The NEW Magic Mountain

New Alpine Update. https://magicmtn.com/alpine-update/

Progress on the deck, line work on Black, pond needs an inspection but they hope to be making snow by Thanksgiving. Red apparently needs a plate welded under each chair. They're sticking to a December opening date.

IceEidolon said:

New Alpine Update. https://magicmtn.com/alpine-update/

Progress on the deck, line work on Black, pond needs an inspection but they hope to be making snow by Thanksgiving. Red apparently needs a plate welded under each chair. They're sticking to a December opening date.

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“complete this Quad lift for passengers at some point [this] season if all goes well”

Each chair...that is a lot cutting and welding... has to be frustrating. Either it's a known issue that's come to head or the inspector got a hair across their ass to drop this on them in November.

Given Magic’s track record and their lack of an ops manager, it is not a good sign they currently do not have red or black close to operational.

The reality is that the black quad will NOT carry passengers in the 22-23 season. There was a veiled reference to testing the rope in today's update that is just warming you up for a future faux surprise announcement that the rope has failed testing. While the failure will be true, the fact is that when the installation was approved the current rope was conditionally approved for a limited time to help give Magic a chance to get the chair installed & running quickly (ha!). That time has passed, and that haul rope will never carry a paying customer up magic mountain. A new haul rope will need to be ordered and installed before that chair has a chance in hell of getting certified to carry passengers.

Given Magic's history of dragging projects on forever, needing 150+ chairs welded in the next month on the red double doesn't even seem close to possible. I doubt that chair will come online until after xmas - if nothing goes sideways.

We're nearly halfway thru november, and they don't even have a snowmaking pond, and if they did they don't even have the line tied in to pump water up to the pit for snowmaking. Scary.

It also sounds like the 4 month deck installation make take another month or two. You can't make this stuff up. Looks like it will be pretty amazing once it actually gets finished.

Jeezus. A month ago, I was thinking that with a little luck this might be the year that it all comes together at magic. The way things look today, they'll be lucky if they can offer summit skiing in 2022.

Newpylong said:

Each chair...that is a lot cutting and welding... has to be frustrating. Either it's a known issue that's come to head or the inspector got a hair across their ass to drop this on them in November.

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From what I understand it was a new issue but known at least a couple of months ago, not just this month. There were questions about how necessary the repairs are…..

It’s not a complicated fix but it is time consuming, what with 170+ chairs. But from what I understand you can run the lift without having all 170 fixed and hung. So I think predictions of Red not running until after Christmas are bit extremist.

AdironRider said:

Given Magic’s track record and their lack of an ops manager, it is not a good sign they currently do not have red or black close to operational.

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They were without an “ops manager” for only a few weeks. And the former one was still on site and on payroll. New mountain ops manager was at Stratton for 20+ years. Plenty of time to get Red work done. Black, too many unknown unknowns……

slatham said:

This was known at least a couple of months ago.

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that's interesting. they knew it was a problem but couldn't get someone to inspect it and give it the thumbs up or down any earlier?

4 chairs a day seems reasonable though. if they can get the peices

NYDB said:

that's interesting. they knew it was a problem but couldn't get someone to inspect it and give it the thumbs up or down any earlier?

4 chairs a day seems reasonable though. if they can get the peices

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No I believe they found out about it from the inspector him/herself, or at least had it confirmed by an inspector that they needed the work, a month or so ago. With welding on Black done I would imagine the welding on Red is top priority now.

Unfortunately these types of surprises are par for the course with old lifts.

hughconway said:

The reality is that the black quad will NOT carry passengers in the 22-23 season. There was a veiled reference to testing the rope in today's update that is just warming you up for a future faux surprise announcement that the rope has failed testing. While the failure will be true, the fact is that when the installation was approved the current rope was conditionally approved for a limited time to help give Magic a chance to get the chair installed & running quickly (ha!). That time has passed, and that haul rope will never carry a paying customer up magic mountain. A new haul rope will need to be ordered and installed before that chair has a chance in hell of getting certified to carry passengers.

Given Magic's history of dragging projects on forever, needing 150+ chairs welded in the next month on the red double doesn't even seem close to possible. I doubt that chair will come online until after xmas - if nothing goes sideways.

We're nearly halfway thru november, and they don't even have a snowmaking pond, and if they did they don't even have the line tied in to pump water up to the pit for snowmaking. Scary.

It also sounds like the 4 month deck installation make take another month or two. You can't make this stuff up. Looks like it will be pretty amazing once it actually gets finished.

Jeezus. A month ago, I was thinking that with a little luck this might be the year that it all comes together at magic. The way things look today, they'll be lucky if they can offer summit skiing in 2022.

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Could be but I've never heard of a conditional approval to keep operating a rope...it either fails NDT (due to stretch, damage, etc) or it doesn't. Not one of those items you can receive an exception on such as delaying a 7 year load test.

That said, operators typically know a rope only has x amount of hours left before it fails NDT and preemptively replace.Considering the lift hasn't even been put under load yet I find it hard to believe that the rope is any worse off than when the Tramway board approved final construction.

I'd wager on operating at least one season if it is indeed nearing end of life. It would have been foolish to go through the trouble of pulling the rope, splicing it, and putting the chairs on if failure was imminent 2 years ago.

