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VAIL SUCKS

eatskisleep

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Saw on the wildcat snow cam today, all the chairs are still on the HSQ. Do they no longer pull them for a wind event? They used to always bring them back to the base. A day like today, puts a lot of strain on parts of the lift and could potentially blow a chair off. Guess Vail doesn’t care.
 

thetrailboss

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Saw on the wildcat snow cam today, all the chairs are still on the HSQ. Do they no longer pull them for a wind event? They used to always bring them back to the base. A day like today, puts a lot of strain on parts of the lift and could potentially blow a chair off. Guess Vail doesn’t care.
Gotta keep those labor costs down. It would have taken, what, a whole 30-60 mins to get the chairs off the lift?
 

xlr8r

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Ski areas always look dumb when they have an icing or wind event overnight and don't store the chairs on the parking rail. Why have a parking rail if you never use them.
 

thebigo

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Saw on the wildcat snow cam today, all the chairs are still on the HSQ. Do they no longer pull them for a wind event? They used to always bring them back to the base. A day like today, puts a lot of strain on parts of the lift and could potentially blow a chair off. Guess Vail doesn’t care.
Up until this year, first chair and first down the lynx as fast as I could possibly ski was a regular occurrence. Most times I can remember waiting for first chair, Leo would load the chairs back on the line by hand, took about 15 - 20 minutes. Not sure about this year, first chair is not worth it when you have to listen to the kids piss and moan about the wait.

They also used to let customers load the lift when patrol gave the thumbs up. Now they count down the seconds to 9:00 regardless of how many customers are standing in the corral.
 

Edd

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You thnk that is bad, you should have seen the video one of the Cat drivers put on the SR Enthusiast Facebook page of the top of Jordan Express. One of the chairs were doing 360's around the rope practically!!
I’m sure you’ve seen it too, but I’ve been on the Jordan chair near the top and seen empty chairs swinging around about half that bad. Disconcerting.
 

slatham

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YEs if you have the option to take the chairs off then you should have for this wind event.

Edit: Just checked the Bromley CAM and yup chairs are off.
 

xlr8r

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It just seems like a wise investment to have a parking rail for detachable lifts. You don't need a whole barn like at Okemo and Mount Snow for their bubbles, just a simple parking rail setup.

As for Jordan, That looks crazy. I know they hope to resolve that lifts wind hold issues and the fact that Jordan Hotel becomes inaccessible by replacing it with heavier chairs. I think they should just build a T-Bar up from the bottom of Jordan to the Hotel, as a simpler solution.
 

thetrailboss

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I’m sure you’ve seen it too, but I’ve been on the Jordan chair near the top and seen empty chairs swinging around about half that bad. Disconcerting.
Re: Jordan

It has been a while since I've been there, but I thought that there was a parking rail for the Jordan HSQ.

Edit--no, it does not have a parking area.
 
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machski

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Re: Jordan

It has been a while since I've been there, but I thought that there was a parking rail for the Jordan HSQ.

Edit--no, it does not have a parking area.
Nope, the only parking rail SR employs at any of its detachables is the Chondi at the top terminal. Just a rail set to rack the cabins as they are the weak link in wind holds. They then use come along straps to strap them together so they don't blow around on the rail. They took them off late after the winds cranked up once, they dropped a cabin off the curved section of rail and I believe it got totaled.

As to barns for bubble chairs, if you want the warranty on the bubbles from the manufacturer, you will build a parking barn and house them during the offseason at a minimum. Otherwise, the resort voids the warranty. I believe this is true for Gondi cars too now, thus why K probably built the K1 barn for the new cabins they got for it.
 

AdironRider

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Peak clearly didn't do shit for lift maintenance. Vail has been dealing with crappy lifts at pretty much every property they bought from them, from Crested Butte on down. That should probably be the news story but yeah sure, fuck Vail.

Your decision point about covid was whether you showed up to ski or not, not some extended lift line time by the way.

I do find it amusing that all of a sudden people have forgotten that Wildcat and Attitash were the red headed step child's even before Vail bought them. Wildcat is worth what, 4 million? That is chump change in the ski industry and it is worth that for a reason. The problem with Attitash and Wildcat is people think they are resorts when in reality they are rinky dink ski areas IMO.
 

PAabe

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"Wildcat mountain ski area" does not claim to be a resort in name but Vail's websites refer to all of their ski areas as "resorts" (including that same template which is used for Wildcat)
Places that do not have a hotel/lodging (like Roundtop, JFBB, Wildcat, etc.) have no business claiming to be resorts imo
 
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