve traffic from the east queue to the Montezuma Express is for a simple reason: skiers would be taking their skis off after every lap.

Right now, I've always started from the Mountain House base because fewer people park there and it's a shorter walk than it is to go through River Run Village or heaven forbid cross that large free parking lot that's so big you can make out a good portion of it from the very top of Dercum Mountain.

Since this means the Peru Express doesn't get as much traffic, I wonder if demand for Mountain House base will have to rise before Keystone builds the Argentine Express. They might cut the trails between Wild Irishman and Paymaster earlier, although I figure that these new trails will primarily be lapped with the Montezuma Express.

[nathanvg]

I like a lot of things in this master plan but keystone is plagued by several bottlenecks, most of which are not addressed in this master plan. The biggest bottle neck is the Mozart run which is the only blue run to the backside and also the primary run to return to the lift from the North Peak runs. Likewise, the ruby lift is the only real way back at the end of the day. (The outpost gondola technically is an alternate but rarely used) The new windows lift will help a little but it seems what keystone really needs is alternate ways to get to and from the backside. I have many fond memories of skiing keystone in the 80’s but now rarely ski their due to massive crowding on the slopes.

There are some positives here too. The 4 upper mountain lifts on the backside all sound great to with runs for all skiing abilities.

[DonaldMReif]

nathanvg, on 23 September 2012 - 03:34 PM, said:

I like a lot of things in this master plan but keystone is plagued by several bottlenecks, most of which are not addressed in this master plan. The biggest bottle neck is the Mozart run which is the only blue run to the backside and also the primary run to return to the lift from the North Peak runs. Likewise, the ruby lift is the only real way back at the end of the day. (The outpost gondola technically is an alternate but rarely used) The new windows lift will help a little but it seems what keystone really needs is alternate ways to get to and from the backside. I have many fond memories of skiing keystone in the 80’s but now rarely ski their due to massive crowding on the slopes.

There are some positives here too. The 4 upper mountain lifts on the backside all sound great to with runs for all skiing abilities.

My sister hates Keystone for the bottleneck reason. She also broke her wrist on a Dercum Mountain run years ago.

They are upgrading Wayback to a high speed quad. That could benefit the traffic returning from the Outback, but might be more effective as a lift to lap runs on if a few more trails were cut in that area.

 Keystone - North Peak Backside and Outback with New Lifts.jpg (171.7K)
Number of downloads: 72
This image demonstrates that there is plenty of space around Wayback that a new run pod could be constructed without needing to build more lifts.


I'd say that if the Argentine Express goes in, it will still primarily be used for access skiing. It might also render the Peru Express lift redundant, and I doubt it would do much to relieve traffic at the Montezuma Express.

This post has been edited by DonaldMReif: 23 September 2012 - 07:33 PM

[trooper1556]

DonaldMReif, on 23 September 2012 - 07:13 PM, said:

there is plenty of space around Wayback that a new run pod could be constructed without needing to build more lifts.

There is a reason trails have never been and never will be built there - That is all south facing and is bare often

[DonaldMReif]

trooper1556, on 24 September 2012 - 09:11 AM, said:

There is a reason trails have never been and never will be built there - That is all south facing and is bare often

Well, it was just a thought. Forgot that for a moment. I was under the impression that chairlifts are most ideal if they serve the double purpose of lap lifts and also access lifts. I now remember that I've seen photos of barren areas under the lower Ruby Express lift.

That they're making use of that unused space between Wild Irishman and Paymaster will definitely be a good thing. Still, I think the things Keystone ought to do to make sure people flow properly throughout the mountain:

1. Consider constructing a relief lift from the bottom of the Mozart/Prospector runout to the top of Dercum Mountain and puts some relief on Ruby Express.

2. Find ways to move everyone off of Schoolmarm, especially at the end of the day.

3. Reopen Whistle Punk trail under the Peru Express.

4. There ought to be ideal facing slopes to cut trails in the space between Frenchman and Flying Dutchman. They might be short, and there could be some difficult with the Montezuma Express present, but it looks potential.

5. Not directly master plan related, but possibly reconfigure the Ruby Express line in a way that cuts down on stops and slows due to misloads.

[102Terry]

Don't ski on weekends and there is never a line at Ruby. I like the idea of an Argentine Express, but that will coincide with a new Mountain House Village. Probably gonna be waiting in line for that kind of capital money$$$

[DonaldMReif]

So far, whatever lift system Keystone thinks works best should do.

What I think makes Mozart get so crowded is the fact that when you are coming off the Summit Express or the Montezuma Express, Mozart is the first thing you see as it is directly in front of you. Diamondback, on the other hand, requires skating towards the Ruby Express unload, then scooting under the lift (not as easy to notice), then going down through the Ranger learning area.

[DonaldMReif]

Hate to be bumping this, but Keystone has, this season, carried out one of the easier steps of the master plan: add additional capacity on the Outback Express lift. This year, they added 24 extra chairs to the lift, taking seven chairs from the Peru Express lift and seventeen chairs from the Montezuma Express lift. The lift had 100 chairs up until this past year. As of this year the lift now has 124 chairs.

