Hunter this Morning

[dmc]

Kaatskill Flyer Stats:
The Kaatskill Flyer has 84 chairs - the old Quad had 128.
The Flyer moves at 1000' per minute - the Quad was at about 700-800' per minute.
The Flyers chairs weigh 1000 pounds each and are 2/3 less affected by winds.

The Flyer will shuttle the same amount of people to the top of the mountain in one hour's time. No more people on the trails then there was last year. It's faster - 5 1/2 minutes from base to summit vs. almost 7 1/2 on the quad.

 

[kingslug]

comfy too...all it needs is heated seats....

 

[catskills]

The new numbers listed here and in another post don't add up. I am waiting for the official stat numbers from SAM posted on skilifts.org. You can do your own time measurements or time for 1 chair and time from top to bottom.

The capacity is easy to calculate. Measure time for 10 chairs to pass a specific point. Divide by 10 to get time for one chair (TF1C) or time between chairs. Note 3600 seconds in one hour

Capacity per hour = ( 3600 / TF1C ) * 6 People in one chair

Note the time for one chair (TF1C) or time between chairs is never less than 6 seconds. The best capacity for a high speed six pack is 3600 people per hour.

Hunter's old Snowlite express high speed quad stats on skilifts.org:

Manufacturer = Poma
Horse Power= 810
Length= 5485 feet
Vertical= 1471 feet
Capacity= 3000 per hour
Speed= 1000 feet per minute

Note there are a number of high speed quads listed with a capacity of 3000 people per hour. This means each chair is loaded in less than 5 seconds. That is really hard to do without having to stop the lift frequently. Many states like NY have laws on time between chairs. When I measured the snowlite express last year I got 6 seconds between chairs which means the capacity last year was 2400 people per hour.

 

[dmc]

I could trust skilift.org or I could use the numbers that Hunter posted..

 

[180]

9 seconds between chairs

 

[x10003q]

The Hunter Mtn Life magazine has an article about the 6 pack on page 31. It is stated within the article that the new lift carries 2600 riders an hour, an increase of 200 riders/hour over the quad.

 

[millerm277]

The Hunter Mtn Life magazine has an article about the 6 pack on page 31. It is stated within the article that the new lift carries 2600 riders an hour, an increase of 200 riders/hour over the quad.

Assuming that's correct and not a typo, that's a less than 10% increase, not going to make a big difference anywhere.

 

[catskills]

9 seconds between chairs

Cool so 9 seconds between chairs is:

Capacity per hour = (3600 seconds / 9 seonds ) * 6 people per chair

Capacity per hour = 2400 people per hour exiting the chair lift at the top of the mountain

They could easily increase the speed over the weekend to bring it up to a capacity of 2600 per hour as mentioned in another post. No big deal either way.

The good news here is that 9 seconds between chairs is a very long time, which means there should be a lot of time to load and exit the chair lift without requiring the lifties to stop/start the lift. :-D Less chair lift stops and starts means less wear and tear / maintenance on the chair lift.

 

[dmc]

Assuming that's correct and not a typo, that's a less than 10% increase, not going to make a big difference anywhere.

It may be a noticeable on busy holiday weekend.. But I don't go out much on those weekends anyway.. Not nearly as bad as our friend in the other valley claims/hopes it will be...

 

[millerm277]

On a related note, I just spotted this on the Hunter Facebook. "The quad on the West Side will be a detachable quad.". Assuming they didn't misspeak, that's interesting....

 

[180]

Hunter does not want to increase capacity. They know they are "full" already at the summit.

West Side is going to be detachable. Turned out to be too expensive to retrofit.

 

[millerm277]

West Side is going to be detachable. Turned out to be too expensive to retrofit.

Are they going to cut down the capacity of the lift, or remove Z?

Also, I don't think I've ever seen Hunter running the snowmaking this hard in December, the snow report today made me :-D. I'm pretty surprised they're already blowing E lift and the Highlands.

 

[oakapple]

I’m considering Hunter on Sunday, but the weather forecast doesn’t look promising: a word that starts with R and rhymes with “stain.”

 

[andrec10]

I’m considering Hunter on Sunday, but the weather forecast doesn’t look promising: a word that starts with R and rhymes with “stain.”

Saturday should be Awesome...Wait never mind stay Home its gonna SUCK!;-);-)

 

[bigbob]

Going back to the video in the beginning of this thread. How do they get white snow from the brown creek water??

 

[millerm277]

Going back to the video in the beginning of this thread. How do they get white snow from the brown creek water??

I'm going to guess they filter the water a bit before pumping it/piping it up the mountain. However, that creek normally isn't brown, that footage is from the flood, hence why you see in the one shot the water running about 2 inches under the roadbed of the bridge.