Lift configuration reorganization

[thetrailboss]

WOW. and you thought i woke up on the wrong side of the bed? i disagreed with your assessment using logic, reasoning, and personal experience and apparently i am the next person to lease/operate cannon?! sweet! gimme a break boss :roll: your animosity based on my disagreement of your assessment is not warrented. let's review this:


obviously snoengineering got it right and the essence of this very thread (hypothetical reorganization) is a moot point since designers always get it right. it is not a matter of knowing better than snoengineering... i need only have skied the area a few times! the only trails that are added by the HSQ installation were mid cannon and the links. the links are complete waste of trails, no one looks at a map and says "hey, we haven't hit the links yet, let's check them out!" they are connector trails, and bad ones at that. and in practice, as opposed to design and layout, mid cannon sucks by 10am because of the traffic. this is fact, i have skied the mountain enough to know to avoid the HSQ when ever possible.


honestly, boss, yes... where the double was! folks still DO ski down to the cannonball to ride "ANOTHER" lift--the HSQ did not change that... it just made it so people had to ski/board down a trecherous scraped down horrible links trail to get there. 30-35 minutes? have you ever gone peabody base > peabody HSQ > cannonball > summit? 20 minutes tops. do you think ravine and turnpike are the only trails available from the bottom of the cannonball quad? boss, you are showing your ignorance of cannon layout. here is a list of the trails that are skiable from the bottom of the cannonball chair: middle ravine, lower hardscrabble, redball, turnpike, turnpike glade, lower ravine, upper gremlin, lower gremlin, parkway, lower cannon, toss up, time zone, paulie's extension, gary's, zoomer, paulie's, avalanche, banshee, banshee glade, banshee lift line, jaspers, mickeys margin, echo woods, lakeside glade, and spookie. that is almost half of the mountain that is accessable from the bottom of cannoball quad. how is that any better? you don't have to slide down the links, middle cannon isn't a complete mess, and it is a quicker transition to the cannonball quad for upper mountain access.

in regards to your assessment that bypass and mid cannon wouldn't get much traffic with the HSQ in a different location... they would certainly get less traffic, and that would be welcome. mid cannon is a nasty trail because it is the obvious way down that most people getting off the HSQ take. as for bypass, it is one of the worst trails on the mountain. these two trails would get ample usage from skiers coming off the top of the mountain via vista way, tramway, and upper cannon. this is the ideal top to bottom route for any one that wants to yo yo the tram. skier traffic patterns at cannon tend to have most tram skiers going down tramway, the majority of tram skiers do not head through the tunnell and sufficed with tramway, creating lots more traffic on bypass (when it is open) and mid cannon (even more traffic since bypass gets closed a lot). summit only traffic is all that these trails can really handle without going to crap. yes, the area has an hour glass shape but the layout works to the detriment of good snow conditions by dumping out the highest volume of skiers at the narrowest section of the hour glass with few options, this causes terrible conditions within only an hour or two of operation. at the least, mid ravine is a lot wider and milder pitcher than mid cannon and could better take the abuse of high traffic before skiers/riders branched off in various directions. other trails could have been built to make the cross cuts between the mountain better had the HSQ gone up the old double route (it obviously was a smart route at one point, why else was that double built in that location? just because snoengineering had a well thought out plan doesn't mean changing things worked as ideally as prethought when put into practice).


what the hell is this? i love early season skiing. i am out there in friggin october hiking for turns for crying out loud. early season skiing DOES meet MY standards, it doesn't meet a state owned ski area's standards. it doesn't meet hardly any ski area any more. i wasn't indicating my preference, but rather the industry's preference. especially a ski area that has tried it before and gave up after only one season, it clearly didn't work in cannon's favor. nor is it likely considering the huge expense of money involved considering half the legislatures in the state seem to like the ideal of leasing the area to increase revenue.


you don't know how hard i am resisting a come back on that one. for the sake of remaining somewhat civil, i shall opt not to retort to your bait.

Cannon is what it is. The trails and lifts are where they are. I'm sure that the management (ask Dick Andross when you next see him at Burke) and their expert consultant who has MANY years designing and building ski areas had several "valid" reasons for doing what they did. You may not like it. I may not like it. But it is what it is and they did the best that the could with the terrain, resources, and financing that they had. I put forward one reason why they may have done it this way, and it is one that I have learned from talking with people and reading the maps and reports. I'm not sure how this can be "not valid." Only SnoEngineering and Cannon knew all the reasons and they made the decisions. Not you. Not me.

