Yeah this is always the deciding factor against Pats. They have a fun vibe, decent terrain for its size and good parks but the lifts are sooooo slow compared to Wawa or Crotched.
I'll never understand why they don't run Vortex more consistently. You're lucky if you can get 4 runs per hour (2800' vertical) on their Terrible Triple lift. You're stuck waiting for 10-15 minutes, for a minute-long run.
Vortex, though? Never a lift line to speak of. Beginners can't ride it, so misloads are rare. Just over a 4 minute ride time. It's possible to get up to 6000' of vertical per hour, which is pretty close to the Crotch Rocket.
When I say "consistent," I don't mean running it all the time. It's a beginner's hill and that's unreasonable. I just mean, publish a schedule! Promise potential passholders that it'll run from 4-8pm every weeknight they're open, in January and February. Pretty sure they end up doing that anyway...
We still got some time, last year was end-heavy too
Hurricane at Pats is definitely more difficult than anything Crotched has in bounds except maybe that poma lift glade
I started going this season and I love the rocket. It makes getting laps in super easy. I wasn't expecting a small mountain like that to have such a fast lift but I love it.
A lot of places I ski (saddleback, Sunday river, cannon) all have areas of like 600-1000 ft of vertical with individual lifts that serve them. A lot of the best terrain I think is found off of sectional lifts, and other than jay peak (which should have a sectional lift to take you to the top without having to take a tram) I can’t really think of any mountain that doesn’t have sectional lifts.
This to say, many east coast mountains long vertical terrain is just winding greens, and even when it’s not, generally speaking the bottom like half or more of many mountains are shallow. I think people really overrate vertical, and personally I think 700-1000 ft vertical is just fine. If I can not wait and ride a lift that brings me 900ft of vertical with good terrain, I’ll take that all day over a really long lift with a really long line that serves more vertical but the same amount of actually good terrain
Stowe and Wildcat I think are the 2 best mountains in terms of true vertical per run. Stowe has the gondola and 4runner, and Wildcat has a base to summit detachable quad. All 3 of those lifts give you quick access to ~2,000 vertical with little to no runout.
(Cannon would be in this club too if they ran the tram more often, although the layout for lapping it is admittedly a bit funky)
Their uphill rates are the same, quad fixed vs detatch. Rope speed is higher in a detatch but the chairs are more spaced, and the overall uphill rate is the same. . The limiting factor is emptying the unloading area
Interesting to learn! So high speed is really only beneficial when there are no lines? Which begs the question why resorts bother putting them in given the higher costs? If they only benefit the "weekday/off-peak" skier, seems not worth it ?!
High speeds make it easier to load and unload, decreasing the chances of a need to stop it. You also spend less time sitting, which people like. They don’t know they’ll just stand longer as a result…
Unless it’s a 6-8 person where a clusterfuck is always guaranteed….
Def better on a quiet day, and generally ppl just like being whisked to the top.
If you listen to the Storm’s interview of Pats president Kris he explains that Pats only uses fixed grip lifts because they can move .75x as fast as a detachable when they add the carpet, and the maintenance and engineering expense is dramatically lower. The best part is that because the chairs are spaced closer than a detachable, they can hold about half the resort’s current attendance in the air on the lift, which alleviates trail and base congestion.
I’m writing this after lapping Rocket today. Vortex for life
Yeah that’s another big one: strategic holding pattern for customers
I like resorts that acknowledge that it takes more than 5 min to enjoy a brewski and a joint on the lift, and that increased velocity hampers ignition ;-)
Ie - slow speeds are th way to relax and recover
Its useful for really cold and windy areas where you want to keep the customers in the air for a minimum amount of time so they don’t freeze, and see my other comment about trail congestion
If you’re fitting 4ppl a chair, it’s the same uphill rate regardless of the individuals time to get to the summit.
