mount snow to install a bubble 6 pack next year!

[Smellytele]

There was an extended operational issue at one point yesterday when we were about 10th from loading. 3 Techs drove in on snowmobiles and went into base control room. 10 minutes or less later they had it running. I was guessing computer issue but don't have a real clue.

Waiting for excuse from DrJeff or Glenn...

 

[Newpylong]

Why are you waiting for an excuse? Do you mean a reason? If it broke down it broke down...

 

[Smellytele]

Why are you waiting for an excuse? Do you mean a reason? If it broke down it broke down...

See previous posts about them being "homers" when it comes to Mt Snow.

 

[Newpylong]

I know. Everyone defends their mountain

 

[drjeff]

See previous posts about them being "homers" when it comes to Mt Snow.

Well sometimes being a "homer" has its advantages - straight from a very high up source - some issues with the loads on the lift were being sorted out this weekend - basically put -there were more fatties riding the bluebird than the computer simulations for lift operations figured! :lol:

Personally the best Mount Snow news I heard this weekend is that their beer heaven, the Station Taproom will be expanding from 12 to 18 taps this week! Woo hoo! :beer:

 

[vcunning]

Don't make me post that picture of you in your circa 1995 Steelers starter jacket and your rear entry boots that I took of "you" in line for the Bluebird today Vince

Thanks again for the beers at The Station this weekend. Its great to be a homer when the bartenders know you by name. Which I guess makes me a homer too.

 

[Smellytele]

Well sometimes being a "homer" has its advantages - straight from a very high up source -:

Thought you were going with the Tebow angle on this.

 

[Glenn]

Waiting for excuse from DrJeff or Glenn...

OK? I guess?

Anyways, the lift stopped a lot Sunday. On one ride up, it must have stopped 3 times. I didn't see any issues at the base loading, so I'm thinking it was up top. We saw some people downloading; but that only explains one of the three stops.

 

[Yooper]

Yesterday, Monday was a tough day for the Blue Bird, never ran at all. The 1400 lb Chairs were swinging almost out of control in the wind near the Summit, had the Chairs stopped next to a Tower they surely do would have hit it. The other day it stopped a lot, my observation from the loading area was that not all the Bubbles would open for loading and also several that opened would lift the seat with it as it opened. The operator would have to stop it, run over and pull the seat down. Im sure once all the bugs are worked out it will run well.

 

[Smellytele]

Yesterday, Monday was a tough day for the Blue Bird, never ran at all. The 1400 lb Chairs were swinging almost out of control in the wind near the Summit, had the Chairs stopped next to a Tower they surely do would have hit it. The other day it stopped a lot, my observation from the loading area was that not all the Bubbles would open for loading and also several that opened would lift the seat with it as it opened. The operator would have to stop it, run over and pull the seat down. Im sure once all the bugs are worked out it will run well.

EEEKKKK!!! Not good but like you said hopefully they work the bugs out soon.

 

[drjeff]

Yesterday, Monday was a tough day for the Blue Bird, never ran at all. The 1400 lb Chairs were swinging almost out of control in the wind near the Summit, had the Chairs stopped next to a Tower they surely do would have hit it. The other day it stopped a lot, my observation from the loading area was that not all the Bubbles would open for loading and also several that opened would lift the seat with it as it opened. The operator would have to stop it, run over and pull the seat down. Im sure once all the bugs are worked out it will run well.

Yup, Monday was pretty wild to watch the chairs on the line swing in the wind! The way the lift works, is there's a sensor both on the "departure side" of both the top and bottom terminals that senses if there is anyone on the chair, and if there's nobody on the chair, the bubble will automatically close to minimize the wind profile of the lift (that's whay all the bubbles on the "downhill side" of the lift, even yesterday, come down with the bubbles closed). Well, per the GM, what was going on yesterday is the sensor on the uphill side as the chair departs to bottom terminal wasn't working correctly, and all the bubbles were going up with the bubble open (nobody even rode the lift yesterday as this problem arose as the bubble were being taken out of the storrage barn and loaded onto the haul rope in the morning). The open bubbles acted as a 13 foot wide, 5 or foot so high sail in the wind, which having been out in it, riding the grand summit express yesterday had gusts over 40mph, if not even 50mph, and the chairs on the uphill side, especially in a few select locations where the lift is a bit higher up and exposed were really swinging from side to side The interesting thing to see though is that on the downhill side, where the bubble were down, those chairs were hardly moving at all in the same wind. And chair forward motion had nothing to do with that as the lift was stopped with the bubbles on the haul rope for many hours yesterday.