 

[riverc0il]

i think we have a slight misunderstanding of my use of the words "not valid." you stated that people were not skiing trails like lower cannon, paulie's, bypass, etc. which seemed to be a reason for moving the HSQ. what i meant by "not valid" (poor choice of words, you have my apologies on that) is that every trail except mid cannon and the links is skiable from where the old lift used to go. it can be argued that people didn't ski those trails so it warrented a lift shift. but that is more about people not understanding the lay out of the mountain. now the opposite problem has happened with too much traffic being funnelled into those trails... it seemed the plan worked.... too well. now people need to 'know the mountain' in order to avoid mid cannon and the links when they get nasty (which is generally most of the time). i ain't saying that i know more than designers, but their plans worked but they didn't work quite the way it was planned... it worked too well which has caused problems of its own.

i'm gonna chaulk all that up to poor choice of verbage and misunderstanding of posts on both our parts. stage IV withdrawal kicking in all ready...

 

[loafer89]

I think the current lift system at Sugarloaf is just fine, and honestly the summit cannot handle alot of user traffic with the limited amount of snow that it recieves. Using the Timberline chair to access the snowfields is a pain, but it preserves the limited snowcover.

Sugarloaf does not have enough people using the lifts that they already have, except for the most crowded of weekends.

Nice maps though

 

[bvibert]

We need Star Trek style transporters at the base of every mountain.....that would solve all our lift problems.

That's the best idea I've heard yet.

Seriously, some good suggestions in this thread. Anyone else want to play? I haven't skied enough places to know if their lifts need to be reorganized or not, but I find it interesting how people would totally have different setups to fit their needs.

 

[2knees]

I'll give this a shot. I'm not the expert at killington in here by any means but that's the one area i have some issues with.

First, and this is just my opinion but i would move the glades triple over to cascade where the old double was. Run this for early season skiing and download on the gondola. I realize that would require killington to actually want to open in october but, hey, this is my fantasy. Second, i would run the skyeship to the old summit building again. Give us the 3000 (cough bs cough) vert in one lift if we so chose. And finally i would move the needles eye quad basically next to the skyship and run it to where the current skyship unloads. This would let us yo yo upper needles eye and thimble and still be able to cut over to needles liftline or vertigo and lap it using the needles eye quad.

 

[Birdman829]

I have a couple problems with the Sugarloaf layout. First of all, I don't think that Spillway could handle the traffic that a High Speed 6 would create. I't true that you can ski almost anywhere from long side (we often ski laps on anything from boomauger and ramdown to hayburner and king's landing), but most people won't. Spillway, Sluice and Gondi would be a free for all. Also, the unloading area is farrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr to small to unload the lift. As for the summit lift, I think unfortunately the Timberline quad is pretty much the best way to do it.

 

[loafer89]

The wind at the top of Spillway can be brutal, especially at the unloading area, but I supose you could enlarge the area with lots of TNT.:lol:

 

[awf170]

I have a couple problems with the Sugarloaf layout. First of all, I don't think that Spillway could handle the traffic that a High Speed 6 would create. I't true that you can ski almost anywhere from long side (we often ski laps on anything from boomauger and ramdown to hayburner and king's landing), but most people won't. Spillway, Sluice and Gondi would be a free for all. Also, the unloading area is farrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr to small to unload the lift. As for the summit lift, I think unfortunately the Timberline quad is pretty much the best way to do it.

They'll go where I tell them to go. They will flock to boomauger and kings landing. I advertise for these trails at the top. A nice big billboard showing you why these trails are great and why you should cut across to get them. Also, the billboards will make excellant wind blockers, and add to the scenic value of the area. It is a win, win, win situation. Yeah, I agree it probably should be a quad.

 

[shwilly]

They will flock to boomauger and kings landing. I advertise for these trails at the top. A nice big billboard showing you why these trails are great and why you should cut across to get them.

:lol: :lol: :lol: "See beautiful Kings Landing! It's Bode and Seth's favorite trail. Ignore that nasty Winter's Way; it's scary."

 

[loafer89]

:lol: :lol: :lol: "See beautiful Kings Landing! It's Bode and Seth's favorite trail. Ignore that nasty Winter's Way; it's scary."

