105 replies to this topic

[Aussierob]

I'll chime in with my 2c worth about the P2P. If you're thinking that it's a waste of money as a ski lift you are missing the whole point of it's reason for being built. It is useful to get between the mountains. I use it for that quite frequently and it probably adds 5-10 minutes to my travel time to Blackcomb. The advantage is that I can park undercover at Creekside and not have to deal with the mud in the day lots. I also find Dusty's is a nice temptation on the way home One reason not yet mentioned for travelling between the mountains is skiing different aspects during the day to catch either the sun or snow. Many locals who are really familiar with snow deposition will ski different mountains at different times of the day depending on snow and weather.
The main reason the lift was built was as a 3 season attraction to drive business when there is no snow. We have lots of hiking and other attractions and this was built to be a destination experience in itself. In that role it has exceeded our expectations. If WB was only about skiing then I would agree you would get better bang for your buck building detachables.

[NoPainNoJane]

DonaldMReif, on 26 May 2014 - 08:03 PM, said:

And Eagle Wind at Winter Park used to be Outrigger, but was essentially useless as a backup for the Eskimo Express because even though it started at Snoasis, it ended closer to the top of the Olympia Express and also bypassed Sunspot, so you only could reach the High Lonesome Express and Pioneer Express by using Outrigger.

You should consider the past, Outrigger served as a great secondary lift when Eskimo was originally a double chair then a triple chair before becoming a high speed quad. Even back in the 90's lift lines were not unheard of on weekends for all three lifts that funneled down to Snoasis. I'm ever grateful for the reuse of this chair though for Eagle Wind, I had some great mid-week powder days there this past season.

[DonaldMReif]

The thing is that Outrigger didn't service Sunspot (the lift line was on the opposite side from the side where the Sunspot lifts offload) and I think, like with what happened to Devil's Fiddle at Killington, more people went to the Eskimo Express lift to access these trails once that lift was built. Do go to skimap.org and look at the Winter Park trail maps from Outrigger's last two years of operation. They indicate that the lift services green and blue terrain only, while the Eskimo Express gets rated as servicing green, blue, blue-black and black runs on the same map.

[boardski]

Outrigger lift was more of an "overflow lift" to handle weekend and holiday crowds when Eskimo and Apollo chairs were both double chairs. Even when Eskimo was triple, Outrigger was still useful on the weekends. It would have been nice if the Lariat rope tow was in place back in those days but plenty of people would simply walk up that hill to get to Sunspot or to the black runs. It was kind of funny that Outrigger trail could not be accessed by Outrigger lift. Winter Park's biggest waste was the Village cabriolet. The station next to the Vintage hotel is in the right place but the other station should be between Arrow and Gemini lift bottom terminals. It is irritating to have to deal with all the steps and slippery walkways in their stupid village. I'd rather just walk across the parking lot like in the old days which was probably a shorter and more direct walk. I would have rather had a new high-speed Sunnyside lift or another high speed lift out of Winter park base, or how about reinstalling that Timberline lift in the Cirque or something, anything more useful and enjoyable for the guests.

This post has been edited by boardski: 28 May 2014 - 06:36 PM

[Backbowlsbilly]

The cabriolet seems like less of a mountain addition then it is a real estate addition because after you take it, you have to walk through the Village and past all of the shops and through all of their real estate. If they built it to that location between Arrow and Gemini, nobody would walk through the village because they could just take the lift instead. Intrawest tends to build their mountains around cabriolets or with some cabriolet element in them (Winter Park, Tremblant, Panorama Mountain Village) and it technically makes them able to say that they have a gondola.

[snoloco]

One of Intrawest's former resorts which was Mountain Creek has a cabriolet going to the top of the mountain. They advertised it as the only gondola in NJ for quite a while even though the Skyway at Six Flags Great Adventure is a gondola. At first I questioned the installation since it requires you to remove skis and stand for the entire trip. However, when they did away with the Park Pass at South (which is all terrain parks), that lift kept slowing and stopping every single ride and then I realized just how great the Cabriolet Gondola is on Vernon Peak. It almost never stops. Had they built that thing as a 6-pack, it would stop more than it ran, or it would need to be turned down to like 600 fpm because no one would be able to load it without falling. Half the time I look at the Sugar Quad from The Cabriolet, it is stopped, and it only runs at 350 fpm at full speed. Mountain Creek gets a ton of beginners, so their lifts either run slow, or stop all the time. The Granite Peak Quad is rated for 2.4 m/s which is about 475 fpm. It is usually run at 450 fpm, especially on the weekends. On a few busy days I have seen it run full speed, once it stopped 4 times on the way up.

[snoloco]

In upstate NY, there are two big mountains that are both run by the state under ORDA. They are Whiteface and Gore. They both built gondolas in summer/fall of 1999. Whiteface's Gondola is a Doppelmayr with Gangloff cabins and Gore's is a Poma with CWA cabins. They were built by the same state agency in the same year and they are completely different lift and cabin manufacturers. Wouldn't it be cheaper to get a package deal from one company for the lifts and another for the cabins?

[Peter]

snoloco, on 17 November 2014 - 04:39 PM, said:

In upstate NY, there are two big mountains that are both run by the state under ORDA. They are Whiteface and Gore. They both built gondolas in summer/fall of 1999. Whiteface's Gondola is a Doppelmayr with Gangloff cabins and Gore's is a Poma with CWA cabins. They were built by the same state agency in the same year and they are completely different lift and cabin manufacturers. Wouldn't it be cheaper to get a package deal from one company for the lifts and another for the cabins?

