Magic's Red Chair down again!

[thetrailboss]

Braking issue: that sounds very serious and something that should have been caught this fall. Get that other lift running ASAP.

And FWIW, this is not the first time that I've heard about the VT lift inspectors dragging their a$$es on inspections at a resort's expense. The other couple times involved my old home mountain and their difficulties in getting all of their lifts inspected at once. When the snow came, and came it did, they could not open some key upper mountain lifts and folks were not happy.

 

[Newpylong]

This is a good point re: inspections but they have had all summer and fall to get the Black repaired and inspected... It is tough to justify additional snowmaking repairs without having both summit lifts in operational order. For as long as I can remember there has always been something wrong with the Black. If it were my money, I would want to see it fixed as the highest priority. With one lift, all it takes is one issue and you're all done...

 

[bdfreetuna]

I can't hate. I know you guys aren't hating but making valid points. But I fell in love with Magic faster than any girl I've known on my first day there... same day the lift busted and I got stranded on it.

That's saying something. Now I'm on Team Magic. Watch what you say, motherfuckers!

 

[thetrailboss]

This is a good point re: inspections but they have had all summer and fall to get the Black repaired and inspected... It is tough to justify additional snowmaking repairs without having both summit lifts in operational order. For as long as I can remember there has always been something wrong with the Black. If it were my money, I would want to see it fixed as the highest priority. With one lift, all it takes is one issue and you're all done...

Agreed. I just assumed that they were doing routine lift work because all I saw on their FB page was talk of snowmaking repairs. Old lifts are expensive to fix since parts can be scarce. The only lift work I saw on their site and updates was painting. Keeping lifts running is expensive and time consuming and probably not as sexy as fixing snowmaking. Honestly, how much longer can those lifts continue considering that they are so old? What if, like Middlebury, the state inspector looks at the concrete bases for the towers and says they need to be replaced? That was going to be either a $450,000 fix or $1.5 million for a new lift. They took the latter and on very short notice. What is the plan if that happens here?

 

[thetrailboss]

And as skithetrees (welcome, btw) said on Magic's FB page there are folks who are attacking those who are voicing fairly legitimate concerns about the mountain and its lack of preparedness for this situation, let alone the ski season (I read two reports from here of the cafeteria being in disarray and being short-staffed). Attacking folks who have legitimate concerns is pretty lame and only burns bridges. It's great to see that the co-op is going to happen, but this place is a business and we want to see it succeed and grow. They need to get things in order and be professional about running the place.

Not hating, but just concerned about the place and hoping it will be OK. Folks have now invested a lot of money to make it go.

 

[Masskier]

Agreed. I just assumed that they were doing routine lift work because all I saw on their FB page was talk of snowmaking repairs. Old lifts are expensive to fix since parts can be scarce. The only lift work I saw on their site and updates was painting. Keeping lifts running is expensive and time consuming and probably not as sexy as fixing snowmaking. Honestly, how much longer can those lifts continue considering that they are so old? What if, like Middlebury, the state inspector looks at the concrete bases for the towers and says they need to be replaced? That was going to be either a $450,000 fix or $1.5 million for a new lift. They took the latter and on very short notice. What is the plan if that happens here?

How old are the lifts? I know Burke has to have custom parts made for their poma lift.

 

[steamboat1]

All the lifts at Smuggs are as old or likely older than Magic's. More lifts, greater vertical & longer length to boot. They seem to manage to keep them operational.

 

[riverc0il]

All the lifts at Smuggs are as old or likely older than Magic's. More lifts, greater vertical & longer length to boot. They seem to manage to keep them operational.

I suspect the lifts at Smuggs see far more attention and service than Magic's. Also, don't forget that Smuggs lifts didn't sit dormant for years nor are they franken lifts like the Black that has been retrofitted a bunch of times. It isn't just the age but the lack of maintenance over that time span.

 

[thetrailboss]

All the lifts at Smuggs are as old or likely older than Magic's. More lifts, greater vertical & longer length to boot. They seem to manage to keep them operational.

Agree with Riv that Smuggs probably has the revenue to stay on top of them. Smuggs has all Hall Doubles, which have a reputation as being well-built and easy to still get parts. I know that the Red is a Poma Heron, I think, and the triple is some company that is long gone.

Also Smuggs has not changed hands so many times. When a place either sits dormant or changes hands sometimes maintenance slips through the cracks. Burke's previous owners, including a bank or two, had no idea about chair lift maintenance and later owners ended up paying for that lack of maintenance when the Willoughby Quad would go down due to something that should have been caught.

