- The lone chairlift at Elko Snobowl is rope evacuated on a busy Saturday.
- Windham Mountain rope evacuates the Wonderama Express after a chair collides with a snow gun.
- The Disney Skyliner closes for planned maintenance.
- Part of a detachable terminal blows away at Kirkwood.
- Aspen’s 1A replacement project remains in seemingly perpetual limbo.
- A new tram update with Big Sky’s Director of Construction.
- Telluride and Doppelmayr to load test Plunge Express this weekend with opening planned for early February.
- The final Vail Resorts Epic Lift Upgrade project opens on Vail Mountain.
- The Snow Flyer at Bittersweet and Transporter at Montana Snowbowl both opened today, marking 100 percent completion for Leitner-Poma and Skytrac projects.
- The workhorse of Crystal Mountain, Michigan will remain closed for another weekend.
- Multiple lifts go down at Cannon Mountain.
- A bill introduced in the New Hampshire legislature has $25 million for a new Cannon tram.
- The new Red Dog at Palisades Tahoe will temporarily close for a re-splice this week; Alpine Bowl will be closed indefinitely due to a mechanical problem.
I skied Cannon today, and Cannonball was open the entire day. Apparently the “maintenance project” was installing new grips on the chairs. Don’t know why they decided to take on such a project during mid-season. As for Zoomer, it needs a new gearbox replacement so it’s won’t be online for another 2 weeks. The Tram is running in place of Zoomer to get people out of the basin.
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Like many other items these days, I imagine the grips were ordered this past summer but were subject to supply chain delays. I doubt my counterparts just decided to swap grips midseason; there must have been other considerations.
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A liftie told me last Sunday that the grips needed replacement, and had finally come in, so they decided to close the lift midweek and replace all of them. Three chairs’ grips had failed inspection and had barrels and yellow tape on them to keep them from being used.
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On their snow report today, they are estimating Zoomer won’t be ready till sometime between 2/13-2/20.
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Rough week.
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Eldora posted it’s Little Hawk chair is closed for maintenance and operating weekends only if needed for the season.
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Deer Valley patroller says Burns is scheduled to open next Friday Feb 3. Spinning all weekend
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It still amazes me. One of the worlds shortest Detachable lifts built, not ready to open until February ??
Back in the day if a new lift was not open by Christmas week you were in DEEP shit!!
Now days it seem to be the norm. With both manufactures. And I know it’s more than this supply chain claim. All these excuses is like something that you would expect from a politician??
It seems to be the way the world works now. My friend ordered a Ford F-350 truck. It took one year to get and it was the wrong color.
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As far as the lifts go, yes it is more than just supply chain issues. A lot of it is stemming from labor issues as well. We’re seeing record numbers of lifts being built, and the industry is just not ready for it in material, manpower, and logistics. However, I have to disagree with your statement about it being an excuse you would hear from a politician. While you certainly will hear excuses like this from politicians, the supply chain claim from the ski lift industry is much more legitimate, as it is actually true. The supply chain claim is not just an excuse, it is an explanation. It’s not intended to “cover for” the lifts that are not yet built, it is simply intended to inform the public as to why the new lifts are not ready yet.
As far as the truck goes, that’s extremely unlucky, but it is also a completely different industry than the ski lift industry. What I can tell you is that the ski lift industry is doing its best to prevent a year like this from happening again. I can’t speak for the automotive industry.
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This not the first Detachable lift boom. You can believe whatever you want. But being directly connected the lift industry. I know both Large manufactures over sold for what they could produce in a timely manor. No secret there. In previous years there were contracts with a completion dates. There was a dollar penalty (back charge) for everyday that went by for the lift not being completed on schedule.
Skytrac did get their projects done before Christmas.
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Yep. Oversold. BUT I’m sure there was a point when both the manufacturer and the customer agreed to a contract that had no specific completion dates and no penalties.
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I heard the major delay at Deer Valley was the terminal enclosures didn’t arrive until the 2nd week of December. Not an excuse but a reason…
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Yep could be, no completion dates sounds like a recipe for what happened this year.
Maybe that’s why Skytrac did so much better than Deer Valley for example. Enclosures were made in the USA, not some other country??
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Could be, although I would have to figure that the terminal enclosures for Burns would have been manufactured in SLC, but maybe I’m wrong
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Austria.
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