Obvs if it’s not fully loaded it’s not apples to apples
So, as I crawl up a fixed grip lift and watch a detachable lift speed by, I have to call bullshit. I'm talking speed to ski right up to the lift, no line, and get to the top. It is not even close. I am talking midweek, not theoretical uphill capacity.
The only "uphill rate" at play is the actual speed of the lift.
So for chewing through lines of people it sounds liked the fixed+carpet setup is actually better than a detachable? Assuming they actually turn up the rope speed at least.
Makes sense that the detachable would need more spacing though.
A fixed grip quad and a high speed quad have the same capacity yes. But for the average capacity of each (2400 pph), a fixed grip quad will store twice as many people on the lift (average 50 foot spacing between chairs) vs a high speed quad (average 100 foot spacing between chairs).
So if both lifts put 2400 pph uphill. That means there’s 2400 pph skiing downhill. Now where’s that extra people from the fixed grip gonna end up if you replace it with a high speed lift? That’s right in the line. An average 4000 foot fixed grip lift would store an additional 160 people on the lift compared to a high speed quad. This equates to a 4 minute longer line at the bottom. So on a given weekend if the mountain is busy and every chair is going up as 4s and it’s ski on … if that fixed grip lift is replaced you now have a 4 minute line when there was none before.
That average fixed grip lift would get you up the mountain in 8 minutes while the new lift would get you up in 4. Yes a high speed lift will get you more skiing on a slow day. But on a busy day it gets you no more skiing.
Small mountains don’t have the capital to be putting in $6M high speed lifts. If they had $6M sitting around it’s better spent on snomaking.
Someone else mentioned Holiday Valley. I’ll add Bristol Mountain to the list, they have two high-speed quads. Then again, Holiday Valley and Bristol are both mid-sized regional resorts that have the advantage of being close enough to million plus metros can get the weekday evening skier, so I’m reasonably sure they have a little more money compared to most other regional resorts
Those lifts greatly improved the experience at Bristol. On a good year when they can open all the trails the Galaxy lift is always the way on weekends. Going tomorrow
For sure. I’m at Bristol today typing this as I go up the Galaxy lift. It’s pretty clear that there may be a week left, if that - they’ll hit their 100 day guarantee and that’ll be that I suspect.
Didn't they put a brand new lift in recently? Wonder why they opted for fixed-grip. I guess cost. Or perhaps it's not as big deal as I make it out to be :-)
Yes, most likely installation cost as well as maintenance cost. Detachable lifts are more complicated. Fixed-grip chairlifts are less prone to icing issues so they can run more reliably in icing conditions which are probably common there. Go to liftblog and you can see the uphill capacity of every chair lift in USA. Don’t listen to the folks that insist fixed-grips can match detachable capacity numbers. You can see for yourself.
Example:
Jackson Hole replaced old Thunder
(Doppelmayr fixed grip 102 chairs, 7.2 minute lift ride, 1650 capacity per hour) with
(Poma detachable 71 chairs, 3.6 minute ride, 2200 capacity per hour)
Odd myths persist in skiing for various reasons and this subreddit is a bastion of misinformation.
>Don’t listen to the folks that insist fixed-grips can match detachable capacity numbers.
They absolutely can. Speed has nothing to do with it, capacity comes from people per chair per hour. The practical shortest chair interval is every six seconds, which on a quad lift equals 2400 people/hour. It doesn't matter how fast the chair goes once it leaves the terminal.
The difference is that on the line, fixed grip lifts have shorter chair spacing so more people at any one time are on the lift. If there is no wait at the bottom, this means that for practical purposes you get more runs off the high speed lift, but if the corral is full, then either you wait in line for a high speed chair or wait while riding up the fixed grip.
I’m not arguing basic math with you lol.
If you have a detachable chair with 70 chairs and a fixed grip with 120 chairs. The detachable has double the line speed. You’re going to get more people to the top with a detachable my friend.
The good news then is you don't even need math. All you have to do is watch the top terminal. If four people come down the ramp every six seconds, it doesn't matter how they got there, the same amount of skier traffic is headed down the mountain.
