It's official, a brand new orange 6 pack bubble at Okemo

[slatham]

Plan to open mid December.

 

[spiderpig]

Wonder what happened to those plans to replace the Green Ridge Triple with an HSQ?

Slightly higher capacity. 145 chairs on Northstar to 113 chairs. 580 people vs 678 per one rotation.

Wonder how slowly it will have to go on the windiest days with no tree protection up top.

 

[deadheadskier]

I would think if anything they could run the lift faster than the old one during windy conditions due to the much greater weight of the chair.

 

[wa-loaf]

I would think if anything they could run the lift faster than the old one during windy conditions due to the much greater weight of the chair.

Don't those bubbles act like a great big sail?

 

[spiderpig]

I would think if anything they could run the lift faster than the old one during windy conditions due to the much greater weight of the chair.

Yeah, wouldn't they swing right to left, left to right?

 

[drjeff]

Don't those bubbles act like a great big sail?

With the bubbles down, as they STRONGLY encourage you to do when you load them at Mount Snow in windy conditions, the combo of the rounded shape of the bubbles and their 1400lb unloaded weight has them "flying" through the wind pretty stabily.

I've been on the Bluebird in sustained winds over 30 and in some squalls with gusts over 50, conditions the couldn't safely operate the grand summit express quad in, but the Bluebird will often run in still at full line speed. The sheer mass of a bubble 6 pack chair is your "friend" in the wind, and why I suspect on all but the WINDIEST of days the new lift at Okemo will operate without issue

 

[thetrailboss]

Orange...interesting...so it will probably be like Canyon's bubble:

Poma or Doppelmayr?

 

[WoodCore]

Okemo's bubble will be a Leitner-Poma


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[xlr8r]

Whatever happened to their residential development below South Face, I thought they were gonna build a lift for that this year. Does anyone know if the terrain and lift over there is delayed or is that whole residential project in trouble.

I would rather they replace the Green Ridge triple as this will only make the bottleneck around lower arrow worse. It also would be nice if one of the Base quads was a high speed. It also seems like a reactionary move on Okemo's part with the Bluebird at Mount Snow and the new Gondola cabins at Stratton. Good to have some healthy competition in Southern VT.

 

[Madroch]

Mid December-what will they use for November- hadn't been to okemo in 25 years until this November- had a ball lapping the quad in a rainy day... Was planning on returning early season- bagged 40k on my opening day.. Green ridge triple?

 

[ss20]

I ski Okemo, but I love, ski, and enjoy Mount Snow more. So when they use this in the press release it kinda makes me pissed...

Orange is Hot
Okemo’s new six-passenger bubble chair is a truly one-of-a-kind lift in North America. In addition to a plush ride (think "flying sofa"), each seat is heated, offering a comfortable ride up the mountain on even the coldest of days. Okemo will offer the only chairlift in the Northeast with heated seats. A new heated storage barn will be constructed alongside the base terminal, and the chairs will be removed nightly from the line, keeping them warm and dry during inclement weather. - See more at:

:angry:

 

[ss20]

My serious opinion:

This is kinda strange. Instead of the Jackson Gore Gondola, Green Ridge HSQ, or an upgrade to one of the base area quads, they choose to replace a relatively new HSQ. And I thought Ragged was bad with delaying their new install. Okemo's removing a 6,000 foot lift, installing another 6,000 foot lift, and building a barn in 5 months :???:. Mount Snow started the Bluebird in March and didn't finish till early December.

 

[deadheadskier]

Mid December-what will they use for November- hadn't been to okemo in 25 years until this November- had a ball lapping the quad in a rainy day... Was planning on returning early season- bagged 40k on my opening day.. Green ridge triple?

Sachem and Glades peak Quads would be my guess. I recall some years as a kid where the opening was F-10 Poma to the Sachem Quad and lower World Cup was the route down. That was usually only for a couple days or so until they got Upper World Cup going.

 

[deadheadskier]

My serious opinion:

This is kinda strange. Instead of the Jackson Gore Gondola, Green Ridge HSQ, or an upgrade to one of the base area quads, they choose to replace a relatively new HSQ. And I thought Ragged was bad with delaying their new install. Okemo's removing a 6,000 foot lift, installing another 6,000 foot lift, and building a barn in 5 months :???:. Mount Snow started the Bluebird in March and didn't finish till early December.

Northstar (and Northeast triple prior) has always been the mountain's work horse lift. They replaced the Northeast triple after only 8 years of service. They replaced the Solitude Quad after only 6! I think the choice to replace Northstar as opposed to Green Ridge is probably for a couple of reasons. Satisfying the core customers' biggest complaint; the long ass lift lines on Northstar and the popularity of the terrain that it services over Green Ridge. You've got arguably their best cruising trail off that lift in World Cup, their "race arena" trail in Chief and their primary Park terrain on Nor'easter. There's probably also a bit of the "keeping up with the Jones's" too as you mention.