The unloading ramp, also per the GM is getting some design attention. If one is ready, it works fine. If one isn't paying attention(and many for various reasons aren't), the way that the bubbles open by themselves at the summit terminal can be a bit worrisome for folks not used to it, as the bubble and safety bar will raise themselves automatically, as long as nobody has their skis/board on the footrest! The Bluebird unloads people in the middle of the "bullwheel" (not exactly a bullwheel when a detachable is off the haul rope ) and the bubble open by themselves maybe 5 seconds before the chairs get to the unloading ramp, so if one isn't ready, its easy to see where a problem can arise. Also, the synthetic "grass"/"rug" that is on the unloading ramp has a fairly high amount of friction on it if it isn't covered with snow, so that for some has also been causing some problems with the unloading process.

As the GM put it on the Mount Snow passholders site, they're still learning about how people load/ride/unload this lift, and are adapting as they see what's happening. Also, and i'm sure that this will be true for the new Leitner-Poma HSQ that Burke is about to open, an engineer/tech from Leitner-Poma remains on-site for the first few weeks of lift operations to both see how the lift is performing and also help the lift-ops crew at the mountain "learn" all the ins and outs of the new lift.

Having been at Mount Snow, on the hill 6 days so far this year, management is really paying atttention to not just how the Bluebird is using, but also what the customers are saying about things such as lift line maze design, etc (there's actually a very entertaining thread on the Mount Snow passholders site with a bunch of passholder inspired lift queue designs and schematics, some of which are serious and some have some humor in their design).

 

[oakapple]

The open bubbles acted as a 13 foot wide, 5 or foot so high sail in the wind, which having been out in it, riding the grand summit express yesterday had gusts over 40mph, if not even 50mph, and the chairs on the uphill side, especially in a few select locations where the lift is a bit higher up and exposed were really swinging from side to side The interesting thing to see though is that on the downhill side, where the bubble were down, those chairs were hardly moving at all in the same wind.

Since lowering the bubble is optional, won't this be a problem on crowded, windy, but not-too-cold days, if riders choose not to lower the bubble?

 

[oakapple]

Mount Snow's report of open terrain is one of the most poorly designed I've seen (link).

Most places use some kind of graphical symbol, like a green check mark, to indicate what is open. Mount Snow uses the words "OPEN" and "CLOSED". It is much easier to scan a long list and look for a graphic than to read the words, line by line.

Most large mountains put their trail list into groups by trail pod or mountain face. Mount Snow's is just one big long alphabetical list, with no further subdivisions, which makes it more difficult to get a sense of the place if you don't know all the names by heart.

I realize that many people just show up and ski where they see snow. But for those of us trying to decide when a long trip up to Vermont will be worth the effort and expense, it is not very user-friendly.

 

[drjeff]

Since lowering the bubble is optional, won't this be a problem on crowded, windy, but not-too-cold days, if riders choose not to lower the bubble?

In theory, yes. But last week on Thursday when it was running in gusts upto 50, apparently everyone riding made the choice that big wind gusts in their face vs. against the bubble made the bubble seem like a good option. Plus add in a few adults on the lift and thats just more "ballast"

 

[drjeff]

Mount Snow's report of open terrain is one of the most poorly designed I've seen (link).

Most places use some kind of graphical symbol, like a green check mark, to indicate what is open. Mount Snow uses the words "OPEN" and "CLOSED". It is much easier to scan a long list and look for a graphic than to read the words, line by line.

Most large mountains put their trail list into groups by trail pod or mountain face. Mount Snow's is just one big long alphabetical list, with no further subdivisions, which makes it more difficult to get a sense of the place if you don't know all the names by heart.

I realize that many people just show up and ski where they see snow. But for those of us trying to decide when a long trip up to Vermont will be worth the effort and expense, it is not very user-friendly.

