Saddleback - WOW!

[UVSHTSTRM]

Whether you like Killington or not don't mean chit, blah,blah,blah...it's still the Beast of the East.

I enjoy Killington very much.........season pass holder. I enjoy the people (not the joey's, but the people that you you see at early and late season and mid week powder days).

 

[UVSHTSTRM]

Huh, when I *learned* to ski at okemo in the 80's all you rode were surface lifts... it wasn't until you could handle some 'real' terrain (by okemo standards) you got to ride chairs. The surface lifts were for beginners! Of course now it's silly side by side chairs that do their best to load and unload for you (rather poorly, I might add).

Aside from that, the applications I'm referring almost exclusively serve expert terrain. To me surface lifts seem tailor made for high wind, low traffic, mostly expert areas.

I do get the snowboarder argument. Except I think boarding has decreased in the last decade :fm. Oh wait, wrong board.

Anyway, this isn't a surface lift thread. I never rode the Saddleback T, just bemoaning the loss of another lift can run when it's windy. And it's often windy during/after a good dump. I can't comment on Saddleback specifically, but more a general trend I disagree with. I for one would like to see surface lifts added to service exposed and or underutilized terrain, rather than removed and replaced with a chair incapable of running in inclement weather - which is too often the case.

In recent years, the last 15 to 20 years the surface lifts have become the rule in regards to many beginner areas (that and magic carpets).

I had the honor (wink wink) of running the t bar at Waterville Valley during my college days. It was interesting to watch kids get so frustrated trying to get up on those things....when in reality they were in ski/board school and wouldn't even begin to learn how to go down the hill until a good hour or two into the day.......they needed to perfect the surface lift before they could learn to ski/board. Running that thing with a hangover was brutal.

 

[riverc0il]

The Kennabago T, much as I enjoyed riding it, was a beastly T-Bar. They had a sign on the loading shack that the lift was for experts only, not the terrain it serves (it does serve a blue square and a few of the black diamonds are groomed). The track near the end of the lift was horrendous. When the wind blows up there, it ices parts of the T-Bar track down. I can't think of a more difficult lift to ride in New England that is currently operating.

While I love T-Bars, Saddleback was not going to move forward without a chair to service its expert terrain. I just wish they kept the T as a back up on windy days. As far as beginners learning on T's, that does not happen as much as it used to. Ts are relatively rare these days and most ski areas seem to get beginners on the lift directly from the Magic Carpet. For those of us that grew up learning on Ts, many are older and prefer a cushy chair. I will miss that T-Bar (you should see some of sled and I's antics from some posts on T-Bars over on SnowJournal!!!) but from a resort perspective, a quad to service the expert pod was a really smart decision.

 

[dropKickMurphy]

The Kennabago T, much as I enjoyed riding it, was a beastly T-Bar. They had a sign on the loading shack that the lift was for experts only, not the terrain it serves (it does serve a blue square and a few of the black diamonds are groomed). The track near the end of the lift was horrendous. When the wind blows up there, it ices parts of the T-Bar track down. I can't think of a more difficult lift to ride in New England that is currently operating.......

It was a challenge keeping your skis in the tracks when the 2 tracks would suddenly merge into 1 on the steepest, iciest sections.

I learned not to let up on the focus until I was well clear of that lift. A couple of years ago, I brought a buddy who had never skied SB before. The first time he was getting ready to ride the Kennebago T, he sees the sign and asks "What the ***** is an 'expert T Bar rider?!?' " We make it just about to the top. I turn to him and say "Congratulations Tom, you are now officially an expert T...." Before I could finish the statement, he suddenly was on his a$$ sliding down the slope. That threw me off balance, but I was able to hang on. A few seconds later I got off at the top, and turn to see my buddy taking his skis off in preparation of making the walk of shame.

I stifled the urge to laugh my a$$ off as he trudged to the top while spewing profanities. You know how karma can be.

 

[bvibert]

I do get the snowboarder argument. Except I think boarding has decreased in the last decade :fm. Oh wait, wrong board.

This made me chuckle. Don't worry I'm envisioning the appropriate emoticon in it's place....

 

[threecy]

With a new lodge, lots of brand-new housing, and two expensive new lifts already in place, Saddleback isn't going anywhere for a long time. If the Berry's sell, I can almost guarantee you that someone else will want to buy in - much the hard work has already been done.

I'm not familiar with Saddleback's current business plan, but if what Kirchner said is accurate, then that statement is not necessarily true. Perhaps the biggest issue is this bit:

We have learned that they owe the ski industy over 400k in past due payments on capital expenses and upgrades that they purchased in 2008 (over 12 months in arrears) and are currently seeking a government backed (FAM) loan of 3m to fund past due bills and fund operations this winter.

That alone makes it a huge issue for either a new owner to come in, or for someone to liquidate it - ie if things were to fall apart, getting liens settled in court with all of the vendors would be a long and drawn out process.

A few 'too big to fail' areas that had seen substantial capital improvements prior to failing - Ski Cherokee (three new Riblet chairs), Berthoud Pass (three new Borvig chairs), Crotched Mountain (new CTEC quad), Evergreen Valley (essentially a brand new area), Magic Mountain (new Poma triple chair). Ski Rio and Cuchara are two more examples of large areas with (at that point) fairly new infrastructure (2 Poma chairs, and 4 Riblet chairs respectively).

One could make a counter argument and point at ASC areas, however I believe the debt was structured differently. More importantly, the ASC areas (other than the satellite areas such as Pico and Haystack) had much stronger brands with significantly larger skier visit numbers.

Net net - Kirchner gave an inside track on the situation (which affects the whole industry - vendor debt ends up getting passed onto those areas who pay their bills) that, if not corrected/altered soon, could lead to the demise of a promising ski area development.

 

[BLESS]

Hopefully, I'll be there Friday 3/26/10 before the AZ Summit at Sugarloaf.

Now I just need to convince my wife that it's ok for me to take a 4 day ski weekend when she's 8.5 months pregnant.

good luck with that one.