 

[powbmps]

They had the Black lift fired up for some kind of testing on Thursday. At least it moves.

 

[Bene288]

Agree with Riv that Smuggs probably has the revenue to stay on top of them. Smuggs has all Hall Doubles, which have a reputation as being well-built and easy to still get parts. I know that the Red is a Poma Heron, I think, and the triple is some company that is long gone.

The triple is a Pohlig Yan lift, like you said, they're probably long gone. I can't even imagine what custom made machining parts for these things cost. It's probably been retrofitted half a dozen times, like Riv said. I'd think a chair lift is just like any other mechanical piece of equipment. It needs to run regularly and be lubed often to operate correctly. The down time in the 90's probably really took it's toll.

 

[MadMadWorld]

I suspect the lifts at Smuggs see far more attention and service than Magic's. Also, don't forget that Smuggs lifts didn't sit dormant for years nor are they franken lifts like the Black that has been retrofitted a bunch of times. It isn't just the age but the lack of maintenance over that time span.

Not to mention they get a lot more help from mother nature to keep a steady revenue stream. They have also carved out there niche with their kids programs.

 

[makimono]

Rotten luck :sad: there were a lot of SUV's full of families heading the wrong direction yesterday. This has got to really hurt the bottom line for the year and will probably impact season pass sales next year too.

The positive vibe at Magic is as strong as ever though...the people I met in the steady boot line to the goods were all super positive, I even ran into a trio of snowboarders at the top of Black Line who had all just done their first ever run at Magic before the lift stopped and were raving about how awesome a ski area it was in spite of just postholing uphill for two hours to get their second ever run.

I also hate seeing people getting cussed out on facebook. I know how passionate people are especially when they've put in hundreds of volunteer hours towards saving the mountain, but there's a LOT of people (prospective customers) that read that FB page and calling someone an a-hole for complaining, even if they do deserve it, I don't see how that helps the mountain any. While the ski area can and has been saved with a handful of super dedicated people, a base of hardcore skiers and a few hundred shareholders...I think it needs those repeat sales of families and season passes to be sustainable, it's not sustainable long term with just share sales and volunteers.

 

[skithetrees]

The lifts were run regularly (at least monthly) during at least a portion of the down time. I know the person that was responsible for it. That said, much of the infrastructure did break down. Rumors abounded of sabotage to the snow making lines and all sorts of other issues. As far as the availability of parts, my understanding was there was supposed to be a rolling maintenance program on the lifts with targets for % of parts replaced each year. Many parts had to be custom machined at a machine shop that, allegedly, didn't always get the parts in time. Not to mention the high cost of getting the parts made. All in all, it is an unfortunate situation but it is not a surprise. I do not fault them for the issues they have. They are doing what they think is best with what is available. But to relive the same failures year after year is inexcusable. Repeatedly doing the same thing and expecting a different result is insanity. People need to wake up and see that as much as they love the mountain, shareholders and season pass holders, alone, cannot sustain it. People that criticize and name call those who express the point of view of a first time, or even regular but non-seasons pass holder, skier only contribute to the insanity and prevent the hard questions that must be asked from being asked. As I said before, the mountain is a business in the end, no matter how much people think of it as a family. The fact that Magic is a family is what makes it so special and is a large part of its draw. However, the Magic family cannot exist without Magic. There is no bottomless pile of money keeping Magic afloat. Again, please don't take my criticism as any hate on Magic. As I have already stated, I love the place. But what is needed now is a kind of tough love that sets things straight and not the kind of love that enables repetitious shortcomings.

 

[thetrailboss]

Rotten luck :sad: there were a lot of SUV's full of families heading the wrong direction yesterday. This has got to really hurt the bottom line for the year and will probably impact season pass sales next year too.

The positive vibe at Magic is as strong as ever though...the people I met in the steady boot line to the goods were all super positive, I even ran into a trio of snowboarders at the top of Black Line who had all just done their first ever run at Magic before the lift stopped and were raving about how awesome a ski area it was in spite of just postholing uphill for two hours to get their second ever run.

I also hate seeing people getting cussed out on facebook. I know how passionate people are especially when they've put in hundreds of volunteer hours towards saving the mountain, but there's a LOT of people (prospective customers) that read that FB page and calling someone an a-hole for complaining, even if they do deserve it, I don't see how that helps the mountain any. While the ski area can and has been saved with a handful of super dedicated people, a base of hardcore skiers and a few hundred shareholders...I think it needs those repeat sales of families and season passes to be sustainable, it's not sustainable long term with just share sales and volunteers.

