Lake Louise gondola mess

[sledhaulingmedic]

LVNLARG:

How often do you think areas have to evac lifts? Most areas go decades without an evac. An area is going to buy several Genies and mount them on dedicated tracked vehicles "just in case? You're as far off base as John Q. Public saying he's going to carry a bailout rope.

The industry standard (average)for evac is just under 6 min/passenger/evac team. It's not going to happen faster if you have a Genie (like that's going to happen, or even one for every cable span, "shahh! and monkeys might fly out of my..." Heck, I'd put money that Stratton's or K-mart's crew could clear gondi faster (and Safer) than anyone with a bunch of Genie buckets.

The number one delay in getting people off lifts is the Lift ops people throwing in the towel and locking out the lift and ordering the evac.

The number two delay is caused by not enough trained personnel.

 

[LVNLARG]

LVNLARG:

How often do you think areas have to evac lifts? Most areas go decades without an evac. An area is going to buy several Genies and mount them on dedicated tracked vehicles "just in case? You're as far off base as John Q. Public saying he's going to carry a bailout rope.

The industry standard (average)for evac is just under 6 min/passenger/evac team. It's not going to happen faster if you have a Genie (like that's going to happen, or even one for every cable span, "shahh! and monkeys might fly out of my..." Heck, I'd put money that Stratton's or K-mart's crew could clear gondi faster (and Safer) than anyone with a bunch of Genie buckets.

The number one delay in getting people off lifts is the Lift ops people throwing in the towel and locking out the lift and ordering the evac.

The number two delay is caused by not enough trained personnel.

I know evacs are rare but they do infact happen and are a contigency that you need to plan for. I did not suggest Genie lifts be snowcat mounted..I suggested if they could not get up the hill under their own power due to really really soft or icy conditions they could be drug by a snow cat no problem. My 2nd point was THEY PRETTY WELL NEED THEM ANYWAY for day to day mountain ops (safely painting/repairing towers, clearing snow off the lodge roof safely etc etc). My third point was an insuror would discount a policy for a resort with substantial mechanical means (operatable by anybody) to remove people from a broken lift (because insurors know that patrollers arn't always plentiful). Insurors insure on the worst case what if's. If you have a better than average answer that turns that what if into a no problem you're going to pay less. I would be willing to bet you're actually going to pay so much less that your insurance may drop the price of 2 or 3 genie lifts in YEAR 1. 6 min/passenger/evac team = 36 mins per cabin. I could get the contents of a cabin to the ground with a genie lift in 1 or 2 hoists...about 5 mins MAXIMUM total. The groomer would drag me to the next hoist in 2 mins or less. Does your 6 mins avg include the hysterical people you have to reason with for half an hour and then finally knock them out in order to get them off? I'm sure even the biggest basket case would have much less to say about a bucket with lights and substantial mass vs. a rope :blink: The only reason people wern't on that lift ALL NIGHT would be the fact they had a TON of extra ski patrol there due to the world cup and it being a Sunday. They actually had 8 crews working where if it was a weekday they might have had 2 max. That would have been a 24 hour evac time for the lift. (yes...I'm sure they would have got more crews in from Sunshine after a while to do a little better than that but you get my point). I would love to go head to head with a Genie 135 chained behind a BR 350 by MYSELF (no snowcat operator) on a high lift over a trail VS 4 trained 4 man patrol teams on a 10 F evening. I could go all night long no problem while the elements and fatigue would be taking a toll on them by hour 2. I'm quite certain I would kick there a$$es 8)

(I also just did simple math to discover it took them 26-30 mins per person...not 6 in the LL situation AFTER evac was ordered)

 

[LVNLARG]

I said I would get the answers on heated or non heated gondi cabins at louise and I did....and a whole lot more...jeeez. Let me tell you...I'm even a little scared to go back now. Get this. Their "new" gondola is not new. It's a POMA and was originally installed at Squaw in 1986 and removed in 1998 While at Squaw it had NUMEROUS electrical/mechanical problems which partly factored to it's removal after a mere 12 years. It sat idle for 6 years. It has non-heated 6 passenger CWA cabins. It's rumored LL bought it for a mere $500k ! (They had to build new top and base houses though) It's capacity sucks due the fact Squaw sold a number of the cabins before LL got their hands on it. (perhaps that's part of why there were only 65 people on it when it failed...imagine how long evac would hve taken with a full load) But wait...it gets worse. It was installed in a rush (during which more then 1/2 the resorts lift maintenace crew quit...many citing saftey concerns) to replace a Yan detachable quad which was CONDEMNED by the provincial elevator board. Yikes!

 

[haines]

What do you expect their canadians!

Hockey stopped for a year and I was glad. Lake Louise is a barren Mountain.

 

[Bosefius]

Evacs happen just rarely enough for resorts to justify skimping on training for them. Emergencies are somthing that will never get the time, funding, or resources for training they deserve. How many events will it take before people realize this?

 

[sledhaulingmedic]

I have trouble believing you're going to at a Genie across a flat groomed trail, never mind up up even a 20 - 30 degree slope. Even if you could get it in place, what range of surface angles can the vehicle operate on? Just as an example, many newer ladder trucks the plumb bob's in the yellow at around ten degrees and in the red and the hydraulics are locked out at around 20. That only extends 100' and the truck weighs 54,000lbs.

If you look in the industry, lifts like Genies are not commonly used, even for summer maintaince. I doubt it's because no one in the business knows they exist. I'd guess it's more likely that they:

1. Are economically unfeasable

2. Not operationaly practical

3. Do not provide any advantage in accessing the towers over climbing them.

Even if a resort found that a Man-lift was practical for lift maintainance, why would they need more than one?