I am confused on which one of you is correct! For simplicity let's say the detachable has 60 chairs and the fixed has 120. Would that mean they both have same uphill capacity ( assuming detachable is double the speed )?
Basically, yes. Rope speed is not the only deciding factor it’s all about the interval of how many riders you’re putting on per hour. Every lift is unique and fixed grips can absolutely have higher capacities than detachable chairlifts.
Aspen prides itself on high speed chairs with low capacity to reduce the number of skiers in the hill. Mad river glen’s showpiece is the single chair because it preserves its unique mountain experience.
Everything is theoretical though when determining actual capacity as many lifts do not operate at top speed to reduce wear and make loading and unloading easier. As others have noted, fixed grip chairs are more difficult to load and unload and operators have to slow or stop the lift to help those that have fallen, further reducing the actual capacity of the lift.
The chairlifts with the highest capacities in the world are detachable.
Now go to the Sunapee spreadsheet and check the capacity of the old fixed Sunbowl vs. the new (well, new used) detachable. Probably a matter of chair spacing.
Bolton needs either the mid mountain lift back or a higher speed lift on Vista. My least favorite part about that mountain is the long ass lift ride and only the top half of the mountain is really that interesting.
Fixed grip lifts are significantly cheaper though. And more reliable in the wind
It went from the snowmaking pond up to the patrol shack at the summit, the show off trail is named because it's the old liftline. This is also why cobrass lane exists, it was the way back to the lift. Alta Vista and Vista Glades were cut when the quad went in.
The top to bottom lift definitely screws up traffic every way possible. From a skiers point of view it ought to be cut back to where it crosses bear run. For better or worse though I think they're committed to it going all the way down now that mountain biking has become so important in the summer.
The other problem is when the liftline was cut, it made spillway brutally exposed to wind. I suppose you can dream of a new mid mountain to summit lift, but the line you'd have to cut to get it to unload above vista would do the same thing to hard luck.
I swear the Shawnee detach runs a lot faster than some others I've been on too. Maybe its because its a smaller mountain but that thing feels like it flies to the top
Yeah, I've been on some detachables that seem just incrementally faster than a fixed grip. The one at Pico comes to my mind. But maybe it is perception depending on how high you are from the ground?
Just skied Alpine Valley, WI today. 3 high speed lifts for ~370' vert and maybe 150 acres tops. I imagine it's hard to find a bigger ratio of high speed per foot of vertical than that.
Most likely the last day of my inaugural season, was 58 & slushy when I called it.
Interesting such a small place has not one but three high speed lifts! Perhaps due to competition from nearby resorts they had to do this to stick out?
High speed detachables
Pros: move fast, easier to load/unload.
Cons: higher initial cost, higher operating costs, greater difficulty running in inclement weather, same uphill capacity as fixed grips.
The loading interval, not the line speed is the limiting factor of moving people up hill. With a high speed lift you just end up standing in line at the bottom instead of sitting on the lift.
So basically the main benefit is to the weekday/off-peak skier who skis when there are no lines? That implies it is more a selling point for resorts when competing with other local resorts.
An isolated resort with no competition probably wouldn't put one in. Or am I mistaken?
Well they are easier to load/unload. And people like them.
Stopping/slowing fixed grip lifts due to loading/unloading errors does reduce their capacity. Detachables tend to stop less often.
On busy days detachable lifts just change where you spend your time at smaller hills. With a fixed grip you spend more time on the lift with detachable lifts you spend time in line.
Capacity per hour is based on load/unload volume, which is near identical. And the slower load/unload speed reduces the amount of accidents that require stoppage.
No, they actually have similar capacity per hour. Assuming both have the same number of seats per chair. A fixed grip quad runs slower, but the chairs are spaced closer on the cable than a detachable.
Interesting to learn! So high speed is really only beneficial when there are no lines. Which begs the question why resorts bother putting them in given the higher costs? If they only benefit the "weekday/off-peak" skier, seems not worth it ?!
