The "Sugarbush Thread"

[erdb1]

No one said it was "ok", but I still think you're over-exaggerating. I like ME a lot and as a result spend a considerable amount of time there. NRX without a doubt has been problematic for a while and I already stated I was disappointed to hear they seem to have pushed replacement of that back a year. Honestly I think that lift needs replacement more than HG at the moment and should have been a higher priority.

I checked my notes from last year and GMX was down a little over a week in mid-Feb. Looks like it was a motor issue where it had to be shipped out for repair and then still had problems when it came back. Ultimately a $40 part fixed it, but it was a a complicated diagnosis apparently. Inverness was fine during that time though from what I recall and once you were at NRX/Summit, it didn't matter much that GMX was down (again I'm not saying it was ideal, but the entire mountain was still accessible at the time).

My issue though is comparing that issue last year to the 1.5 hours it was down this weekend and thinking one has anything to do with the other. This weekend it could have been down for something simple that failed and needed replacement (a sensor or even a bearing on a lift tower for example). There are many things that can go wrong that are not at all indicative of a lack of proper maintenance. That's where I have an issue with the implication that they're cutting corners at ME. Now if GMX starts going down repeatedly, then there's cause for concern with that lift. But one isolated incident is not a sign of a larger problem.

I do agree more transparency is needed, but at the same time I also don't think we're owed an explanation for every single maintenance issue. For example I do think sharing why Summit was down multiple days last weekend would be appropriate. But I don't think an isolated (at this point) issue on GMX from yesterday needs an explanation. The story with Inverness would be good to know as well. Maybe it isn't even a lift issue and is a staffing issue. That wouldn't surprise me either.

I appreciate you have a special connection to SB. Maybe if I had a longer history with the place I'd be more forgiving.
It seems we agree on the facts I just think it's unacceptable to run a resort like this. As a customer, I shouldn't be required to keep track of why a lift is not running. It doesn't matter if it's the same or a different issue with GMX as last year. Yes, the lifts are complex, yet resorts around the world figure out how to run them reliably. If you know your equipment, you know the typical failure points, you inspect them regularly, stock spares locally etc. Inverness and Summit are fixed grip. Pretty simple stuff, they can't run those either.

One more thing. How about posting something on the website or in the snow report saying we're sorry for the break-down on Sunday. This is what happened, and we are working hard to make sure it won't happen again. We appreciate your patience, etc. This would go a long way. Maybe they could squeeze it between two fricking announcements of some stupid instagram contest...

 

[Getskied]

Were you actually there in the afternoon? I'm really curious when things started spinning again and which lifts were running at the end. As I said, when I was there, there were no signs things would run again. They were handing out refunds for tickets, rentals and classes and everyone was leaving the mountain.

When I left (1:45?) both Inverness and GMX were loading.

 

[cdskier]

I appreciate you have a special connection to SB. Maybe if I had a longer history with the place I'd be more forgiving.
It seems we agree on the facts I just think it's unacceptable to run a resort like this. As a customer, I shouldn't be required to keep track of why a lift is not running. It doesn't matter if it's the same or a different issue with GMX as last year. Yes, the lifts are complex, yet resorts around the world figure out how to run them reliably. If you know your equipment, you know the typical failure points, you inspect them regularly, stock spares locally etc. Inverness and Summit are fixed grip. Pretty simple stuff, they can't run those either.

One more thing. How about posting something on the website or in the snow report saying we're sorry for the break-down on Sunday. This is what happened, and we are working hard to make sure it won't happen again. We appreciate your patience, etc. This would go a long way. Maybe they could squeeze it between two fricking announcements of some stupid instagram contest...

You can't stock every part for every lift. Yes there are things that are "typical" failure points and you stock those (i.e. whatever happened on Sunday at GMX was either something they had a replacement part on hand for or didn't need one at all since it was back up and running in 1.5 hours). But there are also things that break (without warning no matter how much you "inspect" them) that may not be as common to expect to have to replace. Or it is not cost efficient to stock them and you rely on .

As for "resorts around the world figure out how to run them reliably"...I can think of multiple lift issues at plenty of other resorts this year alone. Gore's gondola was down for over a week. Needle's Eye at K has been down for a while (don't think it has run this season at all yet and they're still working with Poma on troubleshooting). There's several other new england resorts mentioned in the Vail sucks thread that have had lifts down at times this year.

And I'm sure there are more that we don't hear about as well. Doesn't mean everyone else has 100% uptime...

 

[mikec142]

The website says as of 12:11pm that NRX is down for the day. None of this affects me as I won't be back up until the weekend of 2/10.

That said, communicating clearly in order to set expectations is important and it feels like that's lacking.