I have a lot of trouble believing that you're going to get a lift up the slope to begin with, never mind actually be able to raise it. But if you could, remember that the deployment time is factored into the time average.

B77 and NSAA/NSP lift evac manual make no mention of man-lifts for evac. I'd have to believe there's a reason for that.

In regards to the time standards: The actual base figure is 5:30 per passenger per team. This assumes no confounding factors, such as weather, terrain, darkness, hysterical subjects, etc.. Additional time is added to the average when calculating personnel/time requirements for "real world" situations. I added 30 seconds to cover passenger factors, the fact that it was a gondola, and terrain. Actually, since it turned into a night operation, I could probably add more time.

As I said before, every evac is a PR nightmare, even if it goes perfectly. The delays are caused first, by management delaying the begining of the evac, and second, by insuffient number of teams (wheather it's personnel, equipment or both.)

The bottom line is: Having and implimenting an effective evac plan is a necessity for every resort. The best aproach is to have lift ops run under the premise that the best evac is the one that never happens.

 

[LVNLARG]

I have trouble believing you're going to at a Genie across a flat groomed trail, never mind up up even a 20 - 30 degree slope. Even if you could get it in place, what range of surface angles can the vehicle operate on? Just as an example, many newer ladder trucks the plumb bob's in the yellow at around ten degrees and in the red and the hydraulics are locked out at around 20. That only extends 100' and the truck weighs 54,000lbs.

If you look in the industry, lifts like Genies are not commonly used, even for summer maintaince. I doubt it's because no one in the business knows they exist. I'd guess it's more likely that they:

1. Are economically unfeasable

2. Not operationaly practical

3. Do not provide any advantage in accessing the towers over climbing them.

Even if a resort found that a Man-lift was practical for lift maintainance, why would they need more than one?

I have a lot of trouble believing that you're going to get a lift up the slope to begin with, never mind actually be able to raise it. But if you could, remember that the deployment time is factored into the time average.

B77 and NSAA/NSP lift evac manual make no mention of man-lifts for evac. I'd have to believe there's a reason for that.

In regards to the time standards: The actual base figure is 5:30 per passenger per team. This assumes no confounding factors, such as weather, terrain, darkness, hysterical subjects, etc.. Additional time is added to the average when calculating personnel/time requirements for "real world" situations. I added 30 seconds to cover passenger factors, the fact that it was a gondola, and terrain. Actually, since it turned into a night operation, I could probably add more time.

As I said before, every evac is a PR nightmare, even if it goes perfectly. The delays are caused first, by management delaying the begining of the evac, and second, by insuffient number of teams (wheather it's personnel, equipment or both.)

The bottom line is: Having and implimenting an effective evac plan is a necessity for every resort. The best aproach is to have lift ops run under the premise that the best evac is the one that never happens.

I'm not sure if you're thinking of the same man lift. One's I'm refering to have a grade climbing ability of up to 38% and is essentially an all terrain vehicle with a boom. Yes...they are very heavy...thus the need for cat backup in soft conditions. The one I linked is 40,000 lbs...but has a reach of 140 feet and over 100 horizontal enabling you to do some amazing things with it. A more practical one for a resort might be a step down with a boom around 90 feet and the weight cut in half (so that you could pretty much pull it out of quicksand with a snowcat) You can actually get track packages for them too though which might eliminate the need for cat assistance. They are in fact...self leveling to the extent that you can park one set of wheels on a pile of dirt....and the other set on flat ground and it will level out..automaticly. Hoist time to a typical ski lift would only be about 30 seconds. I did point out that a lot of under lift terrain is currently not suitable for this machine.....but also pointed out that on the flip side...it's not suitable for ANY kind of evac. It was my contention that this should not be so...and that every lift not over a trail should have a "road" under it kept snow cat track packed for ANY type of Evac. At some resorts...in a evac...people would literally be being lowered into a river...1/2 a mile from a trail...surounded by 8 foot deep snow...with no snowmobile access...AFTER they are already frostbitten. Is that acceptable ? I think not. The whole goal is to get people off the lift fast and safely. My point was I could make a mockery of a patrol crew with a geni lift under optimal operating conditions (a lift over a well groomed trail). Not that I don't respect what they do...I could just do it better and much faster....which when fighting time in an emergency is what's important.

 

[sledhaulingmedic]

Grade climbing ability of 38%? That's not even 20 degrees! I am just going to guess that 38% is not snow covered. And it's self leveling, but up to what grade?

So: If you have a ski lift over beginner terrain with a road built under it and there are no other complicating factors you can beat teams of traditional rope based rescue? We could bring in a Helo too, for that matter.

If you're trying to convince me that man lifts are practical, even remotely, it's not going to happen.

 

[LVNLARG]

Grade climbing ability of 38%? That's not even 20 degrees! I am just going to guess that 38% is not snow covered. And it's self leveling, but up to what grade?

So: If you have a ski lift over beginner terrain with a road built under it and there are no other complicating factors you can beat teams of traditional rope based rescue? We could bring in a Helo too, for that matter.

If you're trying to convince me that man lifts are practical, even remotely, it's not going to happen.

Well...we shall agree to disagree then. I'm not even 100% positive there would be no problems (The main one that concerns me is weight and the cats towing ability) but I would sure like to see it tried out. I really don't think anyone has. A Helo goes back to the whole James Bond fear factor and would be extremely costly (and people said my idea was costly :blink: ). I'm so intrigued personally by the concept that I am going to have a serious chat with an ops manger friend of mine at the local hill about renting one and trying it (a $1000 or so experiment including staff time/rental/cat juice) and maybe even coming up with some rescue stats using one. Would make an interesting SAM magzine article. :beer: