Belleayre Gondola Discussion Thread

I know you don't like the Belleayre gondola, but are you saying that they shouldn't have completed the other two very essential projects that I mentioned?

From what I remember the lower 3/4ths of that ski area was flatter than Kansas and that memory is reaffirmed by those photos. Now before you comment on how I'm putting the place down and posting up a too core for that comment I think it's a strong point for the area and it's proximity to the tri-state region. Most weekend urban skiers don't need steep trails to have a good time. Maybe they are on to something?

Compared to Whiteface, Belleayre is pretty flat.  No sustained steeps or anything even the pitch of Victoria, but plenty of good intermediate trails.  Problem is that the upper section is too steep to for low intermediates, so they need to bypass it on Onondaga if taking the Superchief, or use the mid station on Lift 7 or Tomahawk.  

On the Superchief side, there are two blues off the top.  Roaring Brook is one of the easiest blues I've skied and really should be rated green IMO.  Onondaga to Horseshoe pass is more interesting, but the top section can get crowded due to lower level skiers using it to bypass the steep part of some of the other trails up there.  There are no blues off the top of Lift 7, but you can skate over to the top of the Superchief if you find yourself caught up there.

On the Tomahawk Side, there is only one blue off the top which is Deer Run.  There is no bypass trail to get to the lower sections of the other trails.  There was a trail called Western Bend that was listed as "proposed terrain" on the map for a while, but it isn't there anymore.  Problem is that it would be useless when there's racing on Dot Nebel.  This could be an issue with regards to skier traffic when the gondola opens.  Since it doesn't have a mid station, everyone will end up at the top and there will only be one option (Deer Run) for intermediate skiers.  They also won't realize that one needs to use Tomahawk to ski the lower portions of the other trails and not the gondola.  The Deer Run crowding issues may not be that big of a deal since they widened choke points on the trail.  I don't like that they decided to get rid of the rollers, but I'll withhold further judgement until I ski it.  The other thing is that many people already skied Deer Run off Tomahawk, so the gondola may not put all that many more people on that trail and instead just shift them off the existing lift.  Whiteface only has one blue off their gondola and I don't really see that as a problem.  Just don't ski it on holiday weekends.

Sno, I believe there was some type of voter referendum that approved financing for the new subway line and construction and tunneling began well before Andrew Cuomo was elected governor.  

Likewise, plans for the TZB were well underway before Cuomo was elected. Construction did begin while he was in office and, if I recall correctly, he's the one who chose the option for the bridge with no mass transit (train) line and still has no idea how to fund almost 1/2 the cost of the bridge.  

Sno, my question was more rhetorical, like, who's hand is in the governor's pocket?  Andrew Cuomo, unfortunately, is no progressive compared to his father.  More of an opportunist, perhaps!

IMHO, I hope the Dems put up someone with more substance, true political savvy and clout for the nominee in 2020, otherwise, with the masses being the asses they are in our lovely country, I fear another 4 years of Trump.  

(Harv, sorry for the political slant, but, with Belle being state owned any discussion necessarily involves politics).

Started a new thread to avoid going on a tangent here.

http://forum.nyskiblog.com/Governor-Cuomo-and-Infrastructure-td4111563.html

Back to the gondola, there are two variables in the design of this lift that we will have to wait to find out on.  First is top or bottom drive.  All of Belleayre's existing lifts are bottom drive for easier access to the drive components and less work required to install the electrical connections.  The other two ORDA gondolas are top drive.  This is generally more energy efficient and this is especially true on lifts that are rated for 100% downhill capacity.  Most gondolas have 100% downhill capacity, and since Belleayre's gondola will run in the summer, I suspect it will be no exception.  The extra efficiency may make it worth the extra trouble to install a top drive.

The other variable is the grip design.  Doppelmayr currently offers two designs.  On the top is the DT series grip and on the bottom is the AG series grip.





The Superchief has DT-104 grips.  This is the version of the grip used on high speed quads.  Gondolas and 6-packs use the DT-108 grip, which is a slightly larger version that is mechanically similar.  All DT series grips are double position, meaning that they stay open whenever the carriers are not attached to the cable.

AG series grips are single position, meaning that they always stay closed, except for the seconds when coming on and off the cable.  They tend to be more popular among lift mechanics due to the DT grips being prone to suddenly closing out of nowhere, which basically turns them into supersized mouse traps.

I'm guessing the Belleayre gondola will use DT-108 grips because of them being similar to the ones on the Superchief.  They are also slightly less expensive due to them being an older design.

Nice pictures Sno! I took a ride up there last weekend and saw what you saw. I was just a little confused about the trail path because as you mentioned they did not remove the fallen trees to the right of the road off Tomahawk.
I guess you did not check out the changes to Deer Run?

I did not hike up to see what was being done on Deer Run.