Just look at their 1st 2 stats on their snow report. "% open" and "acres" That tells plenty, since as we all know an acre is an acre is an acre (one football field basically) and an acre in the poconos is the same as an acre in the catskills as the same as an acre in the green mountains. Whereas a "trail" can vary greatly from resort to resort (how many times, especially early season, have folks shown up at an area where a certain trail was listed as "open" only to find that it was just a portion of that trail?? You look at Mount Snow's report today and it tells you that they're 23% open with 109 acres of available terrain. That's some objective data and at that point does it really matter if those 109 acres are comprised of 10 trails or 50 trails?? It's still 109 acres of terrain. What I really do like about the honesty of Mount Snow and their snowreporting is take a trail like Snowdance. Top to bottom its close to 15 acres of surface area. When it opens, hopefully later this week as snowmaking started today on it, and it's just 4 to 6 cat widths wide, instead of the full 100 yards or so that it is for most of its width, they'll list it as 4 or 5 acres of open terrain instead of the full 15 or so acres. Just read their latest "GM's Blog" on their main web page right now where this topic of truth in reporting is addressed

 

[Smellytele]

Just look at their 1st 2 stats on their snow report. "% open" and "acres" That tells plenty, since as we all know an acre is an acre is an acre (one football field basically) and an acre in the poconos is the same as an acre in the catskills as the same as an acre in the green mountains. Whereas a "trail" can vary greatly from resort to resort (how many times, especially early season, have folks shown up at an area where a certain trail was listed as "open" only to find that it was just a portion of that trail?? You look at Mount Snow's report today and it tells you that they're 23% open with 109 acres of available terrain. That's some objective data and at that point does it really matter if those 109 acres are comprised of 10 trails or 50 trails?? It's still 109 acres of terrain. What I really do like about the honesty of Mount Snow and their snowreporting is take a trail like Snowdance. Top to bottom its close to 15 acres of surface area. When it opens, hopefully later this week as snowmaking started today on it, and it's just 4 to 6 cat widths wide, instead of the full 100 yards or so that it is for most of its width, they'll list it as 4 or 5 acres of open terrain instead of the full 15 or so acres. Just read their latest "GM's Blog" on their main web page right now where this topic of truth in reporting is addressed

How much money do you make being their marketing director?

 

[drjeff]

How much money do you make being their marketing director?

I wish! :lol: I actually try not too think about how many dollars per year are on my VISA bill with "Mount Snow Resort" listed next to the charge amount

Seriously though, as someone who owns their own business, I try see things not just from the perspective of a customer, but also from a business standpoint, where I completely get the idea that there IS a limited pool of resources with which a company operates, and there are some descisions that have to be made based on that that off the top might not seem to make total sense.

There's also a long line of current and former Mount Snow employees in the marketing department and administration that will tell you that I certainly will let them know if there's something that to me seems to be either done wrong, or not upto the high standards that they've had, especially these last 5 years or so that Peak has owned them. I know with my own business I want to hear both if things are going right or even more if things are going wrong, and that there are certain people when I hear those words from that do carry more weight, and that's important to me

 

[ScottySkis]

I can't wait to ride six pack, i sure no wind chill on the ride up will be great i had plenty of windy days in the pass that were not enjoyable

 

[Smellytele]

I wish! :lol: I actually try not too think about how many dollars per year are on my VISA bill with "Mount Snow Resort" listed next to the charge amount

Seriously though, as someone who owns their own business, I try see things not just from the perspective of a customer, but also from a business standpoint, where I completely get the idea that there IS a limited pool of resources with which a company operates, and there are some descisions that have to be made based on that that off the top might not seem to make total sense.

There's also a long line of current and former Mount Snow employees in the marketing department and administration that will tell you that I certainly will let them know if there's something that to me seems to be either done wrong, or not upto the high standards that they've had, especially these last 5 years or so that Peak has owned them. I know with my own business I want to hear both if things are going right or even more if things are going wrong, and that there are certain people when I hear those words from that do carry more weight, and that's important to me

I am glad for your views (although a little homerish) and info you provide and I am glad you understand that I am just busting balls with my comments about you and Glenn.

 

[Black Phantom]

This must be one hell of a fucking chairlift. Does it have drink holders? Or a "report" bad behavior button?