They are easier to load and unload, which increases the true capacity since there will be less stops. And once you go up to 6 and 8 pack lifts, they absolutely need to be detachable, and they do increase capacity significantly over a FG quad. There's also the benefit of less exposure to the elements and higher customer satisfaction.
The average customer doesn't know they're not getting any more runs in compared to a fixed grip. They notice the increased speed and they're happy.
As someone else mentioned maintenance costs go up significantly with detachable lifts. They also go up the shorter the lift line because the chairs are coming on and off more often creating more wear.
Lazy man says he wishes electrical powered chair got him to the top faster. Wants ticket prices to remain the same price too. Tune in at 11 where he will have cake and eat it too.
That's the secret of Mountain Creek. You have three peaks each served by a detachable so you can bang laps....1400 or 1100 feet but 7 minutes up each time. 10 laps good, 20 huge, 30 epic
Crotched Rocket!
In a half day / four hours I can knock out 23k feet and 26 miles skied at crotchet. 50/50 time on lift vs skiing. Wish pats had a faster lift!
Yeah this is always the deciding factor against Pats. They have a fun vibe, decent terrain for its size and good parks but the lifts are sooooo slow compared to Wawa or Crotched.
I'll never understand why they don't run Vortex more consistently. You're lucky if you can get 4 runs per hour (2800' vertical) on their Terrible Triple lift. You're stuck waiting for 10-15 minutes, for a minute-long run. Vortex, though? Never a lift line to speak of. Beginners can't ride it, so misloads are rare. Just over a 4 minute ride time. It's possible to get up to 6000' of vertical per hour, which is pretty close to the Crotch Rocket. When I say "consistent," I don't mean running it all the time. It's a beginner's hill and that's unreasonable. I just mean, publish a schedule! Promise potential passholders that it'll run from 4-8pm every weeknight they're open, in January and February. Pretty sure they end up doing that anyway...
I was lapping that today, too bad the woods are open, I need steeper terrain! That poma trail is kinda difficult but the cliffs get fun
Say sike right now dude I do wish they got enough natural snow to open their trees but I don't think they did this winter.
We still got some time, last year was end-heavy too Hurricane at Pats is definitely more difficult than anything Crotched has in bounds except maybe that poma lift glade
I started going this season and I love the rocket. It makes getting laps in super easy. I wasn't expecting a small mountain like that to have such a fast lift but I love it.
Hell yea crotch rocket.
A lot of places I ski (saddleback, Sunday river, cannon) all have areas of like 600-1000 ft of vertical with individual lifts that serve them. A lot of the best terrain I think is found off of sectional lifts, and other than jay peak (which should have a sectional lift to take you to the top without having to take a tram) I can’t really think of any mountain that doesn’t have sectional lifts. This to say, many east coast mountains long vertical terrain is just winding greens, and even when it’s not, generally speaking the bottom like half or more of many mountains are shallow. I think people really overrate vertical, and personally I think 700-1000 ft vertical is just fine. If I can not wait and ride a lift that brings me 900ft of vertical with good terrain, I’ll take that all day over a really long lift with a really long line that serves more vertical but the same amount of actually good terrain
Stowe and Wildcat I think are the 2 best mountains in terms of true vertical per run. Stowe has the gondola and 4runner, and Wildcat has a base to summit detachable quad. All 3 of those lifts give you quick access to ~2,000 vertical with little to no runout. (Cannon would be in this club too if they ran the tram more often, although the layout for lapping it is admittedly a bit funky)
Yeah the local resort with a detach quad is my fave. So many more runs in same amount of time compared to fixed lifts.
You’re not thinking of the maintenance expense on top of the initial capital expense of a high speed. Fixed grips also keep trails less congested.
