The NEW Magic Mountain

Give the people a break, see how the situation turns out. As stated if the current group was not operating the hill it would be NELSAP. Plenty of areas operating on a shoestring budget with lifts just as old, at least they have a backup being installed which can't be said for many areas that are unfortunately probably gone when their lifts eventually kick the bucket

50 million is not a lot of money in 2021. Especially when running a massive infrastructure such as a ski mountain across a dozen investors.

and Again I’m talking about access to capital. So that when two Of your three decades old lifts aren’t running and you can’t open the mountain for summit skiing one season you can call dopplemeyer and say I need to lifts stat !

this is not a corner deli. Employees, the town, the homeowners and the restaraunts etc are all dependent on having a viable and dependable major business to be functional.

i was really hoping that this group would finally be the one to put all magics troubles in the past. It seems like just a continuation of the same thing we’ve been dealing with for 25 years.

I’ve been giving them a break for 25 years.

Im done.

I'd ballpark $5m to get a brand new quad on black line, versus at the time estimated $1.75m and actual $2.5m to put up Black as they're doing it.

The other capital has to go into snowmaking, the main lodge, summer facilities, etc. Given that Magic wasn't bought by Perfect North and $10m isn't being spent in the first year, I can absolutely see why saving $3m now is more important than paying more for an overhaul ten or twenty years down the line.

I am also in the camp that the lift should not have been running at that time. However, the notion that Red and any other old lift need to be replaced and are “unsafe” is untrue. It is mostly an electrics issue and has nothing to do with the structural integrity of the lift. A 50 year old lift is not rare in the east. Sun and East Meadow at Bromley were built in 1974; Plaza at Bromley was built in 1965, Tamarack at Stratton was built in 1976. All of the doubles at Smugglers Notch were built in the 60s and 70s. I learned to ski on a double chair built in 1966 that is still running strong. This is completely ignoring the Midwest, who’s lift fleets are made up largely of 50 year old Hall and Borvig lifts, many of which are maintained worse than Red. I understand that some may have irrational fears concerning old lifts, I have many irrational fears myself. I’m still wary of trams after the Stresa-Mottarone accident in Italy last summer. But Magic is not an irresponsible mountain for not catering to your irrational fears, and Red is not a “dangerous” lift because of this accident. They are already stuck penny pinching to get Black installed, the last thing they need is to dig themselves in an unnecessary hole with a Red replacement.

And all their time is almost up. like I said I’m sure owners even of the well maintained antique lifts have sleepless nights wondering when disaster will strike and take the whole mountain down with it.

Like a bridge it all works fine until it collapses and most of the time you don’t even know that the underlying structural stresses etc are occurring until it’s too late. There is a reason the well capitalized mountains have replaces 99% of their aging lifts. And that is LIABILITY

my life is not worth a cheap pass. YMMV

a bit off-topic but wondering about "that tower on the Black" that folks are discussing, am reading a crane is necessary for the install. is a tower needing to be stood up, or sheave trains installed? tx.

Old man of the mountain said:

There is a reason the well capitalized mountains have replaces 99% of their aging lifts.

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Yeah, It generates marketing buzz, sells passes and brings people to the mountains because they're attracted to fancy new detachable lifts.

Old man of the mountain said:

I have heard that they will oversee a reinstall if it’s in conjunction with a replacement/ new lift elsewhere on site.

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So you think that Magic's current owners should have had Dopp do what exactly? Install a brand new lift to replace Red just so they could get them to do the Black reinstall?

Old man of the mountain said:

And btw I’ve been on older lifts in the area that were properly maintained. And even then I never felt totally safe.

I don’t go on them any longer. There is no reason to when most lifts of a Certain age have been replaced by now.

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I've ridden many older fixed grip lifts and can't ever recall feeling unsafe. A lot of older lifts were also replaced over the years for capacity reasons, not necessarily simply because they were "old".

Old man of the mountain said:

And all their time is almost up. like I said I’m sure owners even of the well maintained antique lifts have sleepless nights wondering when disaster will strike and take the whole mountain down with it.

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I somehow doubt that. Do they have a plan for replacement or rebuilding in mind? I'm sure they do. But if the owners were genuinely losing sleep over the age of their lifts, then they'd already be acting on those plans.

I wouldn't at all be surprised to see over 100 lifts in the US that are 50+ years old. There's over 30 in New England alone (and that doesn't include ones that were moved and reinstalled as a used lift). Old lifts are not uncommon at all. I'd be more worried about areas with 30 year old detachable lifts than I would be about 50 year old fixed grips.

