Windham - Ongoing Lift Issues - Anyone else frustrated?

[mriceyman]

Windham makes big announcement today. A base-to-summit six-passenger chairlift is coming to Windham Mountain in the Catskill Mountains of New York. The mile-long Doppelmayr system will replace the Whistler triple, a 1983 VonRoll triple with a ten-plus minute ride. A parallel detachable quad called Whirlwind, built by Garaventa CTEC in 1993, will remain in place this summer and beyond. Windham also revealed today it will launch RFID ticketing across its seven lifts next season and Doppelmayr now has at least a dozen lifts to build in the United States and Canada this year.

They are making the right move...

Nice


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[tumbler]

Dana I think is the lift maintenance manager there. He's a douche. This has nothing to do with maintenance tho.

Lift maintenance across ski areas country wide is a nightmare. The preventative maintenance, repairs, reports, checking, etc is done different at all places. Most lift mechanics are clueless. The old generation of lift mechanics are out or on their way. The new wave is clueless. Most resorts are lucky if they have one senior guy that knows his stuff. Resorts also pay peanuts. When you pay your skilled senior lift guy $18/hr why would he not leave and use his skills at a non ski area for salary wages.

There will be a huge lift accident at some point. With numerous fatalities. And this will come crashing down. And regulations will tighten. Training and skills will be had. Pay will increase. And your ticket price will follow

You would think that each lft company would have training programs that the mechaincs have to get sent to or they are trained onsite. Do the lift companies have a preventative maint program/manual that comes with lift installs? For the money paid for lifts I would think so and would think each state inspecting authority would demand to see the records as part of yearly inspections. I know the NDT reports are submitted in VT but that is only for grips I think.

 

[cdskier]

You would think that each lft company would have training programs that the mechaincs have to get sent to or they are trained onsite. Do the lift companies have a preventative maint program/manual that comes with lift installs? For the money paid for lifts I would think so and would think each state inspecting authority would demand to see the records as part of yearly inspections. I know the NDT reports are submitted in VT but that is only for grips I think.

I've seen one lift contract...and it does state that an operation and maintenance manual is included (how detailed that manual is I have no idea). The buyer was also to provide to Dopp as part of that contract 2 qualified resources that would work with Dopp during the final assembly and testing in order to learn how to operate and maintain the lift. Dopp also makes maintenance training classes available every offseason for mountains that want to send people for training. Of course there's no way they can cover every possible issue in any of these on-site or off-site trainings...a lot comes down to experience of the staff where you'll learn far more than you would from a class or two.

 

[Magna999]

MT Snow lift repair Transperency

I was going to say Sugarloaf...because they have had two very high profile accidents.

But I did not know about PCMR. Interesting.

Here is another great example of lift ops transperency. Windham should follow their lead..
https://www.mountsnow.com/our-media/blog/mount-snow/bluebird-updates

 

[Magna999]

G Lift Down Again...

Here is another great example of lift ops transperency. Windham should follow their lead..
https://www.mountsnow.com/our-media/blog/mount-snow/bluebird-updates

G Lift down as of 10am on what is clearly their busiest day this season.

 

[Magna999]

Happened to be at Windham today with hopes of Mountain Biking but, to my summer surprise A lift was down for electrical issues, and no access to mountain. What’s even worse was they had a wedding scheduled for mountain top and had to relocate the ceremony to the base entryway overlooking the parking lot! Boy would I want a refund! Hoping that Windham will share more about their new F lift progress as it seems a lot more to do before ski season.

 

[mriceyman]

Happened to be at Windham today with hopes of Mountain Biking but, to my summer surprise A lift was down for electrical issues, and no access to mountain. What’s even worse was they had a wedding scheduled for mountain top and had to relocate the ceremony to the base entryway overlooking the parking lot! Boy would I want a refund! Hoping that Windham will share more about their new F lift progress as it seems a lot more to do before ski season.

Wow thats bad


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[sull1102]

Lol poor guys can't even keep it running in the warm weather, good grief

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[benski]

The old F lift was shipped to Greek peak, so that’s something.

 

[doublediamond]

Chairs to go to Chair 5 for 18/19

Chair 5 chairs to go to Chair 3 for 19/20. Towers from Windham for Chair 3 upgrade to triple.

Where will extra towers and chairs go? Chair 4 needed the axe 8 years ago when my footrest broke off mid ride!!!!!!!!

 

[benski]

Chairs to go to Chair 5 for 18/19

Chair 5 chairs to go to Chair 3 for 19/20. Towers from Windham for Chair 3 upgrade to triple.