And that awfull trail called Bubblecuffer:-D

 

[Geoff]

My KMart project:

I think the resort has far too much uphill capacity. It ruins the quality of the skiing surface. Since I can only change lifts (and not plant trees to undo the worst of the damage), I propose the following...

* The K1 gondola gets limited to 6 people per car. Snowboard racks on the rear like at Blackcomb which has the same lift. Ditto the Skyeship gondola.

* The Snowdon Quad gets replaced by a high speed triple. Same uphill capacity but much shorter lift ride and no morons falling off and stopping the lift. That lift would be engineered to be able to download as well as upload (for fall and late spring skiing).

* A simple handle tow parallell Killink for October and May/June skiing. (I walk this all the time in the spring when they stop running the Snowdon lifts.) This gets you from the base of the Glades lift up to the top of Snowdon. Rime becomes the October trail. To exit, you take the Great Northern wrap-around from halfway down Rime to the handle tow and download on the Snowdon High Speed Triple.

The Canyon Quad would become the signature spring skiing lift with Cascade, Downdraft, Double Dipper, and East Fall open until at least mid-May. Intermediate terrain off the Glades triple. The snow pile for June 1 skiing would be on what's now called Reason to Upper East Fall (formerly called East Glade).

Those are the main changes. With even more money, I'd also do:

* The Skye Peak Quad gets replaced with another high speed triple.

* The South Ridge triple gets replaced by a high speed double that runs up Jug out of the wind on lower lift towers instead of that stupid triangle configuration.

* Put a fixed grip lift in to replace the upper part of the old Killington double. I'd probably run it up the trees between Escapade and Cascade. The lift would only run in the fall and spring. This would be the final solution to fall/spring skiing so you could upload and download on the K1 instead of a new High Speed Snowdon triple.

 

[kcyanks1]

Austin, I like seeing yours and others' proposals, and discussing them, and appreciate the time you put in, but not sure I'm up to doing my own maps. So I'm only a semi-map dork, I guess Though when growing up I'd memorize ski maps. Also, I think the way my sense of direction is I treat roads while driving the same as trails while skiing, though I probably can't explain well what I mean by that.

 

[kcyanks1]

I'll give this a shot. I'm not the expert at killington in here by any means but that's the one area i have some issues with.

First, and this is just my opinion but i would move the glades triple over to cascade where the old double was. Run this for early season skiing and download on the gondola. I realize that would require killington to actually want to open in october but, hey, this is my fantasy.

I think the Glades/North Ridge (or whatever they call it now) lift is in a good location. It provides some intermediate skiing at the top of the mountain. I agree the loss of the double with the mid-station is problematic for early/late season skiing. I'd have two solutions for this. I figure when you were adding the Glades lift from where the double chair midstation was/where Flume begins and before Cascade turns skiers left up to the top? If so, I think putting in a new lift there is a possible solution. As an alternative, would it be possible to extend the Canyon higher up so that the K1 Gondola can be used as downloading? I'm actually blanking out on whether the current location of the Canyon lift would easily allow that. If not, a cheap alternative could be a use of a surface lift from the top of the Canyon to the Gondola top.

I do agree with you it would be great to make Cascade and perhaps some of the other Canyon trails available for early/late season skiing again, even if Killington isn't willing to take advantage of it :-(

Second, i would run the skyeship to the old summit building again. Give us the 3000 (cough bs cough) vert in one lift if we so chose.

I guess I have mixed feelings here. Top to bottom lifts are always nice, but how often is someone going to use that aside from morning and just after lunch? How many people don't just park at the K1 or other base rather than the Skyeship. There already are a few lifts that access all the K-Peak trails -- K1, Glades, South Ridge, and Canyon. Is another lift going up their necessary? Killington's trails are already too crowded, IMO, to the extent the extended gondola would get used.

And finally i would move the needles eye quad basically next to the skyship and run it to where the current skyship unloads. This would let us yo yo upper needles eye and thimble and still be able to cut over to needles liftline or vertigo and lap it using the needles eye quad.

The old Needles Eye double went up to the top of Skye Peak, IIRC, basically to where you want it. It served well as an alternative to Stage II of the Skyeship. The top of the old chair is still visible I think. I really have no idea why they shortened it. I totally agree that a longer lift there would be better.