I doubt the Jackson Gondola ever happens. That lift would probably cost %$10M to construct. I don't think they'd see a significant ROI on such a lift and I really think it would be underutilized.

 

[ss20]

Northstar (and Northeast triple prior) has always been the mountain's work horse lift. They replaced the Northeast triple after only 8 years of service. They replaced the Solitude Quad after only 6! I think the choice to replace Northstar as opposed to Green Ridge is probably for a couple of reasons. Satisfying the core customers' biggest complaint; the long ass lift lines on Northstar and the popularity of the terrain that it services over Green Ridge. You've got arguably their best cruising trail off that lift in World Cup, their "race arena" trail in Chief and their primary Park terrain on Nor'easter. There's probably also a bit of the "keeping up with the Jones's" too as you mention.

Solitude and the summit triple were replaced because ride time could be cut in half with new technology.

I highly doubt lines will significantly decrease. If people are willing to wait 15 minutes for an uncovered HSQ, they'll gladly wait 25 minutes for a protected ride. Case in point, Mount Snow. However, the other lifts on the mountain might see some relief. I'd imagine this will be very slight since the capacity increase is very little.

 

[drjeff]

My serious opinion:

This is kinda strange. Instead of the Jackson Gore Gondola, Green Ridge HSQ, or an upgrade to one of the base area quads, they choose to replace a relatively new HSQ. And I thought Ragged was bad with delaying their new install. Okemo's removing a 6,000 foot lift, installing another 6,000 foot lift, and building a barn in 5 months :???:. Mount Snow started the Bluebird in March and didn't finish till early December.

The actual "real" construction time for the Bluebird at Mount Snow was far less than the March to early December time frame you reference.

Technically did they start the dismantling of the old summit local in March? Yup - but most of that was so they could use the snow still on the ground to make it easier to drag the old lift towers down the mountain. As we're seeing now with Ragged, a lift can be taken down pretty quick.

Mount Snow also had to do a ton of excavating work for the sight of their storage barn, that process took even longer than they expected, since even with drilling test holes to evaluate how much rock they had to blast through to get the site cleared + leveled and graded for the barn, it still ended up being a bigger project than anticipated. If Okemo has a much flatter site in mind for their barn, and/or plans to use more of a prefab/engineered building type for their barn vs. the traditional post and beam construction technique that Mount Snow used, then that will also speed up overall construction time.

The actual Bluebird construction time had the tower footings poured in early to mid July (about this time of year) and the lift had full certification by Thanksgiving - and that included a few weeks of delay issues caused by Hurricane Irene and all the destruction she did to VT when she rolled through.

Technically the Bluebird opened the 1st week in December, but that was only because of a warm November prevented Mount Snow from opening prior to then that season. The lift was ready to go, and myself as well as a bunch of other Mount Snow regulars trudged through the muddy base area the day after Thanksgiving to get a tour of the barn + new lift Thanksgiving weekend that year, in November. The snow just wasn't ready until a week later in December

The construction time frame for this likely 7-9 million dollar lift, shouldn't be a problem

 

[SIKSKIER]

I think part of the decision to replace that lift was due to wanting to put a high speed lift in the Sunbowl at Sunapee.Kind of replacing 2 lifts for the price of 1 1/2.

 

[jaytrem]

I ski Okemo, but I love, ski, and enjoy Mount Snow more. So when they use this in the press release it kinda makes me pissed...

Okemo’s new six-passenger bubble chair is a truly one-of-a-kind lift in North America

Their statement is correct. The Bluebird doesn't have heated seats, so it really is one-of-a-kind. Now if they were trying to get away with saying it's one-of-a-kind due to the different bubble color I would have an issue with that statement.

 

[Madroch]

Cam suggests haul rope gone on the North Star- that or my eyes are gone

 

[dlague]

Northstar (and Northeast triple prior) has always been the mountain's work horse lift. They replaced the Northeast triple after only 8 years of service. They replaced the Solitude Quad after only 6! I think the choice to replace Northstar as opposed to Green Ridge is probably for a couple of reasons. Satisfying the core customers' biggest complaint; the long ass lift lines on Northstar and the popularity of the terrain that it services over Green Ridge. You've got arguably their best cruising trail off that lift in World Cup, their "race arena" trail in Chief and their primary Park terrain on Nor'easter. There's probably also a bit of the "keeping up with the Jones's" too as you mention.

I doubt the Jackson Gondola ever happens. That lift would probably cost %$10M to construct. I don't think they'd see a significant ROI on such a lift and I really think it would be underutilized.

Jackson Gore lift is under utilized today - not enough interesting terrains over there!


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