Black Mountain, NH OPEN AGAIN more alive than ever

[shawnanigans]

i actually hate entebani systems direct to lift, at least as i've experienced it. you mention the biggest issue - lack of gates. its so stupid to have an employee manually shooting everyone's pass, and i feel like those future looking blue entebani scanners are particularly shitty at scanning.

i really dont mind getting a lift ticket for my indy days. i dont expect the entire indy ecosystem to unite on a single rfid pass.

I didn't realize they were using manual scan guns at Black, I assumed they had their own version of the Access gates or actual Access Gates like a lot of the Indy mountains have had. I am happy to hear that for some resorts you can reload an existing RFID card and go direct to lift such as Cannon which was not the case a couple seasons back. I am basing my frustrations off of the last time I was on Indy which was the 23/24 season, but I will withhold judgement and see how things go next season when I am back on Indy. I just hate wasting time dealing with ticket windows when the technology should exist to go direct to lift.

But it does seem like a case of nickel and diming. Somebody mentioned that unlike the cost of the Inday Pass, Indy keeps the whole $10 for their RFID card as opposed to having to share it with mountains based on the redemption formula. Then obviously each specific mountain keeps the full $5 for their RFID. Ok now I'm done complaining about this issue, it's still a great deal and I am excited to get back to some of my favorite Indy mountains next year.

 

[urungus]

i dont expect the entire indy ecosystem to unite on a single rfid pass.

Me neither and they don’t have to - Magic and Cannon both already allow you to redeem your Indy pass online, directly to one of their RFID cards, and go straight to lift. Why can’t Black do this, it boggles the mind.

 

[jimmywilson69]

This has been a very interesting evolution with this pass, this mountain, and Erik.

Wish him the best. Interesting thst he had aold a bunch of the shares already...

 

[KustyTheKlown]

Saddleback has gates, don't they?

It may be that resorts can choose between gates and scan guns; the latter are much cheaper from an equipment perspective but probably increase your staffing needs dramatically, assuming you actually want to scan every person.

Saddlebacks gates have fuck all to do with your Indy card. The Indy card is a token mainly to appease children and dorks who hated having a pass without having a piece of plastic

The saddleback gates open for saddleback cards. You buy one once for $5 and your Indy redemptions get loaded on

I am pretty sure that any place that the Indy is direct to lift uses the entebani system. Blue handheld scanners

 

[shawnanigans]

Saddlebacks gates have fuck all to do with your Indy card. The Indy card is a token mainly to appease children and dorks who hated having a pass without having a piece of plastic

What does Killington's gates have to do with Ikon? Works for Killington card and for Ikon. Why can't Indy work the same way?

 

[KustyTheKlown]

What does Killington's gates have to do with Ikon? Works for Killington card and for Ikon. Why can't Indy work the same way?

because indy resorts are INDEPENDENT and there are over 100 of them. they need to coordinate a much larger group of destinations, and indy has a lot less $ to throw around than alterra and vail do, and the partner resorts have a lot less dollars to throw around than the killingtons and tellurides do.

 

[kbroderick]

Saddlebacks gates have fuck all to do with your Indy card. The Indy card is a token mainly to appease children and dorks who hated having a pass without having a piece of plastic

The saddleback gates open for saddleback cards. You buy one once for $5 and your Indy redemptions get loaded on

I am pretty sure that any place that the Indy is direct to lift uses the entebani system. Blue handheld scanners

Does Saddleback not run Entabeni? I was under the impression they did, but my data is a few years old at this point.

 

[KustyTheKlown]

Does Saddleback not run Entabeni? I was under the impression they did, but my data is a few years old at this point.

black mountain nh (this thread lol) is the home base of indy and entebani, even more so based on the events we are discussing this morning - erik pivoting off of co-op and buying the place himself. saddleback as far as i know is a fully independent operator and arent involved with entebani.

 

[chuckstah]

Does Saddleback not run Entabeni? I was under the impression they did, but my data is a few years old at this point.

I'm not sure if it's Entabeni, but I assume it is as you can go straight to the lift as of this season. Black should be able to figure it out for straight to lifts.

 

[KustyTheKlown]

what? i went to saddleback and i absolutely had to redeem my indy onto my saddleback card. i find it very hard to believe that that indy card will open the saddleback gate.

 

[kbroderick]

black mountain nh (this thread lol) is the home base of indy and entebani, even more so based on the events we are discussing this morning - erik pivoting off of co-op and buying the place himself. saddleback as far as i know is a fully independent operator and arent involved with entebani.

