Spruce Triple - Sunday River, ME

[WoodCore]

This isn't good! http://sundayriver.com/news

 

[drjeff]

And the issues with a Boyne operated lift continues.... Not a good thing at all!!

 

[WJenness]

Was just reading that. Haven't yet picked my jaw up off the floor...

 

[shwilly]

Yikes! That's terrible, but at least no one was around.

Coincidentally, I jogged past the top of the Spruce chair on Saturday afternoon, a first. I didn't notice anything amiss.

That's rough. That seems...bad for its prospects of running this year. I hope they figure something out.

 

[chuckstah]

Not good at all. The lift system is old, and needs an infusion of cash. A half dozen lifts need to be replaced soon, but it seems more like one every 8 years or so is done. Need to get the resort sold to a landlord with cash. I will rethink renewing my Boyne pass in the future if it remains status quo.

 

[steamboat1]

Not good at all. The lift system is old, and needs an infusion of cash. A half dozen lifts need to be replaced soon, but it seems more like one every 8 years or so is done. Need to get the resort sold to a landlord with cash. I will rethink renewing my Boyne pass in the future if it remains status quo.

Boyne is putting two new lifts in at Big Sky this summer. One a carpet loading fixed grip triple the other a HS six pack bubble. Still with Boyne's track record the past few years it doesn't give me much confidence to ride their Lone Peak tram. Wouldn't anything happening while riding that lift. If you've ever been there you'd know there isn't much holding the top terminal of the tram in place.

Boyne isn't the landlord at Sunday River, CNL is.

 

[chuckstah]

Yes. CNL needs to sell. Thats why I said landlord. It seems the only arial lifts installed by Boyne in the East since the SR chondola in 08 have been due to lift failure at the Loaf. While I'd love to see the POS Spruce lift replaced, it's not a good sign that once again lift failure is the only way to get a new one.

 

[yeggous]

Seriously this shit does not happen elsewhere. We are past the point of this being a coincidence. It's a July miracle that nobody was hurt.

 

[deadheadskier]

This isn't only a bad look for Boyne, but also the lift inspection staff for the State of Maine as well no?

A 30 year old lift isn't that old in the grand scheme of things. Wonder what undermined the lift foundation. Natural spring at the summit perhaps? I wonder what sort of inspection is done on lift foundations other than looking for cracks.

 

[Newpylong]

At this point I worry more about Borvig than Boyne.

 

[drjeff]

At this point I worry more about Borvig than Boyne.

That is the common thread when you take the 2 incidents at Sugarloaf, the double at Suicide Six, the lift at Timberline, West Virginia and now Spruce...... Borvig is getting pretty close to having the reputation that Yan achieved (with respect to their HSQ's at least) right now

 

[jimmywilson69]

That is a major, catastrophic failure. I seriously question the inspection process both at Sunday River and the State of Maine. There is no way the foundation of a lift should fail over night in a manner that completely destroys the bull wheel. If there was some sort of undermining that cause the tower to basically "tip over" it should've been apparent.

Was there any lager rain events recently at the Mountain? It looks like the ground the foundation was on just gave way. I was in Acadia all last week and It barely rained there, but that area is also hundreds of miles from Sunday River.

 

[Vortex]

Glad there were no injuries. This lift is probably the one that going down hurts them the least. If you take Boreais off Aurora its a 2 to 5 minute walk to Down draft and Amex, Risky another minute. They already used the Aurora lift as an early opening lift last year with what I would say was a successful experiment. Bottom line is this is not good, won't effect me much. Not going to stress. Out of the box...
Bring out one of the surface rope tow lifts and run it to the top of spruce to from Borealis is you really want people not to walk.Traffic won't be coming down that way anymore.

 

[Edd]

It's not critical for navigation but that pod keeps a good chunk of people occupied. I'd think they'll fix it pretty quick.

 

[deadheadskier]

http://8.sundayriver.com

Will they change it to 7.75.sundayriver.com ?

I kid. I'd be somewhat surprised if they fix it. This is a worse failure than the previous problems they've had; it just won't get the same amount of news coverage and bad press because it's the off season and no one was riding it. I would think from a consumer confidence standpoint it would need to be replaced. I'm not sure how feasible that is this late in the summer.

