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Johnny Law

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Everything posted by Johnny Law

  1. I don't do lift ops for a living so if I butchered this my fault but this is the way it was described to me by my cousin who ran a hill and a buddy who works for Mad River lifts, the company not the ski hill. Most lifts are respaced yearly look up at the haul line next time your on a lift and most of the time you'll see a little marker of spray paint. That mark is where that chair started at, there are a number of different factors but slowly over time even fixed grip chairs move their position on the haul line. Obviously you can't run a lift with all the chairs in a big mass unless the chair was designed to be run that way, so every once in a while you have to get out there and move the chairs into proper spacing. If the haul line is too short(I don't know what the exact figure is) on a detachable lift the chairs will start to bunch on the haul line because of the delay in the loading and unloading obviously this leads to the lift being unbalanced which is a big no no. The time the chair has to spend in the lift house is fixed because people can only load and unload at a certain speed, move too fast and your shutting the lift down all the time. Therefore you either run the haul line at reduced speed which kinda defeats the purpose of highspeed or you space the chairs so far apart that overall uphill capacity is actually lower than with the fixed grip. Gondolas bunch at the lift house because the time they need to spend there is substantial but the hangers on a gondy are pretty advanced as are the control systems and they are respaced every time they get back on the haul line. Snowbasin actually removes each gondy from the lift every night to store them in an underground facility, its been awhile but I believe k1 at Killy stores each carriage at the bottom as well. Clearly the same could be done for a quad or sixpack but you could just build 3 lifts for what that would cost. Most fixed grips actually have the ability to run as fast as highspeeds but because they don't detach at the lift house mad people would be crashing on the load so some resorts have installed conveyor systems. Alta's supreme has one and since the conveyor is doing all the work you can run the lift at a much higher speed. These systems are popular in Europe but expensive. I know there is a youtube video of the conveyor in action but it was named something weird and I can't find it. edit: apparently the put one in at snow
  2. Nice man! 22 and Granite Chief are skiing royalty sounds like a great day. Squaw is a top five in terms of lift accessed gnar...
  3. Just a note you can't run high speed chair with a haul line that short, every other day you would have to be spraying and re spacing the chairs. If you ever done a chair spacing you know a small lift can take a few days so I highly doubt Sno is ever picking up a high speed chair for a 500 vert lift.
  4. Slackcountry nice! Movin on up to the east side to brand new apartment in the sky....was that the jeffersons or 227 ? Man days like that are the best, real game changers, you realize how far there is to travel and how much more there is out there to learn.
  5. Don't worry Killy isn't making any money either so that village is pie in the sky stuff. I'm sure if they just build a 1,000 more condo units everything will work itself out and then they can run skyeship more than 2 days a week.
  6. That's fucking cool of them, its good to hear there are still some good places left in the industry.
  7. ^^^ serious lulz 524 million short and they still bullshit like everything is ok....I hope fortress eats a bag of dicks. Hey guys everything is cool, remember our original loans we couldn't pay ? Yeah well we got some more loans and we kinda paid those, times are tough though and hey we were only 524 million short. Now if someone else will just loan us another billion dollars we should be cool until at least next month.
  8. Pow Mow always delivers...looks like a perfect trip
  9. Looks nice and sounds like your in line for some more snow. luls on Kirkweed, soon people are going to just start bringing their own generators
  10. Vibes +++++ Contrary to what some other posters may believe there is no better car than a reliable beater. My pos has 145,000 miles on one clutch, has never let me sit and I never have to worry about making sure it looks nice. Here's hoping that next ride treats you just as well.
  11. A+
  12. Its not about being core its literally about the future of resort snow sports. Everything Stratton represents and embodies, nearly all of the major problems with Interwest and ski resorts in general relate back to the same bullshit. Build a huge fucking base village with lots of condos sell the crap out of them to people that can or cannot afford them, cash out and walk the fuck away. Who cares if its sustainable, who cares if the fucking place dies, who gives a shit if the other local places can't hack it, who cares if regular families are priced out lets build this shit sell it like crack and then cash the fuck out. Honest to god think in your head how many ski areas actually make a profit off of skiing and not real estate/"resort" bullshit. Very few and those tend to be the crown jewels of N/A skiing. So where does that leave the other 30% of the industry, the mom and pop places that want to run lifts and that's pretty much it. Out of business is where it leaves them and then all we end up with is endless fucking Stratton's. Endless fucking manufactured bullshit. I'm not saying there isn't a place for six pack lifts and base villages but there sure as shit better be a place for mountains were you actually ski and where the top priority isn't if Dan and Denise Buttfuckers from West Chester, NY can get a sweet 12 bedroom mtn condo they use once a fucking year. High speed lifts cost serious loot and the way lots of places paid for them was with condo sales, now lets say those condo sales dry up because the market bombs or you didn't do you homework and realize that no one wants to go to bumblefuck interior bc (revelstoke). Now you have lots of infrastructure you can't pay for with no real customer base except the hard core riders who were there before the condos and other bull shit. Look at all the places that are in trouble or actually went out of business (Tamarack should be a case study) they all played the real estate game hard and they all thought if you plopped a euro look alike base village down the money just rolled in. That's not the fucking way it works and if they don't figure it out soon its going to be a real shame because some great mountains will be lost to lift serviced traffic and we as riders, not the interwests of the world are the ones who will be worse off. Edit: Read this thread for more info - http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=179824
  13. Hopefully that piece of shit mountain gets sold to some dude who wants to burn down that monstrosity that was built at the base and then never runs the lifts again. Realistically speaking nothing will change, 99% of interwest holdings will be sold off or consolidated under the new fortressless interwest and basically remain unchanged. Like I said above its most likely that the only places with real issues are those that lose money and are only partially developed.
  14. This bankruptcy has more to do with Fortress than it does the ski areas. Fortress the investment group is done, Interwest will probably continue to exist to some degree though it will be way smaller and probably only hold on to some of the more profitable mountains. Whistler is the crown jewel and still makes butt tons of money so somebody's picking them up pretty quick, my guess is the dude that sold it to interwest years ago. As for Mtn. Creek don't even worry about it. They make money so somebody is going to end up purchasing them. This may have a real negative impact on places like Revelstoke where money is tight and the market for rich dudes who want to own giant ski areas is pretty much nonexistent.
  15. Is that Smithy's near trolley station ^ Brew selection is way better than when it was Freddy Meyer
  16. Wait free waffles ? This is a travesty of unparalleled proportions, I've had a season pass to bear since the switch over and I get no email, text message, passenger pigeon about the free waffles.....
  17. Long skis truck, short skis suck
  18. That is a very impressive pipe for PA. Golf clap for 7springs.
  19. Wow....propane is listed on avg. at 2.66 retail. At 100,000 gallons I have to believe they hook you up with a discount but still that's alot of chicken tenders and lift tickets.
  20. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARXfQzfl9EQ Shit, I was away and almost missed this important and informative thread.
  21. Looks like you timed it perfectly, once the wind dies down and the slab dissipates the snow pack is going to be pretty fucking bomber too. I look forward to seeing pics and video.
  22. Phillycore, sounds like your in for a trip of a lifetime. Schralp it
  23. Blah blah blah stop bitching about retarded shit and go skiing Some people can ride the moving couch with no problems and some can't, it has been that way from the beginning of chair lifts and will continue to be so.
  24. you should work for gopro because you just sold me one
  25. damn screaming deal.....must resist urge...perfect for EC touring with dynafiddles.......
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