The NEW Magic Mountain

[doublediamond]

The price of the Camden summit triple was about $1M from purchase, transport (from Pleasant Mtn), engineering, and install. That is a lot tamer of a lift. 3877x826 put in 8 years ago. Around that time new fixed grip lifts of similar dimensions were going for $2-2.5M.

New England Ski History is reporting Black cost $1.6M which seams cheap considering it’s a bigger lift, over harsher terrain, and 8 years newer.

If you can’t afford $1.8-2M for proper engineering and a new haul rope — as in done right the first time — you definitely can’t afford a $1.6M half-a$$ed project with issue after issue.

Could the issues have been solved if the tower tubes heights were modified? That’s commonly done in lift reinstalls. And extending or cutting tubes (or even fabricating a new tower) is easier that custom sourcing an in-house combo assembly design on a few towers.

Was there too much slack? Where did the extra rope come from? Black is longer than Snowbowl. Red is 5350 ft long while old Snowbowl is 4887 ft long. That’s 800 feet of extra cable needed.

 

[skiatomic]

So h

New England Ski History is reporting Black cost $1.6M which seams cheap considering it’s a bigger lift, over harsher terrain, and 8 years newer.

ow is that 1.6mm confirmed?

 

[doublediamond]

cites Ski Area Managment.

The Act 250 permit should have the cost on it too as the filing fee is based on the cost of the lift.

 

[skiatomic]

cites Ski Area Managment.

The Act 250 permit should have the cost on it too as the filing fee is based on the cost of the lift.

Is that broken down acquisition vs install cost?

 

[cdskier]

cites Ski Area Managment.

The Act 250 permit should have the cost on it too as the filing fee is based on the cost of the lift.

The ACT 250 permit application filing says 900K for the project cost (they described it in the application as "construction costs"). Since the application fee is based on project cost, what happens if a project goes over that cost? Obviously there would have been substantial costs added here after the fact due to re-engineering and the fabrication of all the new parts.

 

[thetrailboss]

The ACT 250 permit application filing says 900K for the project cost (they described it in the application as "construction costs"). Since the application fee is based on project cost, what happens if a project goes over that cost? Obviously there would have been substantial costs added here after the fact due to re-engineering and the fabrication of all the new parts.

Good question

 

[AdironRider]

Have they even completed the deck yet? Doesn’t sound like it.

These guys will have an empty and unable to be filled snowmaking pond, no access to the summit, and major work to be done on all before any of them come on line.

The fact they had a new haul rope on site a year ago and tried to make the old one work is inexcusable. Combine that with 5 years of screwups, plus don’t forget last years red incident where incompetence led to chairs falling off the line while people were riding it, and it is clear they do not know what they are doing. I wouldn’t ride one of their lifts if you paid me.

But they are the internet cool kids of ski area owners, so they have that going for them, which is nice.

 

[zoomzoom]

a ski-lift design must satisfy a variety of load conditions on the lift line, i.e bare rope { no carriers }, empty carriers uphill/downhill, loaded carriers uphill/empty carriers downhill, downhill loading if requested, etc. of course these conditions must be satisfied under both static and dynamic conditions. min/max sheave loadings must be met under all conditions, with cable "lift-off" avoided always.

it sounds complicated, but once lift specs are input { cable and carrier weights, survey data, line speeds, areas of minimum ground clearances , etc } are input, the program does the work. no more slide rules!

to get tower loadings wrong is unusual but not unheard of. take a look at the excavated area under the lift line at the very bottom of the K gondola, used to be called the "valley plunge trail". when the cabins were loaded onto the line for the first time, they dragged along the ground there. : )

am wondering if there was a "bust" in the line survey used for the calcs on the black, that would explain a lot.

 

[slatham]

Have they even completed the deck yet? Doesn’t sound like it.

These guys will have an empty and unable to be filled snowmaking pond, no access to the summit, and major work to be done on all before any of them come on line.

The fact they had a new haul rope on site a year ago and tried to make the old one work is inexcusable. Combine that with 5 years of screwups, plus don’t forget last years red incident where incompetence led to chairs falling off the line while people were riding it, and it is clear they do not know what they are doing. I wouldn’t ride one of their lifts if you paid me.

But they are the internet cool kids of ski area owners, so they have that going for them, which is nice.

