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Waterville Valley Lift Issues

benski

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thetrailboss

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I am going to guess all these lift issues this season have some common cause that has led to Dopplemeyr and Lietner-Poma doing everything late.

Being...what?

They have Green, Sunnyside, and the new T-Bar down. Looks like Green is running now. Sunnyside doesn't even have chairs on it (!)
 

benski

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Being...what?

They have Green, Sunnyside, and the new T-Bar down. Looks like Green is running now. Sunnyside doesn't even have chairs on it (!)

No idea. Its been a really bad year for chair lift work, so I assume there is a common issue since it seams every project took way to long to finish. Then there are a bunch of lifts having major issues.
 
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One word......Age

It's only going to get worse before it gets better.

Read somewhere (Ropeways or Liftblog) about lift issues just being the tip of a large growing iceberg of issues related to the aging infrastructure.
 

thetrailboss

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One word......Age

It's only going to get worse before it gets better.

Read somewhere (Ropeways or Liftblog) about lift issues just being the tip of a large growing iceberg of issues related to the aging infrastructure.

Interesting. Liftblog linked to one of WV's Twitter posts stating that the Government Shutdown was the cause of these two lifts not opening. They said that NFS personnel were needed to inspect them. A lot of commenters were ripshit.
 

sull1102

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Jesus. What a shit show at my beloved WV! Sunnyside is almost 50 years old at this point so can't really blame anyone but ownership. The T-Bar won't be ready to go until the 14th at best and you figure after that they'll spin it for what 4-5 weeks before it closes for end of year... Good job guys. Green Peak going down is just a classic case of "ya hate to see it" after they downgraded that install from a new detach to the world's slowest triple. I just cannot stand this ownership group. Wait until White Peaks starts having fits due to age, it's creeping past 30 years old and one of the oldest detach lifts in the region.

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canobie#1

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Similar to Attitash, WV doesn't upgrade in time.

Sunnyside,White Caps and Green Peak are all gonna need to be replaced sooner than later. The fact that they didn't put a detachable in for Green is just gonna come back to bite them in the ass (looks like its already starting)
 

IceEidolon

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Didn't WV go with MND for their new lift?

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machski

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Didn't WV go with MND for their new lift?

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If you are talking the T-Bar, it's an LST if I recall correctly.

As to management lift decisions, the current management inherited the Green Triple from the previous management who cheapped out to get Green going and then sell. WV's biggest problem in my opinion is lack of terrain. Green helps, but they still can't grow too much variety. The current management has made some decent improvements I think (Lodge especially), but the lift infrastructure is going to need some big investments soon. Same goes with a lot of New England.

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Jully

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If you are talking the T-Bar, it's an LST if I recall correctly.

As to management lift decisions, the current management inherited the Green Triple from the previous management who cheapped out to get Green going and then sell. WV's biggest problem in my opinion is lack of terrain. Green helps, but they still can't grow too much variety. The current management has made some decent improvements I think (Lodge especially), but the lift infrastructure is going to need some big investments soon. Same goes with a lot of New England.

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If WV could ever expand onto Tecumseh, it'd rival Cannon for the best skiing 2 hours from Boston. Top 3 in NH. I think the USFS has basically said no permanently to that though so they're stuck going towards Green.

WV reminds me a lot of Attitash actually. Lift issues, crowd issues due to the mountain layout (80% of people ski White Peaks), and they groom EVERYTHING. While the Attitash terrain is a bit steeper and more engaging, the WV trails are not Okemo/Snow/Stratton IMO (which actually hurts them with family appeal I think). They could be cool bumped up, especially Sunnyside.
 

machski

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If WV could ever expand onto Tecumseh, it'd rival Cannon for the best skiing 2 hours from Boston. Top 3 in NH. I think the USFS has basically said no permanently to that though so they're stuck going towards Green.

WV reminds me a lot of Attitash actually. Lift issues, crowd issues due to the mountain layout (80% of people ski White Peaks), and they groom EVERYTHING. While the Attitash terrain is a bit steeper and more engaging, the WV trails are not Okemo/Snow/Stratton IMO (which actually hurts them with family appeal I think). They could be cool bumped up, especially Sunnyside.
They need to do the Village to top of Green expansion they have plans for. Would add a bunch of blue and green plus link the lodging to the hill. But that is a lot of $$ and a lot of lower elevation terrain to have to cover with snowmaking

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Smellytele

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They need to do the Village to top of Green expansion they have plans for. Would add a bunch of blue and green plus link the lodging to the hill. But that is a lot of $$ and a lot of lower elevation terrain to have to cover with snowmaking

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Thought the plan was just a gondola from the village up to the lodge.
 