It doesn't seem to work like that even in the private sector. This summer Vail Resorts bought from Doppelmayr and L-P as they do most years. Vail does have exclusive agreements with suppliers...just not lift suppliers. The Park City paper just had an article about PCMR dropping their longtime local coffee supplier in favor of Starbucks...the official coffee of Vail Resorts. They also are dropping Coke products because of an exclusive agreement with Pepsi.

[DonaldMReif]

Backbowlsbilly, on 28 May 2014 - 07:37 PM, said:

The cabriolet seems like less of a mountain addition then it is a real estate addition because after you take it, you have to walk through the Village and past all of the shops and through all of their real estate. If they built it to that location between Arrow and Gemini, nobody would walk through the village because they could just take the lift instead. Intrawest tends to build their mountains around cabriolets or with some cabriolet element in them (Winter Park, Tremblant, Panorama Mountain Village) and it technically makes them able to say that they have a gondola.

Steamboat sounds like the one exception, since they have a regular gondola, albeit the gondola has been around since 1986, a full 20 years before Intrawest showed up. They also have that pulse gondola.

snoloco, on 29 May 2014 - 11:50 AM, said:

One of Intrawest's former resorts which was Mountain Creek has a cabriolet going to the top of the mountain. They advertised it as the only gondola in NJ for quite a while even though the Skyway at Six Flags Great Adventure is a gondola. At first I questioned the installation since it requires you to remove skis and stand for the entire trip. However, when they did away with the Park Pass at South (which is all terrain parks), that lift kept slowing and stopping every single ride and then I realized just how great the Cabriolet Gondola is on Vernon Peak. It almost never stops. Had they built that thing as a 6-pack, it would stop more than it ran, or it would need to be turned down to like 600 fpm because no one would be able to load it without falling. Half the time I look at the Sugar Quad from The Cabriolet, it is stopped, and it only runs at 350 fpm at full speed. Mountain Creek gets a ton of beginners, so their lifts either run slow, or stop all the time. The Granite Peak Quad is rated for 2.4 m/s which is about 475 fpm. It is usually run at 450 fpm, especially on the weekends. On a few busy days I have seen it run full speed, once it stopped 4 times on the way up.

The Six Flags Great Adventure skyway is bye-bye, last I heard.

[snoloco]

DonaldMReif, on 17 November 2014 - 05:05 PM, said:

Steamboat sounds like the one exception, since they have a regular gondola, albeit the gondola has been around since 1986, a full 20 years before Intrawest showed up. They also have that pulse gondola.



The Six Flags Great Adventure skyway is bye-bye, last I heard.

It is still there and operating as of this past season.

[NoPainNoJane]

The gondola at Six Flags New England is being removed, there was no mention of Great Adventure'a being removed during the last shareholder call, what is your source?

[DonaldMReif]

These days I wonder if Lift 6 on Peak 8 is still appropriate in its current alignment as a double chairlift, or it should be upgraded in the next few years in light of the Colorado SuperChair getting upgraded.

[jaytrem]

NoPainNoJane, on 17 November 2014 - 07:25 PM, said:

The gondola at Six Flags New England is being removed, there was no mention of Great Adventure'a being removed during the last shareholder call, what is your source?

The Great Adventure one was refurbished not too long ago. I'd be surprised if they removed it so soon. Then again they have done plenty of other odd removals, so who knows.

[Kicking Horse]

I highly doubt it's going anywhere anytime soon. Far as The sky ride at Great Adventure.

Donald as for Chair 6 at Breck. When I skied breck all the time back in the early 2000's it never had a line other then on powder days. I highly doubt there is enough traffic today to require an upgrade to a High Speed lift.

[DonaldMReif]

Since it looks like Lift 6 got repainted last year, I guess it will be around for a little while longer.

[boardski]

If they put new chairs on lift 6 at Breck, they are will probably replace it the following season :-)

[DonaldMReif]

boardski, on 18 November 2014 - 06:40 PM, said:

If they put new chairs on lift 6 at Breck, they are will probably replace it the following season :-)

They haven't replaced the chairs.

As for other questionable alignments, I might put the Pride Express on this list for the fact that, although I like that lift and the runs it services, it doesn't seem to get a lot of traffic because of its alignment: it only services the upper halves of Simba and Bwana. But, you're not missing much by only doing the upper halves of those trails since the upper part's the best part and you can ski that part without dealing with the crowds headed down to Lionshead.

This post has been edited by DonaldMReif: 18 November 2014 - 08:12 PM

[vons]

DonaldMReif, on 18 November 2014 - 07:52 PM, said:

They haven't replaced the chairs.

As for other questionable alignments, I might put the Pride Express on this list for the fact that, although I like that lift and the runs it services, it doesn't seem to get a lot of traffic because of its alignment: it only services the upper halves of Simba and Bwana. But, you're not missing much by only doing the upper halves of those trails since the upper part's the best part and you can ski that part without dealing with the crowds headed down to Lionshead.

Pride made sense when the old gondola was around as it became an alternate route to Eagles Nest, the lift became kinda redundant with the new gondola and the addition of blue sky basin.

[DonaldMReif]

I say the Pride Express does still have its merits since Simba actually is a pretty good trail and as I said, the top half is the better half.

[NoPainNoJane]

When EverVail is developed, the plan is to build another gondola from that new base to the bottom of where 26 is, then having a mid-station angle turn and then continuing up to Eagle's Nest replacing 26. 26 in its current state is a good lift for those accessing the mountain from 20 (Cascade) as it avoids having to go down to Lionshead. Vail recognizes how 26 isn't all that necessary though as it is usually one of the first lifts to close on the front side in the late season. On the busier days it is a great chair to lap as it never gets a long line.