 

[Jully]

They're lucky in that it is only 3-4 trails but it is a pretty heavy traffic grabber being right off the Chondola. In the long run that's a good spot for a carpet loader quad, they just put the carpet in they can keep it right there.

As for next season, it is pretty late in the year to put an order in and get the ball moving on an install. Worst case scenario there's no lift there, best case you remove the bullwheel off the footing and replace it and hope people will ride it.

I could see them fixing it, but only running it sparingly when crowds necessitate. Then early next offseason they replace it. I'm sure they'd like CNL to sell, but we saw with okemo that CNL's current position doesn't prevent lift installations.

While it sucks that this has happened at Boyne resorts primarily, and they definitely have some responsibility, I'd place more blame on CNL and most of the blame on Borvig. From what I know about lift inspections, a lot of the Borvig problems are not easily identified using the current system, hence why special inspections were needed at SL to find Timberline's issue and the inspections at S6.

 

[machski]

Wow, everyone is jumping on Borvig fast. This is a bit different, it is the concrete footing/anchor that gave way. Could it be a design flaw from Borvig engineering? Possibly. Could it be poor concrete from the supplier when poured? Possibly. Could it be bad site selection for the footing? Possibly. We'll have to wait for the investigation results to know for sure. I can tell you as I ski a ton there, where the Spruce top anchor is, that terrain it sits in is like a bowl. Rain water does not drain well away from that footing (or several of the tower footings towards the top as well). I have a feeling drainage will be sited as a major factor here. If the ground started giving first, allowing a touch of movement of the anchor, that could have been enough force to then rip apart the concrete/rebar structure like you see if a picture. That anchor has to exert a massive amount of force 24/7 just to counter the empty lift.

My guess is if they repair, the top terminal gets moved above the current unload (like more in line almost with the patrol shack at the top) to give that footing better drainage. As for the carpet, it could not be used with a Quad. It is not wide enough for four abreast loading.

 

[machski]

Boyne is putting two new lifts in at Big Sky this summer. One a carpet loading fixed grip triple the other a HS six pack bubble. Still with Boyne's track record the past few years it doesn't give me much confidence to ride their Lone Peak tram. Wouldn't anything happening while riding that lift. If you've ever been there you'd know there isn't much holding the top terminal of the tram in place.

Boyne isn't the landlord at Sunday River, CNL is.

And actually one of Big Sky replacements is for the Challenger Double that died in February and was left for dead the remainder of the season. So even there only one lift can be said to be a planned replacement of a functioning lift (and I still have no idea why the Lone Peak Triple needs to be a heated, bubble HSS for line length <4000').

 

[mbedle]

That is a major, catastrophic failure. I seriously question the inspection process both at Sunday River and the State of Maine. There is no way the foundation of a lift should fail over night in a manner that completely destroys the bull wheel. If there was some sort of undermining that cause the tower to basically "tip over" it should've been apparent.

Was there any lager rain events recently at the Mountain? It looks like the ground the foundation was on just gave way. I was in Acadia all last week and It barely rained there, but that area is also hundreds of miles from Sunday River.

I'm not an engineer, but looking at the pictures it appears the the concrete footer failed just below grade. Not sure if that would have been caught during any routine inspection by either the state or the resort. Its also odd that all the re-bar was straight. I am guessing that the weight of the lift pulled them straight when they came out of the footer still in the ground. If this was a catastrophic failure, I can only imagine the force that was applied to the first tower going down the hill, when it took the weight of the rope after it slipped off the bull wheel. It doesn't look like the cable is still attached to the bull wheel. Maybe it got hooked on the sheaves just before the bull wheel.

 

[steamboat1]

(and I still have no idea why the Lone Peak Triple needs to be a heated, bubble HSS for line length <4000').

Yeah I really don't understand that either. There was never a line for that chair the couple of times I was there but then again there weren't lines for any lift except the tram. A six pack in there will only make the lines for the tram longer. I think the tram only holds 16 people at a time.