Pretty much all the above is incorrect.

Deck will be completed this week.

Snowmaking pond refill started last week and final approval for a full fill granted today.

Red lift is fully operational, with the chair welding to be completed well before 12/15 opening.

Black haul rope arrived this summer, it has not be onsite for a year.

No chairs fell off Red while operational (this however maybe splitting hairs as chairs did "slip" which I agree is unaccpetble)

Maybe the last point is accurate........

 

[hughconway]

Pretty much all the above is incorrect.

Deck will be completed this week.

Snowmaking pond refill started last week and final approval for a full fill granted today.

Red lift is fully operational, with the chair welding to be completed well before 12/15 opening.

Black haul rope arrived this summer, it has not be onsite for a year.

No chairs fell off Red while operational (this however maybe splitting hairs as chairs did "slip" which I agree is unaccpetble)

Maybe the last point is accurate........

Red is not 'fully operational' until the welding work is completed and has been inspected.

And yes, a chair DID fall off the red double line last winter during the surge issues with the new drive. An unloaded chair on the downhill side of the rope hit a tower and fell from the line. I've seen the photographs. I seem to recall that it was chair #1 sitting in the snow, but I could be mistaken. Absolute 100%, inexcusable negligence. It's a miracle no one was seriously injured or killed.

I can't speculate about the status of the deck, but final approval on the snowmaking pond doesn't mean a ton when they still don't have the ability to pump water (that doesn't yet exist) to their main pumphouse and distribute it across the mountain.

People seem to ignore/forget the fact that the guy in charge of Magic comes from a Madison Ave marketing background and has been basically blowing smoke up everyones a$$es to cover up for a never ending string of broken promises.

 

[Newpylong]

Botched projects aside, if it wasn't for the guy with the "Madison Ave" marketing background Magic would be NELSAPPED.

You're a piece of work...

 

[slatham]

Sorry to re-post smoke from a "Madison Ave" marketing guy, but latest update below.

Not sure where someone got the idea they can't pump from pond to pump house. Sure that was the case a month ago but that work is done. And the pond has been filling for a week, so with r*#@ coming and the ability to pump from other sources into the pond they will have enough for the short windows next week, and to go full bore when serious cold temps arrive (hopefully) the week of 12/5.

Apologies for not recalling that a Red chair fell from the line. That was a serious issue that is now committed to my otherwise failing memory.....

PS: The email had a picture of the haul rope for those skeptics out there.
___________

Some good news to report as the State of Vermont gave final approval for the new snowmaking pond dam and infrastructure today. This new dam has been one of our major goals to insure the long-term business sustainability and viability of Magic for future generations by enlarging the size of our pond (doubling) as snowmaking in the era of climate change takes on increasing urgency for our ski area.

While timing was held up a couple of weeks by multiple testing procedures which caused us to miss this last week's cold snowmaking temps, the approval now allows us to refill the pond to its new higher level and begin withdrawals from the pond as well. I'd like to thank the crew at Hunter Excavating here in Londonderry, as well as our own Josh Hearne and Mike Smilovich, for persevering through the many twists and turns of this project from an engineering stand point. Now Josh can get out of the excavator and back into the Black Line Tavern just in time for its re-opening this Friday, Saturday and Sunday!

With water now flowing into the pond, our snowmaking team, led by Andrew Starr, is anxious to light up some guns. They have guns ready at the summit and down Upper Magic Carpet to the top of Trick if we get any sustained night time temps up top. During the day through the end of November, we will be looking a bit too warm but the first full week of December is projected to get back to sustained cold which should help us with our mid-December planned opening. When we do turn on snowmaking, we'll be using new larger 8" pipe from the pond to the pumphouse which will increase the efficiency of our efforts. So, Think Cold!

Now for our other major, ever-longer project of installing the Black Line Quad: Pfister Mountain Services finished installing all the re-engineered tower sheave assemblies, with more work to do on tower alignment so the haul rope runs smoothly. Then, last Friday, the State Tramway Authority informed us that the current Quad haul rope will not be certified to run this winter. While this will cause more delays and difficulties, especially with the weather now, we had taken pre-cautions early this summer to order and pay for a new haul rope for the Quad just in case something like this happened. The new rope arrived from Europe two weeks ago and is at the base of the Quad. We will be working with Pfister to plan out how to execute the remaining line work while also having to take all the chairs off the line and then put them back on the new haul rope once installed and spliced. Certainly this is another unwanted obstacle to overcome, but we are determined to see this through to the finish line and will do all that we can to try having the Quad running at some point this winter. As always, we'll keep you posted right here on developments.

