F Vail

[Zykamps]

Zy is Gore a long drive for you?

A bit over 2. Might do some overnights up there. Also the Belle is a bit closer for day trips. Should be fun!

 

[snoloco]

Back to Tirolski's post....I thought road access was needed to lifts, as a matter of law, for safety and maintenance. Something @snoloco would probably know.
And, if the Vail stuff is true.....what a s***show of a company.

You don't necessarily need a road. You do need a way for lift maintenance to access every tower, and an evacuation plan. Maintenance access would be with snowcats and snowmobiles in the winter. The only time that lift is going to operate with riders on board is when there is sufficient coverage to ski the terrain. That also means they can run equipment on it. For seasonal maintenance, that will all have to be done in the spring, after the resort closes, but when they still have sufficient coverage to use snowcats or snowmobiles to access the towers.

 

[raisingarizona]

You don't necessarily need a road. You do need a way for lift maintenance to access every tower, and an evacuation plan. Maintenance access would be with snowcats and snowmobiles in the winter. The only time that lift is going to operate with riders on board is when there is sufficient coverage to ski the terrain. That also means they can run equipment on it. For seasonal maintenance, that will all have to be done in the spring, after the resort closes, but when they still have sufficient coverage to use snowcats or snowmobiles to access the towers.

But there isn’t always coverage on lift line clearings.

 

[snoloco]

But there isn’t always coverage on lift line clearings.

There isn't, but most lifts aren't far from work roads or other trails. The lift in question here is unique because it has no road access at all. So everything that requires equipment would need to be done over snow.

 

[SayvilleSteve]

All true. And the Slutzky's weren't drug dealers either.

In this case I was wondering about snowmaking specifically.

The key to a successful season at Hunter is to make snow at every opportunity. Which seemed to be the previous owners' m.o. (both Slutzkys and Peak). I noticed several times both early in the season and late-February where the weather was prime for snowmaking but the guns weren't on. Seemed like a very Rockies/West Coast vibe to think what they were doing was sufficient.

Regarding snowmaking, Peak did ok at first but it seemed it all went downhill with the north expansion. Under Vail I doubt it will improve.

The only thing good about the North Expansion is the parking.

 

[Harvey]

The key to a successful season at Hunter is to make snow at every opportunity.

Steve for GM.

 

[raisingarizona]

There isn't, but most lifts aren't far from work roads or other trails. The lift in question here is unique because it has no road access at all. So everything that requires equipment would need to be done over snow.

At Snowbowl all of the lift tower maintenance is done from a basket on the line.

 

[snoloco]

At Snowbowl all of the lift tower maintenance is done from a basket on the line.

That's called the work chair. A lot of tower maintenance can be done from it, but not moving large components like sheave assemblies.

 

[snoloco]

The only thing good about the North Expansion is the parking.

Unfortunately, I think the North expansion was a total flop. It was meant to expand intermediate terrain, but two of the 3 main trails needed to be rerated to black after one year. It doesn't seem to get nearly the snowmaking priority that the front side gets, and they never staff the ticket window over there anymore, even on weekends. I'm not sure it brought in the additional skier visits as intended, or even pulled lines away from the main 6 pack. While I still like the terrain, this is my analysis of it. Unfortunately, it's hard to make any expansion profitable without a real estate component to it.

 

[raisingarizona]

That's called the work chair. A lot of tower maintenance can be done from it, but not moving large components like sheave assemblies.

Nice. I got take a ride down in the work chair with my dog one summer a bunch of years ago after a hike. I thought it was neat.