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Belleayre: Superchief

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skunkape

Belleayre: Superchief

I'm not sure why the lifts keep opening and closing, maybe it was the super cold temps that made the old girls cantankerous. Word was going around that CTec had a engineer out from utah to work on superchief. Last week SC and TH were down at the same time. I wonder what the plans are for the next 5 years, Superchief went in the 2005 season, so it isn't that old, in ski lift years.

evantful

Re: Belleayre: Superchief

I think the issue with the Super Chief was a weird one off issue with chair timing as they rejoined the cables. I saw them running the lift over a number of days trying to work out what was going on until CTEC arrived.

They do seem to be having a freak run of lift problems in the last few weeks.

I can't see anything happening with the Super Chief for a while, its basically brand new. Tomahawk was put in 1999 so its not terribly old either.

Under the expansion plans the only current lift scheduled for replacement are the Beginner Doubles at the bottom.

Lift 7 would be the other obvious one, it was installed in the 80's also.

snoloco

Re: Belleayre: Superchief

This post was updated on .

Hopefully they figure out what the issues were and get it running reliably again.

I've lived in New York my entire life.

burlson

Re: Belleayre: Superchief

In reply to this post by skunkape

Stopped by the administration office , asked if a plan was in place to fix Super Chief. Was told they they have no plan and will only fix it when it breaks. This lift has been down 5 of the last 6 weekends I have been here. I like this mountain, but it's not fun when you can't get up the hill. Needless to say, I will not be renewing my season pass for next year.

Poking around the internet, it looks like Belleayre's lift problems are not only mechanical. It looks like the employees are beginning to revolt.

http://catskillmountainnews.com/content/sick-workers-belleayre-cause-skiing-be-delayed-during-busy-holiday-weekend

Marcski

Re: Belleayre: Superchief

burlson wrote

Stopped by the administration office , asked if a plan was in place to fix Super Chief. Was told they they have no plan and will only fix it when it breaks. This lift has been down 5 of the last 6 weekends I have been here. I like this mountain, but it's not fun when you can't get up the hill. Needless to say, I will not be renewing my season pass for next year.

Poking around the internet, it looks like Belleayre's lift problems are not only mechanical. It looks like the employees are beginning to revolt.

http://catskillmountainnews.com/content/sick-workers-belleayre-cause-skiing-be-delayed-during-busy-holiday-weekend

That article is 3 years old!!

snoloco

Re: Belleayre: Superchief

Remember Coach's thoughts on the Belleayre lifts? The bold part is what burlson might be referring to.

Coach Z wrote

The biggest problem I saw is the lifts. The fix grip lifts are stopping constantly because the clientele cannot get on or off the lift and the mid stations cause even more issues than they solve. It was pretty normal to stop at least 4 times on a less than 1000 vertical foot lift ride. The lift mazes were also a mess with them trying to use cones instead of ropes and the lifties did not seem to hold the chair normally causing a pretty rough load. The chairs do not have any padding unlike all the other Orda lifts and are slippery so it’s easy for a kid to slip off which almost happened with one family I rode with. I heard that the ex-DEC ops folks are pretty unhappy with Orda so some of this could be spill over. The problem is if they put in HSQ’s then they can’t have mid stations. The solution may be to cut the area into pods of different abilities and get rid of all the diagonal trails allowing the abilities to mix then you can put in a HSQ that would just serve Black trail and keep the others in their own area.

I've lived in New York my entire life.

evantful

Re: Belleayre: Superchief

I was there today and the Super Chief was having some hiccups throughout the day.

Again it seems to be something related to the chair timing. The drivetrain seems to be working fine.

Ultimately like I said prior I suspect there is some kind of weird one off kind of issue occurring with it, one that might require CTEC to deal with in the off season, if only because the solution might not be straight forward.

I imagine they are hoping to just get through the close of the season.

From a long term stand point adding a Highspeed quad from Discovery to the top near Tomahawks current terminal is will help create some better flow.

Heres the proposed lift layout in the future:
http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/permits_ej_operations_pdf/bellappa10.pdf

ml242

Re: Belleayre: Superchief

In reply to this post by Marcski

Marcski wrote

That article is 3 years old!!

Yeah, I don't think any of those guys work for Belleayre or Windham anymore!

skunkape

Re: Belleayre: Superchief

Hah, I remember that day the article is talking about! I like the possible recutting of trails option. On the superchief side, there are 4 fall line trails that are basically the same thing. The diagonal trails are quite fun, my kids love lapping onondaga>horseshoe pass>roaring brook...

snoloco

Re: Belleayre: Superchief

The said lift broke down on Saturday morning at about 10:30. It was closed down and didn't reopen the rest of the day. It was closed all day on Sunday and Monday, and the report doesn't seem optimistic about reopening it today.

