Ski Resorts with too much uphill capacity

[Nick]

The never ending debate over the single chair made me think of this. We talk a lot about the benefit of the single chair being more virgin snow and less tracked slopes.

Are there any resorts that have too much uphill capacity, and should downgrade? What resorts would you rather see a double or a fixed quad vs. a HSQ?

 

[abc]

Just about every mountain in November!

 

[Zand]

Absolutely Mt. Snow. On the summit alone, you have 2 North Face triples, 1 Sunbrook Quad, 1 6-pack, 1 high speed quad. Then a little below the summit you have Ego Alley and Sundance Triples. So basically every 10 seconds or so, you have a total of 26 people being unloaded at or near the summit. Sure there are a lot of trails up there, but the high traffic trails get insane when all the lifts are running.

Skye Peak at Killington comes close too.

 

[bdfreetuna]

Nashoba Valley

/thread

 

[bobbutts]

Agree with Mt. Snow, far and away the most unload capacity at a single location. I think Massachusetts has some of the biggest offenders though.
Smaller places like Nashoba and Bradford come to mind. They seem to average about 1 lift per trail.
Wachusett has a HSQ for each "pod" that consists of 3 or 4 trails.

 

[thetrailboss]

In terms of a lot of capacity and not many people to use it, look at Sugarbush. "South" has too many people and not enough room. North was redesigned in the early 1990's and now has almost all quads, 2 HSQ's, and literally half the number of people as South. So one place with old school narrow terrain and too many people and the other with plenty of room for crowds and no folks. Any guesses as to where I skied most of the time? :lol:

 

[Smellytele]

In terms of a lot of capacity and not many people to use it, look at Sugarbush. "South" has too many people and not enough room. North was redesigned in the early 1990's and now has almost all quads, 2 HSQ's, and literally half the number of people as South. So one place with old school narrow terrain and too many people and the other with plenty of room for crowds and no folks. Any guesses as to where I skied most of the time? :lol:

Utah?

 

[fbrissette]

Tremblant is the best example I can think of.

 

[skiNEwhere]

Stratton. 4 summit lifts, seriously? The shooting star, and to a lesser extend, Snow bowl lifts could cease to exist and the mountain would still function fine.

I think Vail has too many HSQ. They have 31 lifts, and excluding the surface lifts, all but 2 of those are HSQ's (or 6 packs). Finding a Fixed grip lift on their trail map is like finding Waldo

Resorts focus so much on minimizing lines that the crowding is not done in the lines, but on the slopes. I remember when Ascutney added a HSQ, which was nice, but there were only two trails from the summit it served, one of which which was a double black. That other trail got icy, FAST

 

[drjeff]

Absolutely Mt. Snow. On the summit alone, you have 2 North Face triples, 1 Sunbrook Quad, 1 6-pack, 1 high speed quad. Then a little below the summit you have Ego Alley and Sundance Triples. So basically every 10 seconds or so, you have a total of 26 people being unloaded at or near the summit. Sure there are a lot of trails up there, but the high traffic trails get insane when all the lifts are running.

Skye Peak at Killington comes close too.

But yet Mount Snow doesn't ski more "crowded" off the summit when all those lifts are running.

1st off, very few people riding Sunbrook actually make the UPHILL hike of about 100 yards or so from where it unloads over to the Main Face (some will make the short trek over to the Northface), so most of the folks riding that Quad head back down the pod it services.

The Northface - if the Challenger triple (the one that basically has it's top terminal on the back deck of the summit lodge) is running, then you will get maybe a 1/3 of the folks riding that lift heading over to the Main Face, if it's a windy day and/or just the Outpost triple(the one furthest from the summit lodge) is the only one running - most folks riding it are likely to either head back down the Northface or head over to Sunbrook for the exact same reason why most folks don't go from Sunbrook to the Main Face, it's a UPHILL hike (about 75 yards in this case).