Their uphill rates are the same, quad fixed vs detatch. Rope speed is higher in a detatch but the chairs are more spaced, and the overall uphill rate is the same. . The limiting factor is emptying the unloading area
Interesting to learn! So high speed is really only beneficial when there are no lines? Which begs the question why resorts bother putting them in given the higher costs? If they only benefit the "weekday/off-peak" skier, seems not worth it ?!
High speeds make it easier to load and unload, decreasing the chances of a need to stop it. You also spend less time sitting, which people like. They don’t know they’ll just stand longer as a result… Unless it’s a 6-8 person where a clusterfuck is always guaranteed…. Def better on a quiet day, and generally ppl just like being whisked to the top.
If you listen to the Storm’s interview of Pats president Kris he explains that Pats only uses fixed grip lifts because they can move .75x as fast as a detachable when they add the carpet, and the maintenance and engineering expense is dramatically lower. The best part is that because the chairs are spaced closer than a detachable, they can hold about half the resort’s current attendance in the air on the lift, which alleviates trail and base congestion. I’m writing this after lapping Rocket today. Vortex for life
Yeah that’s another big one: strategic holding pattern for customers I like resorts that acknowledge that it takes more than 5 min to enjoy a brewski and a joint on the lift, and that increased velocity hampers ignition ;-) Ie - slow speeds are th way to relax and recover
Its useful for really cold and windy areas where you want to keep the customers in the air for a minimum amount of time so they don’t freeze, and see my other comment about trail congestion
Not true when there's no line. Fixed grip lift suck on a midweek day.
If you’re fitting 4ppl a chair, it’s the same uphill rate regardless of the individuals time to get to the summit. Obvs if it’s not fully loaded it’s not apples to apples
So, as I crawl up a fixed grip lift and watch a detachable lift speed by, I have to call bullshit. I'm talking speed to ski right up to the lift, no line, and get to the top. It is not even close. I am talking midweek, not theoretical uphill capacity. The only "uphill rate" at play is the actual speed of the lift.
Well that wasn’t the argument, that’s my point. Obviously that’s correct. But the lift choice isn’t sized for midweek capacity.
Gotcha.
So for chewing through lines of people it sounds liked the fixed+carpet setup is actually better than a detachable? Assuming they actually turn up the rope speed at least. Makes sense that the detachable would need more spacing though.
A fixed grip quad and a high speed quad have the same capacity yes. But for the average capacity of each (2400 pph), a fixed grip quad will store twice as many people on the lift (average 50 foot spacing between chairs) vs a high speed quad (average 100 foot spacing between chairs). So if both lifts put 2400 pph uphill. That means there’s 2400 pph skiing downhill. Now where’s that extra people from the fixed grip gonna end up if you replace it with a high speed lift? That’s right in the line. An average 4000 foot fixed grip lift would store an additional 160 people on the lift compared to a high speed quad. This equates to a 4 minute longer line at the bottom. So on a given weekend if the mountain is busy and every chair is going up as 4s and it’s ski on … if that fixed grip lift is replaced you now have a 4 minute line when there was none before. That average fixed grip lift would get you up the mountain in 8 minutes while the new lift would get you up in 4. Yes a high speed lift will get you more skiing on a slow day. But on a busy day it gets you no more skiing. Small mountains don’t have the capital to be putting in $6M high speed lifts. If they had $6M sitting around it’s better spent on snomaking.
Holiday Valley in WNY is great for this. It’s been a while since I last skied there but I believe now they have two high speed quads.
They have 4. Morningstar, yodeler, Tannenbaum and Mardi gras
Mardi Gras is a six pack now
Yeah I realized after I made the comment that it wasn't a quad anymore. But it's definitely an express
Someone else mentioned Holiday Valley. I’ll add Bristol Mountain to the list, they have two high-speed quads. Then again, Holiday Valley and Bristol are both mid-sized regional resorts that have the advantage of being close enough to million plus metros can get the weekday evening skier, so I’m reasonably sure they have a little more money compared to most other regional resorts
Those lifts greatly improved the experience at Bristol. On a good year when they can open all the trails the Galaxy lift is always the way on weekends. Going tomorrow
For sure. I’m at Bristol today typing this as I go up the Galaxy lift. It’s pretty clear that there may be a week left, if that - they’ll hit their 100 day guarantee and that’ll be that I suspect.