Jully

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Thought the plan was just a gondola from the village up to the lodge.

Basically. It's a dozen-ish trail terrain pod of lower intermediate terrain with a new lodge at the bottom and a gondola from the down square. Would be a game changer for families. With Loon going upscale I bet there's a market too (as much as the word market and skiing can be used together).

Agreed with Machski's concerns though.
 

benski

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I think people overstate the importance of replacing lifts after 30 years. These devices cost millions of dollars, and are mostly non moving parts. A thirty year old lift should not have any problems replacing the drive terminal, sheave wheels and return terminal cannot fix, and I am not sure you even need to do all that for a lift to run like new, and work very well into its 50's like Sugarbush's Valley House.
 

Jully

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I think people overstate the importance of replacing lifts after 30 years. These devices cost millions of dollars, and are mostly non moving parts. A thirty year old lift should not have any problems replacing the drive terminal, sheave wheels and return terminal cannot fix, and I am not sure you even need to do all that for a lift to run like new, and work very well into its 50's like Sugarbush's Valley House.

I'm not a lift engineer (so apologies if this is insulting/dumb) but it seems like that theory is harder to apply to detach lifts. I agree with you for fixed grips, but the older detach chairs I see are really struggling these days even after resorts spend millions replacing the guts. I'm maybe biased because of Barker at Sunday River though...
 

benski

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I'm not a lift engineer (so apologies if this is insulting/dumb) but it seems like that theory is harder to apply to detach lifts. I agree with you for fixed grips, but the older detach chairs I see are really struggling these days even after resorts spend millions replacing the guts. I'm maybe biased because of Barker at Sunday River though...

I have seen that too. I am not sure why they look much worse than old fixed grip chairs. Greek peek recently bought an old tipple from Wyndham and seams to have a lot of chairs and towers, buy no drive terminal. They lost some terrain to store them so the parts must be useful.
 

xlr8r

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Green Peak should have been a detach quad from the start. Reusing the world cup triple on new prime intermediate terrain showed that ownership was broke. What the world cup triple should have been used for is to replace the northside and high country doubles with a single lift in a new alignment and hopefully cut a couple new trails from the summit down into the northside ravine.

And white peaks is going to need to be replaced soon. That quad is roughly 30 years old and has a lot of hours being the main lift on the mountain. A bubble six would be a perfect replacement.
 

machski

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I'm not a lift engineer (so apologies if this is insulting/dumb) but it seems like that theory is harder to apply to detach lifts. I agree with you for fixed grips, but the older detach chairs I see are really struggling these days even after resorts spend millions replacing the guts. I'm maybe biased because of Barker at Sunday River though...
Well, Barker along with Superstar/Snowshed/Both Pico's and Grand Summit are Poma converted Yans, so tough to compare them against any other aging HSQ. But both Poma and Dopp have made huge changes to the grip sets and cadence systems in the current lineups vs their legacy equipment, and it's not cheap to just change out.

As to just "upgrading" FG lifts, sure you can replace the drive and return terminals and maybe change out the sheave sets (depends on the cross arm design), but as the foundation pour type that Spruce at SR showed, it may be prudent to replace towers for new footings. Replacing the drive and return terminals is probably 2/3 the cost of a totally new lift. Also remember, most of the towers are well beyond any type of manufacturer liability limits, so the resort shoulders all of that if they don't do all totally new. Not cheap insurance wise, probably more cost effective to just do all new.

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sull1102

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Green Peak should have been a detach quad from the start. Reusing the world cup triple on new prime intermediate terrain showed that ownership was broke. What the world cup triple should have been used for is to replace the northside and high country doubles with a single lift in a new alignment and hopefully cut a couple new trails from the summit down into the northside ravine.

And white peaks is going to need to be replaced soon. That quad is roughly 30 years old and has a lot of hours being the main lift on the mountain. A bubble six would be a perfect replacement.

Completely agree with everything you said here. World Cup Triple to that shoulder alignment replacing Northside and High Country would have changed the mountain in a very major way. White Peaks is aging quickly, it was one of the very early detach lifts so tech wise things have changed a little bit. It is also run pretty much any day the resort is open even going back to years past when they would open with just HC and run downloading on White Peaks.
 
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