Sorry, I see that phrasing wasn't clear—I believe that Saddleback uses the Entabeni system for point-of-sale and access control, and when I went there a couple of years ago, I distinctly remember RFID gates (and actually being impressed that the gates read my Saddleback RFID card with far less dancing than the gates at Sunday River usually require for my pass). Anyhow, my point was that it would appear that Entabeni can support both gates and hand scanners, so someone (presumably at the resort) is making a decision about whether to use the high-capital-cost gates versus the high-personnel-cost guns.

 

[KustyTheKlown]

i hear you. saddleback uses gates but if the indy card opens those gates i would be shocked.

my understanding of entebani is that they use blue handheld scanners that you see at magic, that ive seen at powder mountain, that i saw at black

 

[Edd]

I used Indy at Saddleback last year and you needed a proper Saddleback RFID card.

 

[chuckstah]

what? i went to saddleback and i absolutely had to redeem my indy onto my saddleback card. i find it very hard to believe that that indy card will open the saddleback gate.

Saddleback card. Straight to lifts. Not Indy card

 

[machski]

Sorry, I see that phrasing wasn't clear—I believe that Saddleback uses the Entabeni system for point-of-sale and access control, and when I went there a couple of years ago, I distinctly remember RFID gates (and actually being impressed that the gates read my Saddleback RFID card with far less dancing than the gates at Sunday River usually require for my pass). Anyhow, my point was that it would appear that Entabeni can support both gates and hand scanners, so someone (presumably at the resort) is making a decision about whether to use the high-capital-cost gates versus the high-personnel-cost guns.

No, Saddleback most definitely does not use Entabeni for POS. Their online store and platform is identical to Boyne's, right down to their customer contact email system. Somehow they tied their system into the Indy pass system. Works seamlessly. Cannon is Entabeni, their online system works seamlessly too to use Indy days. However, they use a hand held scanner for their RFID where as Saddleback uses gates (single side gates vs Boyne's double sided. I think those single sided ones work better than Boyne's, same experience at Pats and Tenney).

 

[urungus]

Saddleback card. Straight to lifts. Not Indy card

Yup, as of this season. So Magic, Cannon, Saddleback you can go straight to lift (with local mountain card), are there any others ?

Indy Pass – SaddlebackMaine.com

Indy Pass Lodging Offers

www.saddlebackmaine.com

 

[machski]

In terms of Black now, this could be a huge win for the small, independent areas. Part of his laboratory idea has to be how to replace old, outdated lifts at a reasonable price for small areas. On one hand, you have the Pat's Peak model that buys good, low(ish) time used lifts and either reuses all of or parts with new components to construct their own(ish) new lifts. The Hurricane Quad is a perfect example.

The only problem with Pat's model is there are so many existing lifts to do this with, and that pool is limited by the likes of Vail and others that scrap their old lifts for fear or liability they sell old lifts off. So I have a feeling part of this lab of Eric's will be coming up with a third lift manufacturer operation and getting independent areas to sign on and commit. Could this mean the revival of Partek? Possibly, as Shultz has indicated if multiple small operators could commit, he would consider restarting lift manufacturing.

 

[jaytrem]

I was surprised how many Partek carriers there were on older lifts during my recent midwest trip. Those things seem to be everywhere. My brother-in-law used to live next door to them in Pine island. I remember him saying one of his friends was making more money than ever as a salesman for them. I think it could be a good business for somebody.

Side story, he also borrowed their crane once to "steal" a hottub.

 

[AdironRider]

In terms of Black now, this could be a huge win for the small, independent areas. Part of his laboratory idea has to be how to replace old, outdated lifts at a reasonable price for small areas. On one hand, you have the Pat's Peak model that buys good, low(ish) time used lifts and either reuses all of or parts with new components to construct their own(ish) new lifts. The Hurricane Quad is a perfect example.

The only problem with Pat's model is there are so many existing lifts to do this with, and that pool is limited by the likes of Vail and others that scrap their old lifts for fear or liability they sell old lifts off. So I have a feeling part of this lab of Eric's will be coming up with a third lift manufacturer operation and getting independent areas to sign on and commit. Could this mean the revival of Partek? Possibly, as Shultz has indicated if multiple small operators could commit, he would consider restarting lift manufacturing.

This company already exists ... Skytrac