jmgard
New member
I've never seen Ego Alley at Mt. Snow open, though I have only started skiing there since the Bluebird was put in. Sundance is pretty rare too, I've never seen it spinning myself but I try to avoid that place on Saturdays.
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Lifts that are never open
- Thread starter steamboat1
- Start date
Newpylong
Well-known member
Those two spin every busy weekend.
SkiingInABlueDream
Active member
I don't ski Kton too often but I remember doing a day trip there one weekend in mid Jan (not MLK) of either 2006 or 07 and finding it running. I just had a hunch that it could well be my last time riding that lift so I took a bunch photos, which I'm glad I have now. Wish I had done the same for the SRT!!
drjeff
Well-known member
Ego spins most Saturdays once there's snow on Ego Alley so the race team can lap both Ego and/or Charlie's Chase without having to wait in the typical lines on Canyon, Grand Summit or Bluebird - my kids probably ride it 50 times a season for training purposes
Sundance they've scaled back it's operations the last few years and hasn't run as often as Ego (maybe 75% of the time) - too bad as it services a solid pod of terrain, especially if High Traverse over to South Bowl is open and there's no race training on South Bowl. Saves having to catch a lift out of the main base area (and the usual lines there on a weekend) and is often worth the typically cold, and often windy ride.
It will be interesting to see if these 2 lifts are run more this coming season if the crowds are up because of all the new Explorer and other Peak pass product holders that now include Mount Snow that didn't before.
Anecdotally, last weekend when I was skiing Mount Snow on Friday and Monday, 4 out of the 10 times I rode the Bluebird, I was sharing my bubble with new passholders who had never been to Mount Snow before (usually easy to tell when they need some instruction on how the bubbles go down and then aren't aware that they automatically open ;-) ), which I haven't seen percentage wise since the 2nd or 3rd season that the Bluebird was running....
Always so strange riding the SRT (or looking at SRT pics) and not seeing a return line next to you!
jmgard
New member
I was at Snow this past Saturday... I have never seen the Bluebird stop and start so much. I definitely agree that there are way more new skiers because of the new Peak Pass system (I have one myself this year after having the Double Down (RIP) last year). I'm gonna do my best to stick to midweek as the 30-40 min wait for the Bluebird in November may be a sign of insane crowds this year.
drjeff
Well-known member
Apparently some of last Saturday's line (I was up at the world cup race at Killington on Saturday so i only heard of the line size via friends who skied Mount Snow on Saturday) was 3 fold, #1 - the "newbie Bluebird wow factor" - the stop and stare, rather than move to the load line thing and then the immediate criss cross across the tips/tails of one's chairmates at the top factor, #2 - there was some issue with one of the lift sensors that kept tripping and causing the lift to stop until the debugged the computer code, and #3 - management, because of the limited acreage of open terrain, was limiting uphill capacity by not running additional lifts - early season issues....
Jully
Active member
Excuse me what!?!
jmgard
New member
It was rough. There were only 2 ways down the main face so I guess opening Grand Summit or Canyon would overload them and screw up the snow. However Freefall was open on the North face and had great soft bumps and no lift lines...
SkiingInABlueDream
Active member
Absolutely! Also the strangeness of only one side of the line above you when skiing jug. I always thought it would be neat to ride down that side.
I was very young the first time I rode that chair and I kind of remember sort of wondering if it was some twilight zone-ish one way chair to nowhere. It was a very low visibility day. It made sense after passing the mid station.
Is that the lift with a 45 degree turn in the middle?
skiNEwhere
Active member
Of the 4-5 times I've been to Sugarloaf, the gondola was only open ONCE, and for half a day. This was after it was chopped in half and ran from the mid-station to the peak. Not sure if this was due to choice, but when I skied by there it sounded like a dam autoshop inside, leading me to believe it had quite a few mechanical problems.
skiNEwhere
Active member
Even though this is on the West Coast, I have to add chair 5 at Loveland. That's the lift that passes over US-6 (Loveland pass). I'm pretty sure that chair has not spun once in the last 10 years. It's been removed from the trailmap, even though the chair is there in its entirety.
Jully
Active member
It was a self assembly gondola that definitely had its fair share of mechanical problems at the end!
SkiingInABlueDream
Active member
Lots of mentions of the killington SRT here. Does anyone have pictures or even just stories from when that chair still officially had the midstation?
skiNEwhere
Active member
Self-assembly.....? So like a big erector set the lift mechs put together themselves? :blink:
ss20
Well-known member
Most likely. Preston Smith has talked about assembling lift towers upside down by accident. Chairlift.org has a quick blurb on one of the chairs at Butternut where the mechanics had to learn enough Italian to figure out how to put the thing together.
From my understanding, in days of old lifts were surveyed by the mountain or local crew and then the survey was sent to the manufacturer and they shipped the pieces over. Of course things were much much less complicated then mechanically.
SIKSKIER
New member
Wow.I was looking around for answer to your question and I came upon this link.It has a video from the chair as is goes around the bullwheels where the midstation was.But what I either forgot or didnt see here was that K is installing a new South Ridge lift for next year.
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