The latest ORDA Screwup

I owned a place at Gore for about 25 years from the mid 1980s until a few years ago. I eventually realized that Gore never ran right and will never run right. Things are always askew - so much potential and so much disappointment. The combination of NYS owned, uneven money flow that has no relationship to what Gore needs or how Gore performs, and a management team favoring Lake Placid, will keep Gore in this purgatory. Nobody in Lake Placid/ORDA management will be taken to task for why Gore still averages around 200K-210K visits per year after the massive expansion since 2005. Governor Pataki was convinced to pour money into Gore because of a study about increasing visits at Gore to financially help the surrounding area. This never happened.

How is the Front Street development doing? It was approved by the APA in April, 2008. We just has an almost decade long bull market.

One more fun thing to remember - the Gore Gondola will be 20 years old soon(installed in 1999). Anybody think there has been any planning for its eventual replacement?

Gondola down again this morning.
I also read that it didn't start running until around noon yesterday.

On a positive note at least they had the ADK Express running on a weekday.  Sadly I take that as a sign that they were expecting gondola problems.

As others have said, the mountain has such great potential but never seems to live up to it.  I've had many great days there and yet I often find myself wondering what if.......

ORDA is a case study of why capitalism outperforms socialism.  In the towering and regimented NYS bureaucracy, there's little incentive for management excellence.  

Hence large capital investments are (occasionally) made (wiith enormous Albany chest-thumping) but important (& relatively inexpensive) operational details are overlooked.
Details like: preventive maintenance on the lifts, the bare metal footrests on Gore's older chairlifts, missing windows and rattling sheet metal inside the gondolas, or the regular maintenance to keep them rolling.  

Or trimming small trees on the slopes before winter arrives.  Pictured is Gore's Uncas trail on November 18th, opening day.  It's the only way to get from the top of the gondola to the Straight Brook lift.  
NYS allegedly spent more than a million $ upgrading Gore this year, but missed these simple and inexpensive functions.
20190107_212719.jpg

This is exactly what I was hoping with this thread.  A good and comprehensive collection for all 3 resorts of what is wrong and needs to be fixed.

This is not finger pointing at the employees.  I well know Orda treats it’s employees like dog poop.  A case in pint is they will furlow employees that are close to getting health benefits.  The better ones in this economy just move onto better jobs.  I know a former top electrical mait guy that said screw it im done with Orda and got a way better construction job.  That guy was irreplaceable.  Except for the not rocket scientists working in parking lots or cashiers that can’t make change the workers try.  The issue is more related to the poor quality of the schools east of WF imo. My only beef is the lifties that don’t clear snow from chairs or take forever to prep them in morning but they again may be lack of proper supervision.

The issue is directly related to management trying to save themselves to making money and it just doesn’t work well in the real competitive market when Epic and ikon are trying to do it by spending more.  Also top management lacks strategic thinking and vision of what each mountain should be and thus what the product really is and how they are marketed.

Keep it coming

Z wrote

The issue is directly related to management trying to save themselves to making money and it just doesn’t work well in the real competitive market when Epic and ikon are trying to do it by spending more.  Also top management lacks strategic thinking and vision of what each mountain should be and thus what the product really is and how they are marketed.

You hire a guy and tell him to go run a couple of ski areas and surrounding venues. He lays out a plan and a bunch of contingencies to map out a successful season. Then along comes Czar Cuomo, he gets on the phone and demands this or that get done or opened and you go hire this contractor buddy of mine and there goes your plan - he fucked it all up. You do this a couple of times and the attitude of "I don't give a shit any more" filters down.  A worker who protests - off to the gulag with you.

PeeTex wrote

. Then along comes Czar Cuomo, he gets on the phone and demands this or that get done or opened and you go hire this contractor buddy of mine and there goes your plan - he fucked it all up. You do this a couple of times and the attitude of "I don't give a shit any more" filters down.  A worker who protests - off to the gulag with you.

Now do Trump.

X crushed my dreams and Carv-R hit the nail on the head.

I agree that employee morale is shit, but I think Coach is closer to the right reason for it.

State agencies (and the people who work for them) are subject to budgetary restrictions that giant corporate behemoths aren't. If MTN stock goes up in price, suddenly Vail Resorts has a bunch of money to play with. If NY collects more tax revenue, who the hell wants that money to be spent on a new High Peaks Chair besides us on this forum? Even if MTN takes out too many loans and goes the way of ASC, okay, whatever, the company failed. That's not really an option for the State. So they just have a bunch of penny-pinching misers as bosses who try to squeeze and harass employees instead of actually trying to make the skiing experience more enjoyable (and for dumb reasons! A certain manager didn't  want drunk ski instructors around, so Gore Employees didn't get the bar discount that WF employees got. Then he got promoted and hey, now that's the all-ORDA policy. Meanwhile, Killington snagged a bunch of former Gore Employees by offering better pay, better benefits, and an awesome bar discount where you can put your buddy's drinks on the tab, too).

I hate to go all snoloco, but the most glaring blunder that ORDA has made is the shitty snowmaking investment. If these ski areas want to survive in the future, they're gonna have to make more snow faster. That just seems like common sense.

