Uphill Capacity vs. Trail Acreage

Hey Sno
My son looked up Mount Peter and he put them at 42. Does that sound right? My gut says it's about correct.

It is correct.  A lot less than Mountain Creek.  Thing is that most people stick to the beginner trails and you can take many runs on the more advanced trails and have very low skier density.

Thanks Marcski...

 "IMHO, I believe they made the correct decision since there isn't really a need for a high speed lift with only a 600 vertical gain.  Just MHO generally without knowing anything about your local hill."

I only know what I experience and see.    On a medium or light day, everyone is on the lift and no one is on the trails---good skiers are down in 30-40 seconds, 12 minute ride up.   Seven Springs HS6pack is a 3 minute ride for about 1k vert.    Whitetail is 2 minutes.  Maybe there is truth to the idea that HSQs load the same volume on larger hills, but no way that is true for hills with less vert.      

So in an hour I can do 4 minute laps with 1000k vert.  or 13 minute laps of 600 vert where we are.    

12-15 laps or 4, I'll take the HSQ over FG.        

I did not  consider the maintenance of the HSQ---I am sure that was the deciding factor.

Holiday Valley

capacity: 23,850

Acres: 290

Average 82.  5 off from your hometown hill

Holiday Valley also has SEVERAL HSQ's to keep the masses moving.  Can be a crowded mess on the hills at times

Sno, take a look at their website and check out the $12,000,000 snowmaking system on 290 acres and about 600 vert. Find it under the winter heading

Snoloco, What type of lift is the Snowshed Express at Killington? It looks like a Ctec, but it has very strange looking chairs.

Ethan Snow wrote

Snoloco, What type of lift is the Snowshed Express at Killington? It looks like a Ctec, but it has very strange looking chairs.

Ethan, have you seen this site?

http://www.chairlift.org/killington.html

Yan/Poma

I skied Killington last week and didn't stand on line once all day so I've decided we need  another metric to add perspective to the skier density score. Average mid-winter ticket sales compared to total lift capacity. Put that next to the per acre number and the lap-able vertical and you have a rough qualitative score. Of course, most of the time bigger is better. Maybe size and total capacity are all that matters in the east.

Ethan Snow wrote

Snoloco, What type of lift is the Snowshed Express at Killington? It looks like a Ctec, but it has very strange looking chairs.

It has an interesting history.  Superstar Express, the Pico HSQ's, the Grand Summit Express at Mount Snow, and the Barker Mountain Express at Sunday River are the same type of lift.

These were all Yan HSQ's originally.  Yan rushed the development of their detachable lifts and made some mistakes.  These lifts were greatly unreliable and had many maintenance problems.  The biggest problem was the grips.  Instead of the heavy duty coil springs found on Poma's grips, or the metal torsion bars used on Doppelmayr's grips, they used these flimsy rubber "marshmellow" springs to hold the grips closed.

These grips relied heavily on gravity and were heavily affected by temperature.  If the grip was being used on a flat section with a fully loaded chair in relatively warm temps, it would work fine.  If it was on a steep section in cold weather, or a lift that crossed the freeze line on a certain day, the grips were prone to slippage.  

These issues caused a terrible accident on December 23rd 1995 on the Quicksilver Express at Whistler.  Skiers were downloading the lift at the end of the day and the weather conditions meant that the lift was crossing the freeze line.  When the fully loaded chairs were on the steepest section of the line, an emergency stop was activated.  A grip failed, causing a chair to slide down the haulrope, hit the next chair, fall off, and plunge 75 feet to the ground.  That chair then slid, hit the next chair and fell.  4 chairs fell in the accident, 2 people were killed, 8 seriously injured, and 200 roped down.

This accident prompted the replacement or modification of all Yan detachable lifts.  Quicksilver never reopened and was torn down that summer, replaced by a Poma 6 passenger gondola.  Their two other Yan detachables were replaced by Doppelmayr HSQ's the following summer.   Sun Valley, June Mountain, Schweitzer, and Mammoth had their Yan HSQ's modified by Doppelmayr.  They all got DT-104 grips (like what is on the Facelift at WF), new sheaves, new terminal equipment, and some got new chairs.  ASC happened to operate all Yan detachables in the east.  They were all modified by Poma.  Silver Star and Lake Louise got new grips that an engineer from Yan designed that worked in the same terminal machinery, but had coil springs instead of the rubber "marshmellow" springs.  All of the lifts with the Yan replacement grips have since been removed and scrapped, except for one which went to an amusement park in Iran, where faulty grips may be the least of your worries.  Another Yan HSQ operates in Spain, with the original grips with marshmellow springs.  It is the only Yan detachable in the world that has the original grips.  Only the chairs have been replaced.  All other Yan HSQ's have long since been removed and scrapped.

Here's what happened with the ones in the east.

Snowshed Express (Killington) and Golden Express (Pico):  Installed 1987, modified in 1997.  Received Poma TB-41 grips, new sheaves, new terminal equipment, and the terminals were enclosed.  Both have the original Yan chairs, but with Poma grips.  The towers, terminal structure, and drive/tensioning are still Yan as well.

Summit Express (Pico):  same as lifts above, but originally installed in 1988.

Superstar Express (Killington) and Barker Mountain Express (Sunday River):  Installed 1987, modified in 1997 and then 2004.  In 1997 it got Poma TB-41 grips,  sheaves, new terminal equipment, and the terminals enclosed.  The Yan chairs were originally kept, but replaced with Poma Omega chairs in 2004.  The towers, terminal structure, and drive/tensioning are the only Yan parts remaining.

Grand Summit Express (Mount Snow):  Installed 1987, modified 1995, and then 2011.  For whatever reason, this lift was actually modified before the Quicksilver accident.  It got Poma TB-41 grips, sheaves, terminal equipment, and an enclosure on the top drive terminal.  The bottom return/tension terminal was not enclosed.  The Yan chairs were kept until 2011 when they were replaced with Poma Omega chairs and footrests were added.  The bottom terminal was also enclosed to match the top terminal at this time.

Another factor in the crowd factor on different parts of the mountain is the number of "spheres of influence" a trail is in from different lifts.  A sphere of influence is all the terrain that one can ski off of a given lift and get back to the same lift.  This is what causes most of Killington's crowding issues.  I'll show on my Google Earth trail map.

The area in the bright red is in the spheres of influence of 3 lifts.  Skye Peak Express (2,600pph) Skyeship Gondola (2,400pph), and Superstar Express (3,000 pph).  This is a major choke point.  There are too many of these trails where everything funnels in and out of.

You're quite the well spring of ski info Sno. Seriously, you bring a range of info to this board that no one else ever did.