 

[bumpcrasher]

ERDB1, I very much share your frustration and your observations that the mechanical issues (especially at Mt. Ellen) have occurred all season and date back many years. I ski Mt. Ellen a lot mid-week and more often than not, there are some mechanical issue with at least one of the lifts. NRX was not ready for the first 2 weeks of the season and Summit was constantly breaking down as well.
Even this past week, NRX was down Wednesday and Thursday and I did not bother going there today as Mt. Ellen just does not ski as well without it. I wish this was isolated to the last few weeks or even this season yet this is very typical and something we just have to work around until a more permanent solution is in place.

 

[WinS]

Longtime Lurker first post.

Woods are skiing well, as above posts have mentioned it is a bit crusty underneath but its skiing very well. Get after it before next weeks warmup, I'd say about 10" on top of a solid crust which can be grippy and grabby under mid mountain. Favorite glades have been well skied, but goods are there if willing to do some bushwhacking.

Sugarbush has been going a little wild with their snow reporting, fun to compare our hype numbers to Mad River down the road. 16", 4!! lol, we might've had an inch last night which they reported as 4, seems as if our numbers are hyped with the daily numbers then revised mid day. Just wish our snow reporting team would ease up on the marketing- Crowded as is on the weekends with ikon crowds, but give an honest report and ease up on the hype.

Slidebrook is good, Run out is chop suey with water bars and a plowed low road which meant a long runout on a snowbank, but good turns with a crust- bus will be be busy tomorrow.

Strange new norm with the weather pattern, added with lift challenges especially on crowded weekends. Bravo went on diesel Thursday after close, went down about 2PM today.

Win, question on how much if any glade maintenance is done during the off season. I know due to regulations we are very limited in terms of "cutting season" but always tough to see my favorite glades filling in.

I do not know what was done this summer. We were allowed to do some maintenance in the identified wooded areas as part of the forest management plan. I am not sure if anything has changed.

 

[kingslug]

Let's look at it from a different perspective.
Spoke to a guy on the ride up sensation quad today. He and a girl were stuck on the lift at Ellen for over half an hour yesterday. She started shivering uncontrollably...as in going into hyperthermia. That's a big problem. He started feeling the same. For 30 years my biggest priority in my buildings was life safety.
My ass was on the line if their was a problem.
These lifts are no joke....and need to be maintained.
Plain..and simple.

 

[Slidebrook87]

NRX aside, Inverness has been really odd this year. It has barely, if ever been open to the public and has been running extremely slow. This is clearly not a mechanical issue as it has been spinning for GMVS, but I can't understand why they won't open it to the public and run it at the speed they used to.

 

[cdskier]

Let's look at it from a different perspective.
Spoke to a guy on the ride up sensation quad today. He and a girl were stuck on the lift at Ellen for over half an hour yesterday. She started shivering uncontrollably...as in going into hyperthermia. That's a big problem. He started feeling the same. For 30 years my biggest priority in my buildings was life safety.
My ass was on the line if their was a problem.
These lifts are no joke....and need to be maintained.
Plain..and simple.

100% agree. But it is also ridiculous to imply that they are NOT doing maintenance. These implications that the issues are due to neglect of any sort are entirely baseless. That's the problem. I've said it before, but there's no chance they run lifts that they do not believe are safe. Their ass IS on the line if something were to happen due to any sort of neglect or lack of maintenance. And that is precisely why I see no way that would actually be the case. They're not going to take that chance. End of story.

 

[kingslug]

Then what's happening?
It's a machine....
Of course they are doing some kind of maintenance...
Yet they still break down constantly.

 

[Tin Woodsman]

I'll just say there 1,000 shades of grey between "lift is running reliably" and "not doing maintenance", so let's be fair and judicious in our observations. Any number of maintenance policy/procedure, leadership or labor issues, to say nothing of force majeure from Mother Nature, could be at play here.

That said, the number and frequency of breakdowns at North have to be concerning - getting hard to simply dismiss as "bad luck" alone.

 

[cdskier]

I'll just say there 1,000 shades of grey between "lift is running reliably" and "not doing maintenance", so let's be fair and judicious in our observations. Any number of maintenance policy/procedure, leadership or labor issues, to say nothing of force majeure from Mother Nature, could be at play here.

That said, the number and frequency of breakdowns at North have to be concerning - getting hard to simply dismiss as "bad luck" alone.

Yea...NRX is concerning as that has been down a lot already this year. Inverness is potentially concerning as it seems like it hasn't run much yet (but to be fair, the public terrain over there has really only been open/skiable a week or two at this point, so maybe not running it for the public has been part of the staffing plan...last year I seem to recall it not running much "early" winter either and we were speculating it had issues...and then right after they put that banner on the bottom terminal last year it ran pretty consistently). Summit...other than last weekend has it been down much? I don't recall seeing too much outside of wind holds. Up until yesterday's issue, GMX had arguably been pretty reliable this winter from everything I've seen. So again I'm not going to jump to conclusions that one issue means it has systemic problems.