In light of the High Peaks Chair mention, here is some information from the 2002 GORE UMP:

Here is the description of lift #6 -
" 1967 Riblet Double - parts from 1987 Riblet and 1996 CTEC."
page 2-7

Here is the proposal:
"Replace and Re-extend Lift #6
Lift #6, the High Peaks Chair, will be replaced with a new quad lift and will be re-extended  in its existing cleared lift line to its former termination point. (The existing lift uses a smaller drive which is why the existing termination point falls short)."
page 4-3

So the 2002 UMP wanted to replace the Frankenstein High Peaks chair and here we are, 16 years later, and still no replacement. Also, there was a proposal to "replace the 17 year old Ad Express Triple, the oldest HS lift in North America" (in 2002). That only took another 12 years to replace it with the current HSQ (Dec 2014).

These 2 lift delays help define the mess that is Gore. How much money is wasted keeping these old lifts going? Clearly, there is no capital budgeting. I cannot even imagine what the staff has to do to keep Gore running.

If you want some fun reading, hit the link.
https://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/lands_forests_pdf/gore2002ump.pdf

So here is the king of all Orda F ups that I heard about 2nd hand but from a very reliable sources

The problem with the wet snow being blown and that lack of ability to rapidly expand terrain is that these shiny highly efficient guns the Gov wanted are not really compatible with the old pumping and pipe infrastructure that both Gore and WF have.  The pumps can’t pump at the higher pressure the high e guns need thus they can’t blow a whole trail in one shot which means they have to blow in stages.  

The lack of pressure below the high e guns demands lead to much lower quality and wetter snow.  I’ve certainly noticed we have had much different snow than the past several years.  I heard some voices higher in the staff are pushing to pull out the old guns

Finally all the broken pipe issues are due to pumping at higher pressures with old pipes.

Teddy while far from perfect I think knew how to gentlely push back on the Govs stupid ideas.  Pratt is a yes man despite the consequences to the product.   Until they upgrade the pumping infrastructure we are up the AuSable without a paddle.  This season is a loss unless it really starts dumping.

Z wrote

So here is the king of all Orda F ups that I heard about 2nd hand but from a very reliable sources

The problem with the wet snow being blown and that lack of ability to rapidly expand terrain is that these shiny highly efficient guns the Gov wanted are not really compatible with the old pumping and pipe infrastructure that both Gore and WF have.  The pumps can’t pump at the higher pressure the high e guns need thus they can’t blow a whole trail in one shot which means they have to blow in stages.  


Finally all the broken pipe issues are due to pumping at higher pressures with old pipes.

Gore just put in a hole new pump house so tell me again about old pumps. Also - if those old pumps can't put out the pressure then why are pipes breaking due to more pressure?

I suspect pipes are breaking because of fatigue caused by freezing and rusting due to age. If they can pump water to the top - they have more than enough pressure at the bottom - gravity will take care of that. I suspect they are focusing on quantity base snow over quality and don't forget the gully washers.

Pt I thought you would know this but at higher pressure pumps not designed for it will start to cavitate  increasing stress on the pipe as the water starts to pulse / vibrate which as you mentioned with old weak pipes causes breaks it’s a combination effect started by trying to push the water at more pressure than the system had do with the old guns

Why would you need to pump water at higher pressure. There are air pipes and water pipes. Air pressure I guess I see but I don't think that is the problem with the pipes. The pipes that leaked at whiteface are brand new right?

The one on the summit that blew was old

Is there water back at mid lodge?   Is the lwf chair ok to load at full capacity yet?

Water yes
LWF no

Z wrote

Pt I thought you would know this but at higher pressure pumps not designed for it will start to cavitate  increasing stress on the pipe as the water starts to pulse / vibrate which as you mentioned with old weak pipes causes breaks it’s a combination effect started by trying to push the water at more pressure than the system had do with the old guns

As I understand it, Gore has all new pumps.
I agree that once you put additional stresses on the system, the weak links will fail and as I said, these are the old rusty and fatigued pipes.

PeeTex wrote

Z wrote

Pt I thought you would know this but at higher pressure pumps not designed for it will start to cavitate  increasing stress on the pipe as the water starts to pulse / vibrate which as you mentioned with old weak pipes causes breaks it’s a combination effect started by trying to push the water at more pressure than the system had do with the old guns

As I understand it, Gore has all new pumps.
I agree that once you put additional stresses on the system, the weak links will fail and as I said, these are the old rusty and fatigued pipes.

Ahh well all of the pumps WERE new, but of course as the pumps and pumphouse were hurried to complete, 2 of the 9 pumps were not assembled correctly, so that when they came online, the pumps destroyed themselves, and they are not cheap and most likely will not be online this season.
Also, just because the pumps and pumphouse are new, does NOT mean that they were designed and built for these new fangled guns.
All one has to do is take a look at Big K, and the classic K3000 land gun, the venerable soldier of the Beast of The East, as the still the reigning King of snowmaking with not a contender in sight.
As a pass holder of the ORDA3 and a midweek pass at Big K, I do not want to hear how much money the operation is saving ( which is the mantra call of ORDA, and particularly the King Cheapo MP), I want to hear how much money they are spending to make sure that I have the best ski experience that my $$ can buy!

What's going on at Gore today? The website shows one of those yellow "caution" icons by the gondola and Sunway chair.  That doesn't leave much terrain.  

mm