The NEW Magic Mountain

UMC into Medium were noted yesterday (somewhere) as run from top. 1 run.

yeah just one route. looks like they are close for umc through the woods and upper trick.

NY DirtBag said:

ran for about an hour then surging again

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Yeah, not happy about that at all. They ran it for a long time with it surging (probably half the line length). Chairs were bouncing probably close to 4-5 feet between towers and nearly hitting the pole coming around the bull wheel up top. No idea why they didn’t slow it down (which stopped the surging each time). One of a handful of times in 30 years I have been really pissed off at them. I am not a lift engineer, but do have an engineering degree, but I can’t imagine all that bouncing and cyclical stress is good for anything. I give them lots of credit and am, of course, a huge fan, but no good today.

yeah it sucks. we had 2 smooth laps and then the third lift ride went awry. we looked back on the third lap and they were still loading the lift with the surging.

I figured they'd have stopped loading immediately but it wasn't the case.

Just posted on their FB page....

"
Red Lift Update:
While the Red lift passed its inspection and load testing yesterday, some mechanical issues arose with the new drive during operation late yesterday. Adjustments were then made to the new drive by the contracted electric drive engineer and was ready for operation by midday. After a couple hours of operation, the lift had mechanical failure with the drive system. During that failure, one lift chair on the non-passenger downhill side of the lift line swung violently against a tower and fell off the line. All passengers on the uploading side of the lift, were successfully and safely off-loaded at the top with the lift running on slow speed. The Vermont state lift inspector was here soon after to review the lift situation. Both Pfister Mountain Services and the electric drive engineer will be working with us to diagnose and fix the mechanical failure in the drive system. It will most likely take some time and we will keep you posted on our findings.
We will have the Green Lift running to mid-mountain as before and we will have reduced prices tickets available.
We’ve worked hard to get this lift ready and approved, and will work hard with our lift contractor to get this issue diagnosed and fixed as quickly as possible.
Thank you for your understanding and patience.
- Geoff"

THey just can't catch a brake this year....

drjeff said:

Just posted on their FB page....

"
Red Lift Update:
While the Red lift passed its inspection and load testing yesterday, some mechanical issues arose with the new drive during operation late yesterday. Adjustments were then made to the new drive by the contracted electric drive engineer and was ready for operation by midday. After a couple hours of operation, the lift had mechanical failure with the drive system. During that failure, one lift chair on the non-passenger downhill side of the lift line swung violently against a tower and fell off the line. All passengers on the uploading side of the lift, were successfully and safely off-loaded at the top with the lift running on slow speed. The Vermont state lift inspector was here soon after to review the lift situation. Both Pfister Mountain Services and the electric drive engineer will be working with us to diagnose and fix the mechanical failure in the drive system. It will most likely take some time and we will keep you posted on our findings.
We will have the Green Lift running to mid-mountain as before and we will have reduced prices tickets available.
We’ve worked hard to get this lift ready and approved, and will work hard with our lift contractor to get this issue diagnosed and fixed as quickly as possible.
Thank you for your understanding and patience.
- Geoff"

THey just can't catch a brake this year....

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No, this was not about catching a break. This was poor operation. The lift was surging and chairs were bouncing 5 feet in the air between poles. Of course something broke. See my post above. I was worried this would happen. In fact, I told ski patrol and the guy in the top shack to slow the lift down because it was surging and bouncing so badly. If the lift operators and others repsonsible for safety can’t recognize a dangerous situation, they need someone who can. Chairs were swinging around the bull wheel and nearly hitting the tower for minutes before this happened. Of course something broke when it was surging so badly. I give magic so much benefit of the doubt, but stuff like this isn’t safe. Not cool.

Sometimes you get what you pay for.
I love magic but…

Smellytele said:

Sometimes you get what you pay for.
I love magic but…

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Do you have some info about magic cheaping out on the red lift repair?

NY DirtBag said:

Do you have some info about magic cheaping out on the red lift repair?

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No reason to believe that. I work for a company that makes drives, though not for this kind of application. They need fine tuning. But once a problem is readily apparent, it needs to be addressed safely.

NY DirtBag said:

Do you have some info about magic cheaping out on the red lift repair?

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I'd tell you, but you wouldn't believe me.

From the initial reports this is a mechanical issue that was massively compounded by negligence. It's a miracle no one was seriously injured or killed. There is NO WAY that Magic should have continued loading passengers onto that tramway without the surge issue 100% resolved and TESTED - while loaded. I'm sure they didn't want to slow down the re-opening of the chair by re-filling barrels to allow the drive tuning results to be fully tested before loading customers. Instead, they gambled with the safety of the customers and lost big.

The most outrageous part, in my opinion, comes from some of the anecdotes shared here. Customers approaching lift operators and reporting serious safety issues were apparently ignored and the continued to operate the lift recklessly?!? Mindblowing.

Oh no I brought Hugh back. Sorry

Woof. Hope they can get it together.