Not sure what went wrong with it to put it out of commission for this long. When it broke on Saturday, they ran the lift to unload all the passengers. They did not do a rope evac. It has been run a couple times on Sunday and Monday, but with no one on it.

I've lived in New York my entire life.

evantful

Re: Belleayre: Superchief

Their constant lift issues make me extremely wary of their proposed lift build out in the expansion plans in my old post above. Why not at least kill some redundancy removing the Tomahawk and reroute the new Belleayre West lift to run to the location of Tomahawks current top terminal, keeping its base terminal in the current proposed location

Brownski

Re: Belleayre: Superchief

As an aside, I feel like this thread has reinforced my long standing preference for fixed grip quads. Detaches have their place and I guess we need one where Supercheif is since it services so many beginners but this is a prime example of how finicky these lifts can be if they're not well-designed, well-maintained and perfectly calibrated. If it's my mountain, I'm installing a fixed grip and telling the lifties to stuff the beginners into chairs as aggressively as they have to to keep it going full speed.

"You want your skis? Go get 'em!" -W. Miller

Harvey

Re: Belleayre: Superchief

Administrator

Brownski wrote

If it's my mountain, I'm installing a fixed grip and telling the lifties to stuff the beginners into chairs as aggressively as they have to to keep it going full speed.

DUDE PLEASE PLEASE make that your signature.

"You just need to go at that shit wide open, hang on, and own it." —Camp

snoloco

Re: Belleayre: Superchief

In reply to this post by Brownski

Superchief is the only HSQ that Belleayre needs as of now. Tomahawk will need to be upgraded if Highmount is annexed. Now the "end of the earth", future center of the combined resort.

Most high speed lifts run much better than this. I have yet to see either of Whiteface's detachables have mechanical issues this year. Also, fixed grip lifts are often a mess when you try and put lots of low level skiers on them. That's why Belleayre replaced a 7 year old fixed quad to put in a detachable.

Brownski wrote

If it's my mountain, I'm installing a fixed grip and telling the lifties to stuff the beginners into chairs as aggressively as they have to to keep it going full speed.

Not sure you can do that without pissing off customers. That being said, Belleayre's lifties seem to do a pretty good job keeping the double-double that serves all the beginner terrain running efficiently.

I've lived in New York my entire life.

Brownski

Re: Belleayre: Superchief

I admit stuffing skiers into seats works better on a double. My own experience with this was on a double that was both the "first step up" from the bunny slope and a vital connector to the mountains backside. Management pretty much told us to keep it at full speed as long as nobody got hurt.
At 24 yrs old I didn't need to be told twice. Man that was fun.
2 loading stations too- total chaos

"You want your skis? Go get 'em!" -W. Miller

snoloco

Re: Belleayre: Superchief

Apparently Belleayre plans on replacing the double-double with a fixed grip quad at some point. I don't see that as an upgrade, as quads are always harder for beginners to load.

They just repainted the towers on Lifts 1 and 2 lift for this year, so I don't think they're going anywhere anytime soon.

I've lived in New York my entire life.

Brownski

Re: Belleayre: Superchief

snoloco wrote

I don't see that as an upgrade, as quads are always harder for beginners to load.

On that we agree

"You want your skis? Go get 'em!" -W. Miller

Brownski

Re: Belleayre: Superchief

In reply to this post by Harvey

Harvey wrote

Brownski wrote

If it's my mountain, I'm installing a fixed grip and telling the lifties to stuff the beginners into chairs as aggressively as they have to to keep it going full speed.

DUDE PLEASE PLEASE make that your signature.

kinda long I think

"You want your skis? Go get 'em!" -W. Miller

snoloco

Re: Belleayre: Superchief

In reply to this post by Brownski

From a management standpoint, it probably is an upgrade. Double-Double's are expensive to operate, staff, and maintain, and a fixed quad cuts that price in half.

A double-double actually has more capacity then a fixed quad, because fixed quads almost never operate at their full design speed, while doubles often can.

I've lived in New York my entire life.

Ethan Snow

Re: Belleayre: Superchief

In reply to this post by Brownski

Brownski wrote

snoloco wrote

I don't see that as an upgrade, as quads are always harder for beginners to load.

On that we agree

Please explain how quads are harder to load? Seems like is should be easier to put say 3 beginners on a quad being that the chair is so wide.

Personally I like HS 6-packs that load from the side the best.

I'll take boilerplate ice over wet snow any day