They will have to take the fallen trees out of there, but I guess there's other things that need to be finished first.

raisingarizona wrote

Making New York great again, one gondola at a time.

Wow, they're already making more progress since my visit on Saturday.

I can see they're putting together the wooden box to prepare to pour the main terminal support at the bottom.  The uphill support on the bottom terminal already has this set up and I think they may have already poured the entire thing.  It was partially poured on Saturday.

Sno, how do you envision the skier tunnel? The slope approaching the tunnel site is fairly steep and abrupt. The Deer Run extension below the tunnel site is almost flat and is about 9 feet below the roadbed grade. Will the roadbed need to be raised? Just curious. It will be interesting to see how they approach the tunnel from an engineering POV.

My guess is that they'll do what's called "cut n cover".  That means that they'll dig a big trench where the tunnel will be, then put an overpass over it on the road.  The overpass needs to be high enough for a groomer to fit under it, plus a few extra feet to account for snow on the trail.

The road will be impassable for about a week to do this, so they'll need to do this before ski season and when there isn't a need for getting vehicles to Overlook.  If they need people up there to do maintenance or any other work, they can have them park at the Discovery Lodge and ride lift 1 or 2 up.

Huge progress on the gondola this week.  They finished all the concrete work at the bottom terminal and are now removing the wooden forms they were building at the beginning of the week.  They will need to wait for the concrete to fully dry before attaching any of the metal parts of the terminal.  The project should go vertical as soon as they have the towers and terminal parts on site.  Guessing towers are finished by the end of the month.

They also just posted a photo of the new Tomahawk Lift paint job.  The entire lift (except the chairs and crossarms) is being painted blue (same color as lifts 1/2).  This means that the lift will no longer have the black towers on the upper portion of the line.  This was originally done to have the lift colored the same as the ratings the surrounding trails had.  Lift 1 and 2 was green, and Tomahawk and Lift 7 were blue below mid and black above it.  The original fixed grip Superchief also had this.  When they upgraded the Superchief to high speed, they repainted everything into the forest green that it is now.  Lift 7 is now the only lift with the lower blue and upper black colors.  I suspect both lifts will be repainted summer 2018.  The gondola will have blue terminals and cabins, but I think it will have galvanized towers like all the ORDA lifts built since 2002 have.

snoloco wrote

  They will need to wait for the concrete to fully dry

Just a friendly reminder, concrete does not "dry".  The water actually chemically bonds to the concrete and becomes part of it, and the process is called "Curing". The water is forever part of the concrete. In fact, it's actually bad for concrete to dry because that means that the water is evaporating from the concrete before it has a chance to cure. Typically concrete is to be kept wet until fully cures and this is the difference between concrete that is very strong with a nice glossy finish, and "dried out" concrete that is porous and weaker as a result.

Sorry for the drift, just thought you might be interested since you're in Civil Engineering.

I've heard the term "curing" but didn't really know what it meant.  Thanks for the info.  Regardless, the concrete goes from being a liquid to a solid as a result, and it needs to be a solid before it can take a lot of weight.

It'll be interesting to see how long they wait before installing the towers and the rest of the terminals.  I assume the concrete needs to be close to fully cured before that.

Typically for high tensile applications you have to wait as much as 30 days for the concrete to cure. For home foundations where there is only small amounts of downward pressure, typically a week will do.

Concrete theoretically never fully cures. It cures at an exponential rate which means that the curing process follows a sine curve, and it takes about 30 days for it to make it over the top of that curve to where the process slows down to a much lower rate.

Awesome!  Thank you.  We will be pouring a foundation in a week or two and I wasn't sure about the curing time.

concrete design strength is specified at 28 days curing, like ethan says its cures on a curve so at 7 days it theoretically should be at 85% of the 28 day design strength. When the concrete is poured test cylinders are taken and sent to a testing lab and crushed to test the compressive strength at 7, 28 and 56 days if required. Typically steel can be set at 7 days / 85% design strength

I'm surprised you haven't had a statics  / strength of materials class in your first year... maybe this year

They have completely removed both the wooden molds on the terminal footings.  No steel on site yet.  At least not where I can see on the webcam.

They're digging a trench between the lodge deck and the terminal, so this might mean that the gondola is bottom drive and it's for an electric line.  It also could be a relocated snowmaking line.  They had to take out a bunch of snowmaking lines to excavate for the terminal.  When the terminal is starting to come together, I will be able to see if it's top or bottom drive, and what the grip design is by looking at the open/close rail.

Well.......it will be pretty cool for mountain biking at least.

And it just so happens according to facebook that steel has begun to arrive today.  Looks like it's the main support beams for the terminals.  The rest should arrive over the course of next week.  I estimate that the terminals start going up next week and towers are done by the end of this month or early next month.  Everything should be right on schedule.