TomWhite
When I read Sugar Blog yesterday, I only read through Heaven's Gate. Then Liftblog.com noted other lifts. Wow, here's what the Bush says:
To the Sugarbush Community,
There have been many questions and rumors circulating regarding the state of the lifts at Sugarbush. These have ranged from towers falling over on the new Heaven’s Gate to certain lifts not running at all this year. I would like to provide clarification regarding these rumors, as well as the rest of the lifts.
Heaven’s Gate – Opening day of a new lift typically brings challenges and small quirks to work through. Unfortunately, opening day on Heaven’s Gate brought a bigger challenge than expected. As people began loading, the tension system of the lift began to compensate and adjust. The pressure in the system climbed and went to overpressure, faulting the lift and shutting down. Typically, a tension system moves the drive carriage as the weight online changes to compensate, and will increase or decrease pressure as needed. In this case, a valve in the system was not adjusted quite right to handle the sudden increase in load. This valve is typically set during load test, but during a load test the loading of the chairs is a much slower process, allowing the lift more time to adjust. With the rapid increase in load, the system could not adjust fast enough and triggered a shutdown. Due to the very specific nature of the fault, it was difficult to clear it in order to clear the line. Once we had the line cleared, we immediately called Doppelmayr to come onsite and readjust the valve to the proper setting, which we were able to accomplish that day. Since then, the lift handles these dynamic changes much better.
There have also been some rumors surrounding the construction of this lift. No towers fell over and the concrete did not fail testing. The lift was delayed because weather impacted our ability to pour concrete. Low clouds delayed helicopter flying one day, and due to the vendor schedule they had to reschedule for later. The October snowstorm dropped a foot of snow the day before we were scheduled to pour the loading conveyor vault, further delaying that. Between these weather issues and some shipping delays, the little things added up and ended up pushing the project later than anticipated. It’s been great to have the lift spinning in time for the holidays.
GMX – The issues on GMX and running at a reduced speed stem from the cable position sensors on the towers. By code, to run at full speed a lift needs an electronic proximity sensor to monitor the rope position on the sheave wheels while also having a dedicated failsafe circuit separate from these sensors. The electronic sensors are constantly self-testing to ensure their viability, and will shutdown the lift with a tower fault if they do not pass their self test. Certain GMX towers have been failing their self tests at intermittent times, and we have been working with Leitner Poma to track down what is causing these failures. We have changed switches, checked wires, even had Poma adjust the programming of the lift to combat these issues with no success so far. With the switches being unreliable, we have been running at a reduced speed to meet code, and relying on the failsafe safety circuit to run the lift, essentially operating the same as a fixed grip. We are continuing to troubleshoot this issue to get GMX back to a reliable full speed.
North Ridge – North Ridge has not opened this year as we were finishing our annual maintenance and working to get it inspected. Due to a smaller maintenance staff as we continue to hire, work took longer to get it to our standards and ensure it was ready for public. We did inspect it this week and expect it to come online in the next few days.
North Lynx – North Lynx has not yet opened this year as we dealt with an issue during the inspection. We experienced a component failure on the auxiliary diesel that prevented the inspection from being completed. After ordering parts, we were in a holding pattern for them to show up and install before we could complete the inspection. Now that the component has been installed, the lift is fully operational and inspected. We will open the lift tomorrow and continue to operate the North Lynx pod on natural snowpack while it lasts.
Sunny Q – The Sunshine Quad has been delayed this year due to an electrical problem with the internal computer. We have been working with Doppelmayr and other vendors since summertime to get this lift running continuously. Our maintenance on the lift has been delayed due to this issue, including its scheduled dynamic load test that is required by code. We have at this point remedied the issue, and will now continue our maintenance and dynamic test, including linework, electrical linework, and our yearly lift inspection. We will continue to push the maintenance work along as fast as our staff can to inspect and open it for the terrain park being built in the coming weeks.
Slide Brook – Slide Brook often comes up as a lift that is notorious for not opening until later in the season. The reason being we have prioritized lifts that access skiable terrain. Our lift maintenance crew can only do so much at one time, and as we work through these other lifts we have decided Slide Brook will be the last to be inspected to make sure as much terrain is lift serviced as possible. We want GMX running at full speed and North Ridge open before focusing on the interconnect. Rest assured, it will open this year.
Please know the Sugarbush Lift Maintenance team is working as hard as we can to ensure the lifts are safe and reliable for everyone to enjoy. We want to see them running as much as you all. We appreciate your patience as we work to fix the lifts and look forward to a great season.
– Spencer King
lotsoskiing
Yeah, it's been a very challenging start to the season for them. This would have been great if it had been pushed out a few weeks ago when MRG had everything open and SB was one lift and 2 trails, but it's nice to see the transparency.
Hope this weather change doesn't put too much of a hurt on things.
millerm277
I'll give them a pass on Heaven's Gate. New lifts can come with new problems and at this point that's largely on the manufacturer.
The rest though....it's a pretty sad showing to be halfway through one of the most important vacation periods of the season and seemingly have half your lifts down or in trouble with maintenance issues.
I don't doubt that they're working with Dopp/Poma on the issues, but it also sounds a whole lot like they've got very inadequate staffing (which they partially admit to there), that's put them far behind on sorting this stuff out before it impacted in-season operations.
If I was a passholder/regular there, I'd be pretty upset.
lotsoskiing
Got worse today. Mt. Ellen was down to Inverness and Summit, so if you wanted to hike, you could get there. GMX running again early PM but at half speed. Lincoln Peak had wind issues, I believe