I felt the need to register and respond after watching this disaster unfold. I learned to ski on the lift at 3 years old. I was on the first lift ride in 96 when it spun after 6 years of dormancy with lifts hanging and rusting the entire time With 3 inches of ice on chair (scariest lift ride of my life) I was in the lodge when a chair on the black lift slid back into another chair. I was stuck on black lift for 3 hours once. Throughout all of that (and much more) I supported magic and their efforts. I decided five years ago that I had had enough of the incompetence, negligence and dangerous conditions perpetuated by the parade of former “owners“and packed up for greener (and safer) pastures.

That said I had high hopes for this new ownership and vowed to be back to ski and support the mountain once they had proven themselves to be a more responsible and professional investment group. They have consistently fallen short in virtually every way imaginable And I have yet to return because of what I’ve witnessed from afar. No need to rehash their long string of broken promises and failures. You all know.

What they have succeeded at (brilliantly I might add) is creating an almost cult like mentality and adulation among their customer base that questions nothing and crushes any dissent all while bashing any and all other mountains as unenlightened and “corporate“

Today all my fears every time getting on those lifts came to fruition. and virtually nobody is saying a word. my favorite comment from yesterday as the lift bounced five feet in the air was “it was a rather jerky jerky affair” talk about sugar coating a potential disaster!

The new Green lift is almost 40 Years old, the “new“Black lift is 30 and both are reinstalls one of which was engineered wrong and the other half done and in the parking lot for 15 years before completion. The red lift is far past it’s prime and is having band aids applied.

not only would I never get on any of those lifts ever again but I would never allow my loved ones to ride on them.

You can not run a ski mountain on a shoestring. And btw 10-15 million in the bank is a shoestring when it comes to running a ski mountain. All under the guise of being “old school”

ill give them credit in one regard though they are marketing geniuses.

Lets hope this situation is rectified and that none of the doe eyed “ Magic faithful” end up seriously injured or worse in their blind pursuit of “soul”

jfc, a chair struck a tower and fell off the line? this means the required 15 degrees of swing clearance was exceeded, this is a huge operational error. did the grip come off the hanger, or the grip ripped from the rope. of course that grip and carrier must be destroyed because they both saw forces for which they were not designed. the former was tweaked being ripped off the rope, the latter when the carrier struck the ground. that rope section must be marked and inspected by a qualified wire rope inspector who will look for broken and displaced wires. finally, the tower needs to be inspected also. did the grip get entangled with a pair section, some guidage, or what. riblet clips are well known for coming out of the rope when striking a tower, but never a grip of usual design.

it's time for the lift inspector to man up and order a "stand down" on the red lift until the lift is proven to be safe in loaded and unloaded conditions, lift operators are given authority to slow or stop loading a lift as conditions warrant, lift mechanics are trained to recognize and respond to unusual situations, and whoever was running the lift is kicked in the balls.

Smellytele said:

Oh no I brought Hugh back. Sorry

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If he isn't going to say what authority he's basing his leaks off of, I just assume he's practicing lift astrology - say something vague enough to be smug about later, regardless.

I also don't know jack about lifts - certainly not enough to meaningfully contribute to our online forensic engineering effort beyond "well, fuck. That sounds bad."

From an outsider POV, someone who has not yet skied at Magic, you can't really say that magic being shoestring and non corporate is to blame, chairs falling off, while totally unsafe and scary, is not unheard of. For example Camelback is one of the most corporate places around, you may recall they had a loaded chair fall off last year after the lift was bouncing severely in that spot all day, right in front of the unload terminal. Camelback had a different loaded chair falling off incident just several years ago as well, and I think Blue had an unloaded chair fall off a few years ago also. I also recall hearing about an unloaded chair swinging in the wind hitting, a tower, and falling off recently as well not sure where that was.

The unloaded chairs have far less mass keeping them vertical than a loaded chair, even with just 1 person it, so from the sound of it, yes reckless and awful for the mechanical components of the lift, but were the loaded chairs really in severe danger of hitting the towers (I don't know this is a genuine question)?

I was there. 25 feet before tower 19. Over the steep ledge. With the surging, very quickly, about 5 returning chairs started to sway side to side. Chair 1 gave tower 19 a solid hit and popped off the rope. The entire chair looked intact, the rope section looked visually fine once we started moving. I don't think armchair quarterbacking and speculation is needed. The lift inspector does not need to "man up". He is a pro and, along with Pfister and others, will figure out next steps as warranted. I am an engineer and have done forensic work on incidents. It's a calm cool assessment, determination of root causes, and remediation.

There are people on this forum that think a chair falling off the cable is fine.

PAabe said:

but were the loaded chairs really in severe danger of hitting the towers (I don't know this is a genuine question)?

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I didn't see any and was on the lift both days.
on Wed when it started surging they ran it at super low speed to get everyone off of the lift.

today it was almost like they ignored it, slowed it down a little bit and just kept it going.

everyone up top was looking at the chairs swinging around the bull wheel wildly. Patrol included.

Zermatt said:

There are people on this forum that think a chair falling off the cable is fine.

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The odds of me getting killed by somebody highballing it down the ski hill, slipping into a tree, or of me dying in a car accident on the way to the hill are far higher than the odds of my dying falling off a chairlift