catskillman
Well-known member
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2009
- Messages
- 1,174
- Points
- 48
Welcome to AlpineZone, the largest online community of skiers and snowboarders in the Northeast!
You may have to REGISTER before you can post. Registering is FREE, gets rid of the majority of advertisements, and lets you participate in giveaways and other AlpineZone events!
My question I guess is what is capacity of a ski area. The lodges are easy to define capacity 25% or 50% of fire code. How do you put a number on the skiing itself? parking? Some % of hourly uphill lift capacity? Or chair lift capacity (number of chairs on the line /2 times chair capacity double, triple, six pack) times a multiplier ???
MikeD
There is a formula used for Comfortable Carrying Capacity (I believe it's called that or similar). Ski resorts often use this figure when creating a master plans to justify the need for trail and lift expansions. I would think that would be the number they would base capacity restrictions off of.My question I guess is what is capacity of a ski area. The lodges are easy to define capacity 25% or 50% of fire code. How do you put a number on the skiing itself? parking? Some % of hourly uphill lift capacity? Or chair lift capacity (number of chairs on the line /2 times chair capacity double, triple, six pack) times a multiplier ???
MikeD
From a social distancing/COVID perspective, I think trail acreage is pretty irrelevant as downhill capacity already assumes people aren't skiing down the trails one on top of the other. In my opinion, what matters most is your "capacity" at "choke points". So how many people can you fit at the base of a lift and still be able to maintain any potential social distancing requirements while they're in line?
Acreage, too. A few years ago, I watched a video of the Peak Resorts CEO talking about this at an investor meeting. The CEO claimed that Mt. Snow was larger than Stratton and Okemo because they were lying about their trail acreage. No idea if he was onto something or blowing smoke, but I thought it was interesting. Because they were acquired by Vail, the investor relations site at Peak has been scrubbed. This was where the presentation used to be:
http://ir.peakresorts.com/Presentations