[2milehi]

DonaldMReif, on 08 January 2015 - 07:45 AM, said:

Hate to be bumping this, but Keystone has, this season, carried out one of the easier steps of the master plan: add additional capacity on the Outback Express lift. This year, they added 24 extra chairs to the lift, taking seven chairs from the Peru Express lift and seventeen chairs from the Montezuma Express lift. The lift had 100 chairs up until this past year. As of this year the lift now has 124 chairs.

How do you know this?

[DonaldMReif]

In 2013 it looked like the Peru Express and Montezuma Express lifts lost a few of the chairs. I recall only seeing 151 chairs on the Montezuma Express last year when it originally had 168 (with a noticeable gap of about 1.5 chair lengths between chair 151 and chair 1), and 135 chairs on the Peru Express when there were originally 142. It seemed odd that they would slightly decrease the uphill capacity of these two lifts.

Yesterday I was on the Outback Express lift, which for all this time had had 19 towers and 100 chairs, just like the Santiago Express and Ruby Express. But then I had a sneaking suspicion that something was different about the lift, like say, the chairs were a bit closer spaced, as in, like, the same spacing that the Dercum Mountain lifts use (I think as built the Outback Express lift was designed with a slightly lower than normal uphill capacity, given its location of approximately three to four miles from the base area). Here's some proof of that:


TThat is a chair 124 on the right:


I have no way of confirming that these additional 24 chairs came from the Peru Express and Montezuma Express, although the fact that the combined number of chairs taken off both lifts last year is equivalent to the number of additional chairs that the Outback Express seemed to have received (in addition to the upper terminal being repainted with dark green to match the bottom terminal). I think that the relative spacing difference can be seen here:

April 2013:


January 2015:


As for the master plan, it was on either the Part 5 PDF or Part 6 that it proposed adding additional uphill capacity to the Outback Express. It could be nothing, however, and I could just be imagining things, but I don't think so.

This post has been edited by DonaldMReif: 09 January 2015 - 10:50 AM

[2milehi]

I applaud you on your power of observation and deductive reasoning. You are correct about the chair removal from the front side and winding up on the Outback lift.

Here is a tidbit for you: Just because a lift is built to move 2800 PPH doesn't mean operationally that it can sustain those numbers. The best way to operationally increase capacity of a lift is to reduce/eliminate slows and stops.

[DonaldMReif]

Given that the Montezuma Express and Peru Express are in areas that get a lot of beginner traffic, I can see why the loss of designed uphill capacity from a slight reduction in their number of chairs would be offset by an increase in actual uphill capacity from a potential reduction in slows or stops caused by mis-loads/misunloads. On the other hand, I don't know if there are stats, but the Outback Express hits me as the kind of lift that in theory should have fewer stops for mis-loads/misunloads because it services no beginner terrain, cannot be accessed from any beginner terrain, and you have to take at least two or three other lifts to even get over to the Outback depending on which base area you start at.

As for the rest of the master plan, the two proposals I kind of more desire than others would be upgrading Wayback to a high speed quad, and the proposed high speed quad to be installed in Bergman Bowl (I keep imagining that this proposed Bergman Express would theoretically provide terrain similar to the terrain that the Kensho SuperChair across the way on Peak 6 services).

This post has been edited by DonaldMReif: 09 January 2015 - 11:29 AM

[Backbowlsbilly]

Lifts in the bowls at Keystone would be fantastic, can't wait until that day especially in Independence Bowl and the Windows Triple

[SkiDaBird]

Backbowlsbilly, on 09 January 2015 - 04:06 PM, said:

Lifts in the bowls at Keystone would be fantastic, can't wait until that day especially in Independence Bowl and the Windows Triple

I feel like Keystone wouldn't get the backlash from locals either the way Jackson must be this year or Snowbird did for Mineral. I still occasionally hear people complain about it and it's been 15 years.

[Backbowlsbilly]

SkiDaBird, on 10 January 2015 - 12:34 AM, said:

I feel like Keystone wouldn't get the backlash from locals either the way Jackson must be this year or Snowbird did for Mineral. I still occasionally hear people complain about it and it's been 15 years.

I would think that too, especially since Keystone would add a new area of hike to terrain/cat skiing following the lift expansion into the bowls also as part of the master plan. My ski team coaches complained about Imperial but not on the scale of Jackson and Snowbird locals.

[DonaldMReif]

A Bergman Express would redistribute the crowds out a bit more by moving some people away from the Outback Express and Santiago Express.

Although I think they might want to add extra capacity to the Ruby Express lift, or find a way to cut down on stops and slows caused by mis-loads (like remove the gates at the loading area and convert the lift to inline loading, like Breck did to the Independence SuperChair in 2008 and the Peak 8 SuperConnect in 2013). since that's going to be the sole way back to Dercum Mountain from North Peak, the Outback, the Outback Bowls, Bergman Bowl, Erickson Bowl and Independence Bowl.

This post has been edited by DonaldMReif: 10 January 2015 - 08:56 PM