- Another real estate access lift called Powdercrest is on the horizon at Big Sky.
- The Whitetail Express at Whitetail, PA goes down until further notice after just one day of operation this season.
- Wildcat’s Snowcat lift, which missed all of last season, won’t reopen for a bit longer.
- A viral video from Austria shows gondola cabins surging up and down, blamed on speed and changed drive parameters.
- A grip slip incident claims a life in Montenegro.
- A skier is hospitalized after falling from a lift at Sunshine Village.
- Powderhorn performs a rope evacuation of the Flat Top Flyer.
- Following Washington floods, Crystal Mountain reopens at full capacity and Stevens Pass will open Monday with a four hour detour from Seattle.
- Workers at Le Massif, Quebec reject a contract proposal and authorize a strike beginning January 2nd.
- Eaglecrest’s used gondola project will cost at least five times initial estimates.
- A worker is seriously injured in Italy when wind lifts a safety net into the path of a chair.
- The sale of Eldora is taking longer than expected.
Lift Blog 
The whole Vail/Wildcat, Snow Cat lift saga thing is an embarrassment to the ski industry. Between lift accidents and downtime the situation is pathetic. They had a year to get the 52 year old lift ready for operation. Now there doing an acceptance test in late December?? and it failed, Really! I wouldn’t let those guys put air in my tires.
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I see it’s been a rough week for many resorts. My heart goes out to the ski area personnel at Whitetail, Crystal, Stevens Pass and Le Massif; to the workers and skiers alike at Sunshine Village and Powderhorn; and even more so to the families and friends of the victims in Italy and Montenegro.
Things are stable out here, at least. But this is a sobering reminder to me that the world of ropeways has its risks, and the consequences of an oversight or mistake can be life-changing. Or worse.
Stay safe out there, everyone.
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Major props to WSDOT and their contractors for the speedy repairs to 410 which allowed the full reopening at Crystal. They did a hell of a job. The resort thought it might take until the end of January to fix, but they got it done in a week!
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I love how German speakers just smoosh random words together lol. partygondeln. amazing.
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For those of the followers who do lift maintenance, how common is it for a lift to fail a load test? And are there signs ahead of time? I’d expect mechanics would know whether or not it’d pass before the state shows up.
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Glitches can arise during acceptance tests. But typically they can be resolved during the testing even if the test takes a little more time to complete. Glitches and necessary adjustments to meet compliance are not uncommon. But a problem big enough to cancel the testing indefinitely is not. Typically the electricians and mechanics do as much pre-testing as possible before the load in applied to the lift to insure a successful test. The last thing you want to do is look incompetent when surrounded by inspectors, engineers and other industry professionals. And now add in social media.
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A lot depends on the type of load test. If its a recurrent 7 year test then there should be no problems. You are just testing to the old values. However, problems can occur. We broke a rollback dog on 7th Heaven one year and the load test was cancelled for three weeks in the late fall while we sourced a new one. If you are load testing a modification, anything can happen. In 2007 we put a new gearbox in Wizard chair. It had a slightly different ratio to the old one. This meant a different rotational speed on the motor, hence different inertia. In the process of trying to resolve this issue with an inertia disk, We came to the conclusion the lift probably never met code for stopping distance, so we had to derate the download. It’s very easy to sit behind a keyboard and throw stones when you have no idea what went on. Maybe this is on the engineers and suppliers and nothing to do with Vail? You can bet nobody planned it like that.
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One way to avoid load test problems is to not do the testing the same week you want to open the lift for the season. The lift was not in service last season. So they had a year to figure it out and get it operating properly??
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Again, neither you or I know what went on here, but you may not get a choice about when a load test happens. Getting all the relevant people on site on the same day can be quite difficult. Maybe the lift was ready weeks or months ago, but a required engineer or inspector was unavailable. Maybe the inspector decided to fail something that has previously passed. I’ve seen that happen. An out of production lift needs custom made parts with very long lead times. If the parts showed up and were incorrect, you’re stuck waiting for them to be remade. We still have a conveyor lift out of service because we were sent the wrong rollers twice. We nearly didn’t have the Whistler village gondola on opening day because new haul ropes sat on a dock for a month because a government strike prevented highway permits being issued. I hope you’re getting the idea that there are a million things out of your control that can affect lift repairs, and delays are frequently not the fault of the lift company, much as you might want to believe otherwise.
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Yes, there are a whole lot of maybes in regards to Wildcat. One you left out is maybe the owners didn’t want to spend the money until late fall??
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Given the Vail capital year starts January 1st, and they knew this lift needed work, the money would have been allocated at the beginning of the year. Hence my suspicion that something went sideways.
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OK will leave it there. Two different view points both based on speculation. I am sure nobody involved would be allowed to comment.
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I agree.
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You linked your Eldora tagline to a news site that has a pay wall…so no way to read it.
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SoCal resorts can’t catch a break. Big bear, mountain high, and baldy all were nearly burnt down last year and now many of the access roads have all been washed out by the recent flooding and snow levels are still pathetic.
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Gotta love the Seattle Times article that uses a photo of Crystal’s old chair 10 and calls it chair 3….
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I’m surprised they knew how to spell Enumclaw.
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