Look...no one here is defending Magic in this latest issue. I'm sure we'd all love a detailed explanation on exactly what happened. It very much from what has been said sounds like a rather significant operator error in not stopping/slowing the lift when it started surging as someone else already mentioned. If the lift had been slowed/stopped when it started surging, we wouldn't be having these discussions about how "unsafe" it is. We'd simply be having a discussion on the drive needing more tuning and tweaking. There's a lot of decisions that are easy to look back on in hindsight and say there were better ways, but the simple fact is that NO ONE could have predicted ALL the issues they ran into.

And keeps their clientele safe and saves them from massive lawsuits resulting in their bankrupsty

would you fly on a 50 year old commercial jet with questionable or unknown maintenance record ?

people like to keep themselves and their family safe..

most mountains have at least one lift as an option to the top for those who don’t have a death wish.

Ya know what I think ? I think you shouldn’t buy a ski mountain if you can’t maintain it properly and upgrade it when necessary.

that’s what I think.

somebody could have died yesterday and that is directly tied to the fact that the shaft/drive issue was not detected except by accident. And then was subsequently rushed into use TWICE in two days before almost ending in disaster.

if they had newer well maintained option to the top that never would have happened.

if you cannot maintain a safe and dependable ski operation don’t get into the business.

Old man of the mountain said:

would you fly on a 50 year old commercial jet with questionable or unknown maintenance record ?

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No, but airline safety is heavily regulated as is lift safety in VT and most other areas. I feel fine flying just as I do riding Red (when it's not surging and bouncing chairs)

Old man of the mountain said:

would you fly on a 50 year old commercial jet with questionable or unknown maintenance record ?

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I don't know what the age of commercial jets has to do with the age of fixed grip lifts. These are two VASTLY different things with different life expectancies.

Personally I don't even like flying on a 1 year old commercial jet.

I have no concerns about the safety of the red chair. The issue yesterday was directly a result of improper operation. The surging from the new drive was not unexpected. The failure to recognize and address that problem promptly is what led to the failure. That is why I am frustrated and concerned.

The idea of spending 50$ million on magic is a great way to lose at least 35$ million.

The surging has a direct link back to maintenance or lack there of because it wasn’t noticed if not for the haul rope emergency replacement which also wasn’t noticed till the last minute causing them to scramble to get it running for the holiday!

none of this would have happened if

A. They had a reliable second lift to the summit

B. The red lift was properly maintained and inspected constantly as any 52 year lift should be on a constant basis.

again don’t buy a ski mountain if you don’t have a substantial amount of capital to throw at the inevitable emergencies that arise

I’m not saying invest 50 million in one fell swoop. I’m say have it on hand or access to it.

otherwise open up a restaraunt..

Old man of the mountain said:

The surging has a direct link back to maintenance or lack there of because it wasn’t noticed if not for the haul rope emergency replacement which also wasn’t noticed till the last minute causing them to scramble to get it running for the holiday!

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It is a NEW drive. How exactly were they supposed to notice that prior to the install? You're worse than Hugh Conway...

Theres no question whether Red should’ve stopped running or not. You could see the chairs swinging from the parking lot yet they continued to run for a good amount of time before shutting down. The question is whether the order to keep it going was an in the moment operator call or one from higher up. Hopefully the coming update is transparent in what transpired. Wish I took a video because they were swinging pretty intensely and if I were on the chair I would have been worried for my safety (not an engineer so maybe it wasn’t as dangerous as it seemed).

icecoast1 said:

It is a NEW drive. How exactly were they supposed to notice that prior to the install? You're worse than Hugh Conway...

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Maybe he is Hugh, joined yesterday!

Old man of the mountain said:

The surging has a direct link back to maintenance or lack there of because it wasn’t noticed if not for the haul rope emergency replacement which also wasn’t noticed till the last minute causing them to scramble to get it running for the holiday!

none of this would have happened if

A. They had a reliable second lift to the summit

B. The red lift was properly maintained and inspected constantly as any 52 year lift should be on a constant basis.

again don’t buy a ski mountain if you don’t have a substantial amount of capital to throw at the inevitable emergencies that arise

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Surging was directly related to the new drive. The electronics in the drive need to be tuned to the application. The drive senses load, sends appropriate power to the motor. If it’s running too slow, it sends more power. Then if it runs too fast, it sends less. However, if responds too fast, slow, or ramps up/down power too much, you get surging. Basic undergrad engineering. These things would typically come with a preloaded map that may need to be adjusted when installed.