The biggest overall problem to me though is lack of communication/transparency. There could be legitimate and simple explanations for at least some of these. Or there could not be. Maybe I just tend to err on the side of caution without actual proof/facts of serious problems. (i.e. innocent until proven guilty).

 

[erdb1]

100% agree. But it is also ridiculous to imply that they are NOT doing maintenance. These implications that the issues are due to neglect of any sort are entirely baseless. That's the problem. I've said it before, but there's no chance they run lifts that they do not believe are safe. Their ass IS on the line if something were to happen due to any sort of neglect or lack of maintenance. And that is precisely why I see no way that would actually be the case. They're not going to take that chance. End of story.

If you refer to my original post, I said they don't do the necessary maintenance. The proof is obvious, there is not a single lift on that mountain that has worked reliably in the past few years. No one said they don't do maintenance at all. End of story...

 

[cdskier]

If you refer to my original post, I said they don't do the necessary maintenance. The proof is obvious, there is not a single lift on that mountain that has worked reliably in the past few years. No one said they don't do maintenance at all. End of story...

Sure...keep thinking they're somehow not doing necessary maintenance... You don't even know what the root cause of any the issues are, yet you say the "proof is obvious". You don't seem to understand what "proof" actually is. And again I disagree about the level of reliability issues. I could count on 1 hand the number of days that lift issues at ME have impacted my ski day the past few years.

 

[kingslug]

The real story..is that we will never know what is going on...

 

[hovercraft]

Real story is they have had lift issues for many years.

 

[keyser soze]

Let's look at it from a different perspective.
Spoke to a guy on the ride up sensation quad today. He and a girl were stuck on the lift at Ellen for over half an hour yesterday. She started shivering uncontrollably...as in going into hyperthermia. That's a big problem. He started feeling the same. For 30 years my biggest priority in my buildings was life safety.
My ass was on the line if their was a problem.
These lifts are no joke....and need to be maintained.
Plain..and simple.

I had a friend who was also stuck on the lift for an extended time in the bitter cold Saturday and he said he was shivering and freezing to his core. Anybody new to skiing or who didn't invest in some really good ski attire probably were at risk of hypothermia as KS said.

I love the terrain and the vibe at Sugarbush, but their entire lift system is old and needs to be replaced. So many times the lifts are down on the weekends and they don't have a ton of lifts to pick up the slack when they go down. They are also ridiculously slow which makes it much worse when the lifts stop in the cold. I was talking on the lifts with 3 strangers Saturday and we were discussing how if Sugarbush had a lift system like Flatten it would be off the charts. And I ski there a couple of Saturdays a month since the Ikon and have only skied once at ME this past Saturday, so the problems are not confined to ME.

 

[drjeff]

I think also that one thing that many may not fully comprehend is how many parts there are involved in a lift.

For example, over the last couple of weeks, the now retired former senior head of mountain ops for Mount Snow, has been posting up some really informative threads about how a detachable lift works and all that is involved in keeping it operating safely.

Using their Bluebird Express as an example (It's a bit over 7k feet long, and in addition to the top and bottom terminals, there are I believe 23 towers as well). That lift alone has over 1200 senors constantly scanning for things like wind, irregularities in the drive system, irregularities in the temperature of the lubricants in the drive system, etc, etc, etc. And that's just for 1 lift. Now multiply that by how many lifts a resort has, and then one can grasp a little why it may not be feasible in so many respects to have every part needed on hand, all the time, should (when) something fails.

Sometimes I think we all may just take for granted how "easy" the operations crews can make things look, when it takes a substantial effort day in and day out to get there

 

[keyser soze]

I think also that one thing that many may not fully comprehend is how many parts there are involved in a lift.

For example, over the last couple of weeks, the now retired former senior head of mountain ops for Mount Snow, has been posting up some really informative threads about how a detachable lift works and all that is involved in keeping it operating safely.

Using their Bluebird Express as an example (It's a bit over 7k feet long, and in addition to the top and bottom terminals, there are I believe 23 towers as well). That lift alone has over 1200 senors constantly scanning for things like wind, irregularities in the drive system, irregularities in the temperature of the lubricants in the drive system, etc, etc, etc. And that's just for 1 lift. Now multiply that by how many lifts a resort has, and then one can grasp a little why it may not be feasible in so many respects to have every part needed on hand, all the time, should (when) something fails.

Sometimes I think we all may just take for granted how "easy" the operations crews can make things look, when it takes a substantial effort day in and day out to get there

I don't think anyone is saying that it is a simple process to maintain lifts, but other resorts do a much better job of keeping their lifts in good shape. This is not a little mom and pop hill so they should have the resources to keep things running better than they have for years, not just this season. The fact that their lifts are old just makes it more difficult so probably time to upgrade their lifts.

 

[VTSkiBike]

Interrupting the armchair mountain ops conversation to say that skiing is pretty damn amazing right now. Chairlift issues aside, it's been a very snowy January with more on the way so get out there before the non-frozen precip comes our way.