Where will extra towers and chairs go? Chair 4 needed the axe 8 years ago when my footrest broke off mid ride!!!!!!!!

Chair 2 is even worse, it is just rusting away. Its very similar to Sugarbush's old doubles, The Village, Valley house and original Castlerock. All gone due to aging.

 

[Magna999]

Back up at Windham this week and not seeing much progress on new F lift not have they seemed to get more parts for the lift. No towers cross arms, or chairs seem to be at staging zone. Would be great to know the contract schedule with the Dopp team. Windham missing an incredible opportunity to market with their lackluster media/comms strategy. People scratching their heads as to why this fantastic investment isn’t getting more coverage/hype from WMR. Let’s hope they can actually get the new lift operational for 2018-19..

 

[andrec10]

Back up at Windham this week and not seeing much progress on new F lift not have they seemed to get more parts for the lift. No towers cross arms, or chairs seem to be at staging zone. Would be great to know the contract schedule with the Dopp team. Windham missing an incredible opportunity to market with their lackluster media/comms strategy. People scratching their heads as to why this fantastic investment isn’t getting more coverage/hype from WMR. Let’s hope they can actually get the new lift operational for 2018-19..

Drove by there yesterday and thought the same thing. Very quiet. Hunters North is busy.

 

[catskillman]

Back up at Windham this week and not seeing much progress on new F lift not have they seemed to get more parts for the lift. No towers cross arms, or chairs seem to be at staging zone. Would be great to know the contract schedule with the Dopp team. Windham missing an incredible opportunity to market with their lackluster media/comms strategy. People scratching their heads as to why this fantastic investment isn’t getting more coverage/hype from WMR. Let’s hope they can actually get the new lift operational for 2018-19..

agreed. there is very little progress there. the mountain was dug up for snowmaking pipes or maybe electrical, but the activity was not near where the new lift is going in. It was under that slow lift that goes up to the lodge.

Have they got the $ to complete this in the next 2 months? It is only a lift at Windham, no new trails, so the activity is less that what is going on at Hunter of course.

Maybe they layoff the marketing dept in the off season.......

 

[Magna999]

Lots of folks who are pass holders don’t get it. Their marketing/media Dept should be maximizing the great news. They clearly have a contract with Dopp and hopefully they come begin real work at Windham after they finish up at Hunter or other regional jobs. Let’s hope they actually get this done because lots of folks I know won’t ride A lift anymore and passes will redirect to Hunter.

 

[catskillman]

Lots of folks who are pass holders don’t get it. Their marketing/media Dept should be maximizing the great news. They clearly have a contract with Dopp and hopefully they come begin real work at Windham after they finish up at Hunter or other regional jobs. Let’s hope they actually get this done because lots of folks I know won’t ride A lift anymore and passes will redirect to Hunter.

we don't want them at Hunter - it is too crowded already!!!!!!!

They need to get their act together!!!!!!!

 

[andrec10]

we don't want them at Hunter - it is too crowded already!!!!!!!

They need to get their act together!!!!!!!

Hunter uses Poma-Leitner...

 

[catskillman]

Lots of folks who are pass holders don’t get it. Their marketing/media Dept should be maximizing the great news. They clearly have a contract with Dopp and hopefully they come begin real work at Windham after they finish up at Hunter or other regional jobs. Let’s hope they actually get this done because lots of folks I know won’t ride A lift anymore and passes will redirect to Hunter.

Noticed they finally started putting up some things on Facebook. Not much and poorly done. I really think they laid off the marketing dept for the summer.

The main thing I noted is this below. I cut and pasted from their post. "Early" is key.

Construction is on schedule and Westside Six is anticipated to open early in the 2018/2019 season!

 

[Magna999]

The teams at Windham and Dopp did a good job to get their new lift up and operational ahead of the busy holiday period. BUT, yesterday was a total calamity. The new lift shut down due to a required “tensioning adjustment” and folks were stranded for about an hour on the lift. Word from the staff was the Aux drive wouldn’t work because they didn’t have Diesel in the tanks and had to literally go get some. Let’s hope the load tests that were done were exhaustive and that Windham learns to not take any shortcuts. Lift back up and yes it’s a new lift where they still need to learn it’s ins and outs, but they need to work the kinks out without public on it. It is an amazing add to their mountain for sure.

 

[MEtoVTSkier]

How did it ever pass final inspection without diesel in the tanks? Lol!