Wasn't the Red haul rope replacement unplanned? I sure hope this is finally the year, but I don't know that the optimistic viewpoint has ever once turned out to happen in the whole long saga.

As much as I truly hope that Magic gets everything taken care of and operational before say Christmas, as it truly is a special place that I sincerely hopes thrives. Objectively you have to say that over the last 4-5yrs often they are guilty of over promoting and underdelivering vs meeting stated goals. And that has absolutely NOTHING to do with the incredibly hard working, talented crew Geoff has there.

If potentially you are looking at a good chunk of the season where potentially the Red isn't running and the Black still may not be operational, selling "take the green to sunset corner and grab a drink" is only going to go so far.

The Hugh Conway view of things Magic, often over the last few years has (unfortunately) ended up more right than wrong. Even Magic's most diehard cheerleaders have to acknowledge that

Just a “flash-back” reading the “Magic” thread.
I really, really dug Magic in ‘78 & ‘79…boarding ski prep school days only 30 mins down the road…up at 5:30…out of class at 11:45, loaded the bus by 12:30 everyday, on Hill by 1:00. Ya, we had Saturday classes too. $3-$4 tiks till closing…the woods were filled with that smell…Bromley was a Great time too, every other day, as well.
Those days forever embraced in heart & soul.
FreeSki everything, glad I dumped racing (Ski Coach was asst. Football, x2 capt here, can still F’off)

drjeff said:

As much as I truly hope that Magic gets everything taken care of and operational before say Christmas, as it truly is a special place that I sincerely hopes thrives. Objectively you have to say that over the last 4-5yrs often they are guilty of over promoting and underdelivering vs meeting stated goals. And that has absolutely NOTHING to do with the incredibly hard working, talented crew Geoff has there.

If potentially you are looking at a good chunk of the season where potentially the Red isn't running and the Black still may not be operational, selling "take the green to sunset corner and grab a drink" is only going to go so far.

The Hugh Conway view of things Magic, often over the last few years has (unfortunately) ended up more right than wrong. Even Magic's most diehard cheerleaders have to acknowledge that

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I'm hoping lessons have been learned in regards to project duration and contractor/parts availability going forward and more appropriate timetables for major capital projects are released.

Here's the rub: that said, despite all of the delays and spoiled milk, all of these items (when finally complete) no question make Magic a better place. It's better than NELSAP and it's better than how things were (ie 1.5 operable lifts and a broken snowmaking system etc). So I guess pick your poison at this point...people are human and make mistakes.

Keelhauled said:

Wasn't the Red haul rope replacement unplanned? I sure hope this is finally the year, but I don't know that the optimistic viewpoint has ever once turned out to happen in the whole long saga

hughconway said:

An interesting kool aid induced defensive position, but if that were reality why would a cash strapped small business be spending $1-2 million purchasing & installing what you are calling an unnecessary and redundant lift?

(Hint: Another summit chair increases uphill capacity and overall reliability. I tried going to Magic on NYE 6-7 years ago, and the red chair was broken so there was no skiing. Also, iirc the rope on the red chair is at or very near the end of it's life and needs to be replaced.)

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See my post from 2020 mentioning that the red double haul rope was known to be at the end of its life long before magicment pretended to be 'surprised' by it last fall.

I'm suggesting that the usability of the haul rope on the black quad (remember, it was in use for >20 years at stratton, before being spooled, stored for a couple of years, and spliced twice last year!) will also be presented as a 'surprise' even though it is a known issue to those involved in the redesign and reinstall.

Pond inspection done, spillway was closed today. Pond will start filling sometime this week.

slatham said:

Pond inspection done, spillway was closed today. Pond will start filling sometime this week.

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Link to Facebook video of them covering it.

So Hugh was right about the haul rope. Except that they already ordered a new one and it is on site.

NYDB said:

So Hugh was right about the haul rope. Except that they already ordered a new one and it is on site.

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November 18 Quick Update

Is it Friday the 13th, rather than the 18th? Anyway, two bits of news today which are less than desirable:

1. We have a slight delay with state giving final approval to fill snowmaking pond beyond the low level of water currently there as the earthen dam structure with the road on top has not been completely finished due to this week's weather, therefore Hunter will continue work on that so we can obtain final dam approval next week. This does mean we have to delay start of snowmaking until mid next week.

2. The state tramway authority has told us that they will not pass the current haul rope for the new-to-us Quad. Fortunately, we did order a new haul rope last summer just for this possibility. The new rope is here on site and now we will schedule Pfister to take off the old and put on the new. Chairs will all have to come off the line once final tower alignment is complete. This will add considerbale time to the Quad's completion. Once we settle on a timeline with Pfister Mountain Services, we will let every one know.

On the good news side, we've made a lot of progress this week on the new super deck and we picked up about 4-5" this week across the mountain, and we are still on track for our 12/15 opening day despite this delay on snowmaking start-up. Also, we are making progress on welding work for all of 177 chairs on Red to shore up the framing under the seats.

Wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving week and the Tavern will be open as scheduled next Friday with a band next Saturday.

I owe Hugh a tip of my hat on that one.

Having seen a picture of them welding the supports on the Red Chair, I feel a lot more confident that job is not as big as I feared and will be ready for when they can actually put snow on the hill. I was concerned plates must be cut out to cover the entirety of the bottom of the carriers. That would have added considerable time to the process, though it is still very time consuming.