 

[Dickc]

I would think that they can run Black EMPTY so as to align the sheaves with the chairs on the line. While its not certified to run loaded this winter, I would think they can run it without people on it for alignment work (unless I misunderstood something in Slatham's above post). Then they remove chairs, install the new rope, reinstall chiars, and finish any testing needed, then load test for the state. Sounds completely doable this season.

 

[Newpylong]

Yes, that is what they have to do most likely.

 

[ss20]

Curious how the rope failed inspection. Couldn't have worn much since it was taken down at Stratton. You'd think while building a new-to-you lift you'd inspect the old rope and replace it if it was past 70% of it's life while you had the equipment and people in place already...

 

[Dickc]

I am kind of wondering if something Hugh Conway said is the actual reason. He mentioned that Magic had a waiver to use the old haul rope, and the above posted by Slatham seems to indicate the state did not actually go on site and check the haul rope. It might have been OK'ed by the state based on its age and condition a few years ago, but is now beyond years in age, and as such, its considered no good even though it has not had additional wear cycles by running. I looked on the web for NDT of wire haul ropes, and just could not make hide nor hair of the gobbledy gook that came up. YMMV.

The above by me is just a WAG (wild A** Guess) on my part.

 

[skiatomic]

Pond looks great. So many improvements in the snowmaking system and not all are obvious. Little steps are important for an area like Magic.

Deck honestly…who cares until 12/15??

Quad is a whole other story…engineer cannot get of totally blameless in this issue.

Saw Hugh Conway at the Job Fair. I hope he gets the job he applied for as CEO. He definitely seems qualified.

 

[doublediamond]

I doubt it was a botched survey. That’d be found out if when fully loaded the chairs were too low.

Could either of the bad towers have been installed incorrectly? As in the footing was put in too high or too low or at the wrong position on the line. IIRC there was a rumor there was a tower issue holding up the Green for a long time.

 

[ne_skier]

I'm completely untrained and somewhat uninformed regarding this issue, but my general idea is that whether or not Magic can pull off Black for some time this winter depends on a) does Pfister actually show up and b) does this work entail bringing some non-snow vehicle or piece of equipment up a snowy mountain. The latter was the issue last winter, as snowmaking had to be done on the access road to open the mountain. Not going to bother ranting about what went right/wrong throughout this whole process because thanks to Mr. Conway's blurtings I've already done such about 5 times in this thread.
Meanwhile it's nice to see the other projects coming along nicely - snowmaking should be a huge upgrade and the extra deck space will be nice and perhaps eliminate the need for the Covid tent. Any word on if that cool firepit area's still there or if it got decked over?

 

[ss20]

I struggle to believe Pfister is to blame here, especially if they "actually show up". They have a track record of getting their projects done. I doubt much blame falls on them... probably some, sure. The way I see it, lifts get relocated and built in a single off-season, typically. OK, pandemic, Catamount bit off more than they could chew and it took 2 seasons to build a relocated quad and 1.5 seasons to build a relocated triple.

This was the 4th construction season for Black (5th if you include the delay due to permitting). Don't tell me it's Pfister, who is a used ski lift installer, taking 4x more time than usual for a routine re-install of a used lift (a relatively modern lift at that).

It is ridiculous at this point and the issues with Red (especially in the SAFETY realm) are not a good look for Magic's in-house crew as much as it pains me to say it. Just a lot of weirdness and Black is not a fluke- Green delays (although that's not a knock as they never promised an opening as they have with Black). Original Black chair attempts at revival (years worth). Red having issues (fine it's a 50+ year old lift but trying to operate it with a surging drive? No excuse there).

And while I can't ski Magic anymore I had a pass there with the new ownership group for 2 or 3 seasons. Skied there 2-3 times a year when I didn't have a pass either- just buying tickets the first year or 2 then an Indy pass my last year. The mountain is the literal backyard of my old ski club's ski house. I'm not a "hater" but you can't ignore facts because it's not "good vibes".