Spot on here with the FB comments.

 

[thetrailboss]

Re: sabotaging the snowmaking lines. On the NELSAP board there were folks who spewed venom about Magic. Can someone explain why there is such intense hate from a group of folks? Were they former employees who got stiffed a paycheck or two? Creditors left holding the bag?

 

[slatham]

Re: Black - I have it from a reliable source that the VT lift inspector requested a last minute test of certain equipement that is not necessarily requested each year. Sounded like the "inspection" is an iterative process, had in fact been ongoing, had gotten through all other issues, but this last minute request was both unexpected and time consuming to complete. There has been significant work on Black, including custom made replacement parts to get it through inspection and up and running last year. So no, they had not been ignoring the Black Chair. It ran last year, and will run again this year.

So, going into the holiday's, with limited resources, and recalling that the week before the holidays there was NO SNOW, what is the priority? No snow, but 2 working lifts? Or snow, at least on a couple of trails, with one fairly reliable chair? Rock vs hard place. Nobody on this forum or FB had to make that call now, and none ( me included) were in a position to make it in the first place. Only Jim and his team. Hindsight is 20/20. Had this been a typical holiday season Red would not have been fully loaded and would have gotten through no problem. Load up an old lift - heck, any lift - no matter how well maintained, and things will break. The Alpine Chair at Bromley was down on Friday. The high spend quad was down, due to maintance issues, on Sat Dec 1. It happens.

Re snowmaking - the mountain now has fairly good coverage of terrain with working snowmaking. The issue is more of budget to make snow. With the shareholder money not yet released the budget is still tight. But this year they can run circa 24 guns simutaneously, vs half that last year. Witch to Blackline was added to covered terrain. If I have this right that is in addition to Showoff, Trick, upper and lower Magic Carpet, Wand, Medium, Vertigo, Hocus Pocus, upper and lower Wizard, and Talisman. More will be online next year.

Obviously a bummer - I was on the lift Saturday with my brother and 2 of my daughters so I was there - but this should not be viewed as the failure of an incompetent management, nor something that can't and won't be rectified over the next severals days.

 

[skithetrees]

Re snowmaking - the mountain now has fairly good coverage of terrain with working snowmaking. The issue is more of budget to make snow. With the shareholder money not yet released the budget is still tight. But this year they can run circa 24 guns simutaneously, vs half that last year. Witch to Blackline was added to covered terrain. If I have this right that is in addition to Showoff, Trick, upper and lower Magic Carpet, Wand, Medium, Vertigo, Hocus Pocus, upper and lower Wizard, and Talisman. More will be online next year.

I guess this was a bit of my point. Why add snow making to all of these routes down without having the lift reliably running first? When Magic can't afford to blow snow for an extended period of time, what is the point of having 50%, 75%, 100% snow making coverage? Get a beginner and expert way down and call it a day until mother nature helps out. Instead of expanding snow making coverage, the money should have been spent on reliable lifts. People want an adventure on their way down - not on the way up. Magic has had an all too frequent history of lift issues - including one where some people were injured. Again, please don't take my criticism personally, but someone needs to say something.

Trailboss, as far as the NELSAP animosity, some of the previous owners didn't have the best reputation in town. This ranges from not paying tax bills, delayed (maybe even denied) payments to contractors and employees, vandalism to local property by family members of the owners, and over all just not vibing with the local community. Let me stress that these people are long gone and that the mountain has come a long way under Jim Sullivan since that time. I am merely trying to express my feelings as far as what else needs to be done.

 

[Riverskier]

I have never skied Magic, and therefore have no comment on a number of points here. However, if I ran a mountain with only 2 lifts, having them both inspected and in running order prior to the start of the season would me my #1 priority. Having your mountain shutdown during a holiday period is catastrophic, and I can't imagine anything else (snowmaking included) being more important than mitigating that risk.

 

[slatham]

I do agree with your point re: lifts vs snowmaking. However, the snowmaking "expansion" was actually repairing pre-existing pipe and thus, I would guess, pretty low cost other than labor. Also, it is my understanding that, other than certain items pointed out by the inspector, everything that should have been done to Red and Black was done. Let's remember that Red passed inspection, and Black was on its way, just taking longer than anticipated. And the inspectors schedule is not controlled by Jim and Magic, so delays are often out of their control.

Easy to play Monday morning quarterback, or defender in my case. But in both cases we don't have all the info. I will give Jim the benefit of the doubt.

Think snow (and quickly arriving lift parts)!