24 replies to this topic

[DonaldMReif]

What are the highest wind speeds which a chairlift can operate at normal speed in? And what are the highest wind speeds a chairlift is designed to endure?

I don't know the answers to these questions, but I'm basing them on my experiences from Breckenridge, as Breckenridge is pretty notorious for strong winds, especially on the above-timberline chairlifts (Imperial, Lift 6, the T-Bar, and the Kensho SuperChair). I do know that the highest wind tolerance for any chairlift is dependent on design and location, but I would like some more specifics.

[teachme]

You know 100x what I ever will about lifts, but one thing to consider may be sustained vs. gusts?

[Allan]

Straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

Attached File(s)

•  Winds.pdf (156.67K)
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[Yooper Skier]

Running a chondola on the notoriously windy East Coast is always an interesting experience. Typically, it will go on wind hold for gondola cabin swing (usually 45 degrees to the line with sustained over 30 and gusty in my experience). Recently, wind was blowing mid-twenties+, directly down the line (unusual), and affecting loaded chairs: the gondolas were surprisingly showing little to no wind interference, while the six-packs that were fully loaded were borderline runnable. Slowing the lift speed can mitigate chair swing and allow for continued operation to an extent. It all depends on the carrier weight, wind direction, sustained wind speed, and always throwing into account the rogue gusts that come out of nowhere. When in doubt, throw last chair...better to be safe than sorry, no matter what management says!

[Peter]

At Jackson Hole we have a 1-4 wind level scale for each lift.
For example Marmot chair's levels are as follows:
Level 1: Winds average 20 mph
Level 2: Wind gusts 30-40 mph. Monitor chair swing and be ready to slow or stop lift. Load each chair to its designed capacity - no singles.
Level 3: 4 gusts to 45 mph within 15 minutes. Stop loading and run people off at appropriate speed.
Level 4: Gusts 45-50+ or steady high winds. Stop lift and stop loading. If possible, run people off at slow speed. Be prepared to stop lift again and wait until winds subside to run people off.
These are just guidelines and do not take into account wind direction.

Each lift is different. The new Casper lift has auto-slow and auto-stop features that can be set to specific windspeeds. For example, yesterday auto slow was set to 40 mph and auto stop was at 50 mph. The Tram has clinometers in each car that measure swing. It automatically stops if either car swings more than 9 degrees laterally.

[Kicking Horse]

Village Express auto slow at 40mph and auto shutdown and lockout at 60mph.

I have ran the VX at 59mph crosswind to the line. Lift speed avg 200fpm but it was running.

[aug]

Considering the forces of wind over 40 mph...40 mph is when the hard decisions become pretty easy.. anything over 40mph... I shut the lift down regardless of wind direction or what management says.

[Skiing#1]

Read and videos....

http://www.skilifts....ng&fromsearch=1

[SkiDaBird]

I'm no expert, but doesn't a lot of it have to do with the lift design? Little Cloud is notoriously bad for wind, nicknamed Little Windy sometimes. However, the chairs have a weird back, but I'm guessing it is designed for high wind as I haven't seen it on any lift outside of Snowbird (G2 has it as well). Also, even though it is a quad, it has 6-pack width towers. I have been caught on that thing in what I would guess to be around 50mph winds and they were running normally.

[floridaskier]

SkiDaBird, on 21 January 2014 - 11:11 PM, said:

I'm no expert, but doesn't a lot of it have to do with the lift design? Little Cloud is notoriously bad for wind, nicknamed Little Windy sometimes. However, the chairs have a weird back, but I'm guessing it is designed for high wind as I haven't seen it on any lift outside of Snowbird (G2 has it as well). Also, even though it is a quad, it has 6-pack width towers. I have been caught on that thing in what I would guess to be around 50mph winds and they were running normally.

Mountaineer at Deer Valley, built the same year as Little Cloud, has the slat backrests too, probably also for wind issues at the top (certainly not for comfort). The old fixed quad there was one of the first to shut down in high winds.

[DonaldMReif]

If lift design has something to do with it, that might explain why Breckenridge had the Kensho SuperChair built as a high speed six pack - six pack chairs are heavier than quad chairs and hence it takes more work to get them to swing out of alignment. In the past weekend, I was on the lift at times when the wind was around 40 mph and it was still running normally.

[SkiDaBird]

floridaskier, on 22 January 2014 - 07:53 AM, said:

Mountaineer at Deer Valley, built the same year as Little Cloud, has the slat backrests too, probably also for wind issues at the top (certainly not for comfort). The old fixed quad there was one of the first to shut down in high winds.

I hate those things. Hope it isn't standard now. Does Mountaineer have normal width towers or does it have the wider 6 pack towers? Deer Valley is a little outside my price range...