Ego - it finishes about 1/2 mile and 600 verts below the summit, and the vast majority of the folks that ride it (if it's not a wind hold day) are race team kids training right below it.

Sundance - finishes about 1/4 mile and 200 verts below the summit, and again, most folks riding it tend to be using just the pod of terrain encompassing Shootout, Hop, Ridge and Uncles - with the exception of Ridge, not too many folks off the summit use those trails.

The Bluebird and Grand Summit (when they're both running simulatanesouly running mid day mainly on the weekend), I thought going into last season would be way more of the cluster F than it actually turned be, and I know that the management at Mount Snow was very aware of how much capacity they could be sending up to the top (in reality it's only about an additional 600 folks per hour than it used to be). In reality last season, even when there wasn't always all the potential acreage availble to spread folks out on, as a 25+ year Mount Snow skier, the downhill density didn't seem any worse than it was before. That being said, I will totally concede that there's plenty of time when one can't safely make big high speed GS arcs down the trails at Mount Snow with their "normal" crowding. The simple fact that once you get to the summit that when the mountain is open that you have terrain to spead folks out that encompasses 360 degrees of options makes a difference.

For me atleast, the Skye Peak area at Killington seems density wise far worse, with Superstar, Skyeship and Skye Peak Express all dropping folks off into a small area, and then to a lesser extent adding pressure to the trail pods that those lifts mainly service, Needles Eye and Bear Mtn Quads

 

[jrmagic]

Resorts focus so much on minimizing lines that the crowding is not done in the lines, but on the slopes.

I agree with you but the typical few times a year resort skier doesn't complain nearly as much about crowded slopes as they do about waiting on line.

 

[skiNEwhere]

I agree with you but the typical few times a year resort skier doesn't complain nearly as much about crowded slopes as they do about waiting on line.

I agree too, and I think ski resorts realize that as well

 

[fbrissette]

I agree with you but the typical few times a year resort skier doesn't complain nearly as much about crowded slopes as they do about waiting on line.

Totally agree. For a lot of folks, the overall skiing experience is closely related to the length of lift lines.

 

[TheBEast]

+1 for Stratton.....ridiculous what they've got for uphill capacity there....no wonder most of their high traffic runs are sheets by 11 am a good amount of the time.

 

[Nick]

Totally agree. For a lot of folks, the overall skiing experience is closely related to the length of lift lines.

I dunno how i feel about it. I kind of agree.

I think I would rather ski on a slightly crowded slope than I would wait in a lift line.

 

[xwhaler]

With the new triple chair going in at Cranmore this year I do wonder about 1 HSQ and 2 triples all unloading at the sumitt.
A lot of the crowding or lack thereof also comes down to layout of the mtn. How many unique routes are there off the chair and how quickly can that terrain disperse the skiiers.
Anytime there are trail junctions (especially above lifts where people stop to decide to take an uphill lift or ski further down) will be crowded.

 

[summit62]

Agree with Mt. Snow, far and away the most unload capacity at a single location.

True, but this is only part of the story. Folks riding the North Face lifts more often then not stay on that pod and are not interlaced with skiers coming off the HSQ and 6-pack. Same goes for Sunbrook as a short uphill skate is necessary to access the summit from the top of the Sunbrook quad. Skiers wishing to move on from the Sunbrook often opt to use the Beartrap double, completely avoiding the summit.

Yes, the main summit area where the HSQ and 6-pack download does get busy when both are running, which is usually only mid-day weekends, but with 360* of trail options and a large, flat summit area, it does not feel as crowded as the trail map might suggest.

 

[thetrailboss]

Utah?

Only been in Utah for a year. Grew up in Vermont.

I was a passholder at Sugarbush for at least four seasons.

 

[riverc0il]

Mount Snow, Stratton, and Nashoba all stand out for having too many lifts unloading in the same place servicing the same trails.

 

[steamboat1]

Hunter