thinnmann
New member
The snow today was great. The groomers took the new stuff that fell Friday night, that got crudded up on Saturday, and made nice. They left the bumps on Yahoo, Onteora, Seneca, Tongora as usual. It warmed up after 11 AM and skied sooooo nicely.
But the lift situation is horrible. It started first thing, with signs at the lift ticket booths about Superchief being closed today. Broken again. Unbelievable. The Mini-World-Cup race for the kids was canceled. Canceled because they knew that a lot of Superchief beginners would be needing to use lower Yahoo. The knew the lines would be crazy, especially this being a Potter Brothers "flex-day", and the end of a holiday period. All the factors came together to make 15-minute lift lines at lift 7 and Tomahawk.
While waiting in one of those lift lines at Tomahawk, one of the lifties got on top of the lift base engine contraption thingie and yelled to everyone, "Lift 6 is open! Superchief is open!" Great. But we still have this line to wait in. But at least they got it running again. I think that was about 11:30 AM.
Lines after lunch were a little better. 5-10 minutes at lift 7 and Tomahawak. No doubt this was Belleayre's biggest day of this winter so far.
It still baffles me how the Tomahawk lifties can continue to do such a bad job at loading the lift. Here is how it goes. There are two sides to approach Tomahawk quad. On each side there is a singles line, doubles, triples, quad, and lessons/patrol line. It should go like this: two doubles (one set from each side), then a triple + single from side A, triple + single side B, quad side A, quad side B, then start the cycle over again. What they do is totally random. No joke, totally random. doubles, triples, doubles, doubles, triples X3, quad, 4 singles, doubles triples X 3, quad.... You could enter the shortest line and wait the longest. You could enter the longest line and they might have a mind to just let it roll. O, here is the best part - if a liftie has to rotate to a new position to swing chairs or whatever, maybe a chair of two will go up empty. This is because NOBODY KNOWS WHAT TO EXPECT. This creates even more errors on loading. If the people at the head of the queue knew the cycle, there wouldn't be errors and constant loading screw-ups. And one more detail, if you always take the shortest line, no matter how many people you have, you might get a couple words about being in the wrong line, but you never get sent back! So always take the shortest line no matter how many you have because there are no real consequences! (Unless you get ignored by the totally random line selection, of course, which tends to happen most in the quad line simply because it it behind the liftie's back...)
Hey, I know it isn't an easy job, especially on a busy day, but it sure as hell isn't a hard one either.... Count to 4, and load each line fairly.... my 10 year old can do that for the rides at camp carnival in the summer! It seems like they have no level of training or performance criteria, nor do they have any kind of management in charge there.
PS: Two concrete suggestions: 1) Eliminate the doubles line on busy days. Instead make two quad lines and have doubles quad themselves up. Duh. Do that all the time, as a matter of fact. 2) Hire people who actually ski to be lift attendants.
But the lift situation is horrible. It started first thing, with signs at the lift ticket booths about Superchief being closed today. Broken again. Unbelievable. The Mini-World-Cup race for the kids was canceled. Canceled because they knew that a lot of Superchief beginners would be needing to use lower Yahoo. The knew the lines would be crazy, especially this being a Potter Brothers "flex-day", and the end of a holiday period. All the factors came together to make 15-minute lift lines at lift 7 and Tomahawk.
While waiting in one of those lift lines at Tomahawk, one of the lifties got on top of the lift base engine contraption thingie and yelled to everyone, "Lift 6 is open! Superchief is open!" Great. But we still have this line to wait in. But at least they got it running again. I think that was about 11:30 AM.
Lines after lunch were a little better. 5-10 minutes at lift 7 and Tomahawak. No doubt this was Belleayre's biggest day of this winter so far.
It still baffles me how the Tomahawk lifties can continue to do such a bad job at loading the lift. Here is how it goes. There are two sides to approach Tomahawk quad. On each side there is a singles line, doubles, triples, quad, and lessons/patrol line. It should go like this: two doubles (one set from each side), then a triple + single from side A, triple + single side B, quad side A, quad side B, then start the cycle over again. What they do is totally random. No joke, totally random. doubles, triples, doubles, doubles, triples X3, quad, 4 singles, doubles triples X 3, quad.... You could enter the shortest line and wait the longest. You could enter the longest line and they might have a mind to just let it roll. O, here is the best part - if a liftie has to rotate to a new position to swing chairs or whatever, maybe a chair of two will go up empty. This is because NOBODY KNOWS WHAT TO EXPECT. This creates even more errors on loading. If the people at the head of the queue knew the cycle, there wouldn't be errors and constant loading screw-ups. And one more detail, if you always take the shortest line, no matter how many people you have, you might get a couple words about being in the wrong line, but you never get sent back! So always take the shortest line no matter how many you have because there are no real consequences! (Unless you get ignored by the totally random line selection, of course, which tends to happen most in the quad line simply because it it behind the liftie's back...)
Hey, I know it isn't an easy job, especially on a busy day, but it sure as hell isn't a hard one either.... Count to 4, and load each line fairly.... my 10 year old can do that for the rides at camp carnival in the summer! It seems like they have no level of training or performance criteria, nor do they have any kind of management in charge there.
PS: Two concrete suggestions: 1) Eliminate the doubles line on busy days. Instead make two quad lines and have doubles quad themselves up. Duh. Do that all the time, as a matter of fact. 2) Hire people who actually ski to be lift attendants.
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Always Avoid Superchief, except before 9:15 AM.