[floridaskier]

SkiDaBird, on 22 January 2014 - 04:43 PM, said:

I hate those things. Hope it isn't standard now. Does Mountaineer have normal width towers or does it have the wider 6 pack towers? Deer Valley is a little outside my price range...

Regular width towers there, and they reused the old tubes. They shortened the second to last tower quite a bit from the old lift and made it a 4-4 compression assembly.

[JoseP]

Allan, on 15 January 2014 - 10:10 AM, said:

Straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

Hi Allan, I found this very useful, but I'm looking for Doppelmayr 4-CLF, (fixed chairlift). In case you have it available could you upload it? Or could you paste a link where it's available to download? Thank you in advance.

[chuckm]

Remember that every thing having to do with speed goes up in squares- wind or line speed. many things can be done in design if wind is a major factor. these include tower loading, carrier weight and design, lift height and exposure, guidage and capture at the terminals extra width on x-arms, brittle bar deropement system backing up prox's and of course lots of evacuation training. generally I have found that bad things begin to happen between 45-50 mph- after 50 you are taking big chances and generally at this point you will not have a lot of questioning for the decision to cease operation. Many installations can have localized conditions that can cause seemingly light winds to set up major problems- Dr.Oplatka did a study on a lift that actually had the rope part due to a chair repeatedly spinning over the rope caused by an eddy around a lift building.
It used to be that high wind areas and above timberline would be serviced by surface lifts- I have really ridden one in a measured 70mph wind with gusts above that- and then wondered how we were going to get down in the white out. You could spend a lot of money on special design measures to gain several mph on the safe limit only to find a situation that no one had ever thought of( and it will be occurring at a terrible time as well) When you reach that 45-50 range you need to consider WHY take the risk. The guests will get on a running lift if it were carrying them directly into a raging inferno- we need to make the call using not just the anemometer, but experience and direct observation.

[snoloco]

The lift that goes on wind hold easiest that I know of is the Cabriolet at Mountain Creek. It has the Gangloff triangular shaped cabriolets which are light compared to an enclosed gondola, and they are very boxy, so they act like kites in a headwind or crosswind. I heard that it has a max wind speed of only like 20 mph and I have seen it closed for wind when it is almost dead calm at the base. They actually kept the painfully long and slow triple chair from the Vernon Valley Great Gorge days for almost the sole purpose of being a backup if The Cabriolet is on wind hold. That triple chair is a s@$% show when it is the sole lift running on that peak as it is hard to load and Mountain Creek gets a lot of beginners. This is only worsened that the peak it is on is the only one with a green from the top.

[Lifty541]

Like everyone is saying, I think it depends a lot on design and wind direction. I've been at the top of a FG quad during sustained 35 to 45 MPH (and I think the wind meter may have been a bit conservative that day) with some gusts up to 58 or so, but because the wind was nearly horizontal to the line, there wasn't a lot of wild chair swing going on, considering... Maybe only 5 degrees from plumb, a little more during one of the bigger gusts (which I slowed for). The gusts were strong enough to blow the stopgate open (this happened 3x during my shift), and the censor got rimed up enough to trip the gate once (annoying!), but we kept running. I think we were edging towards wind standby that day, but it was really marginal... Wind was really only that strong for the last two towers and return terminal. Plus, it being FG, line speed is significantly slower. So I think it depends a lot on the lift.

[Allan]

JoseP, on 31 October 2014 - 08:06 AM, said:

Hi Allan, I found this very useful, but I'm looking for Doppelmayr 4-CLF, (fixed chairlift). In case you have it available could you upload it? Or could you paste a link where it's available to download? Thank you in advance.

The second page of that document is from a 4-CLF manual.

[NHskier13]

Sunday River Chondola During 50+ mph winds :
(Video credits : abl3956)
https://www.youtube....h?v=mkVD3h1B4ok

I actually went to Wildcat one day, in which winds were reaching speeds of up to 200 mph. (Mount Washington area is notorious for record setting weather and wind speeds)
The Wildcat Express, and Bobcat were both fine. Bobcat is mostly tucked away, but the Wildcat Express was taking 200 mph winds directly on the line, not to the side. So basically I was getting blasted in the face with wind and don't get me started on unloading... (I almost went back into the next chair coming by :P)
As for Tomcat, that was shut down (emergency traffic lift pretty much nowadays) and Snowcat I have no clue about that one.

(EDITED) And yes, there already appears to be some disbelief, just let me say that I didn't read a measuring, and I highly doubt it was 200 mph but it was pretty damn high, likely to be less than 100. Ski patrol guy on the Express told me 200, but I find that hard to believe.

This post has been edited by NHskier13: 15 January 2015 - 05:06 PM

[DonaldMReif]

I imagine the wind chill readings were through the roof.