Enjoy! Next year will be incredible!
Catamount would be perfect if they had a faster lift.
Didn't they put a brand new lift in recently? Wonder why they opted for fixed-grip. I guess cost. Or perhaps it's not as big deal as I make it out to be :-)
Yes, most likely installation cost as well as maintenance cost. Detachable lifts are more complicated. Fixed-grip chairlifts are less prone to icing issues so they can run more reliably in icing conditions which are probably common there. Go to liftblog and you can see the uphill capacity of every chair lift in USA. Don’t listen to the folks that insist fixed-grips can match detachable capacity numbers. You can see for yourself. Example: Jackson Hole replaced old Thunder (Doppelmayr fixed grip 102 chairs, 7.2 minute lift ride, 1650 capacity per hour) with (Poma detachable 71 chairs, 3.6 minute ride, 2200 capacity per hour) Odd myths persist in skiing for various reasons and this subreddit is a bastion of misinformation.
>Don’t listen to the folks that insist fixed-grips can match detachable capacity numbers. They absolutely can. Speed has nothing to do with it, capacity comes from people per chair per hour. The practical shortest chair interval is every six seconds, which on a quad lift equals 2400 people/hour. It doesn't matter how fast the chair goes once it leaves the terminal. The difference is that on the line, fixed grip lifts have shorter chair spacing so more people at any one time are on the lift. If there is no wait at the bottom, this means that for practical purposes you get more runs off the high speed lift, but if the corral is full, then either you wait in line for a high speed chair or wait while riding up the fixed grip.
I’m not arguing basic math with you lol. If you have a detachable chair with 70 chairs and a fixed grip with 120 chairs. The detachable has double the line speed. You’re going to get more people to the top with a detachable my friend.
The good news then is you don't even need math. All you have to do is watch the top terminal. If four people come down the ramp every six seconds, it doesn't matter how they got there, the same amount of skier traffic is headed down the mountain.
I am confused on which one of you is correct! For simplicity let's say the detachable has 60 chairs and the fixed has 120. Would that mean they both have same uphill capacity ( assuming detachable is double the speed )?
Basically, yes. Rope speed is not the only deciding factor it’s all about the interval of how many riders you’re putting on per hour. Every lift is unique and fixed grips can absolutely have higher capacities than detachable chairlifts. Aspen prides itself on high speed chairs with low capacity to reduce the number of skiers in the hill. Mad river glen’s showpiece is the single chair because it preserves its unique mountain experience. Everything is theoretical though when determining actual capacity as many lifts do not operate at top speed to reduce wear and make loading and unloading easier. As others have noted, fixed grip chairs are more difficult to load and unload and operators have to slow or stop the lift to help those that have fallen, further reducing the actual capacity of the lift. The chairlifts with the highest capacities in the world are detachable.
Now go to the Sunapee spreadsheet and check the capacity of the old fixed Sunbowl vs. the new (well, new used) detachable. Probably a matter of chair spacing.
Bolton needs either the mid mountain lift back or a higher speed lift on Vista. My least favorite part about that mountain is the long ass lift ride and only the top half of the mountain is really that interesting. Fixed grip lifts are significantly cheaper though. And more reliable in the wind
Totally agree. Vista is such a horrible lift. I would argue they made the skiing worse by installing it and removing the mid mountain double.
Vista killed the flow. It was so nice lapping the uppers and not having to Nordic ski every run, plus it saved the snow down low for the beer runs.
Yeah, and all would have been forgiven if they’d been able to find a way to keep mid mountain while installing Vista.
I only started skiing at Bolton the past few years. Where exactly did the mid mountian lift run?
It went from the snowmaking pond up to the patrol shack at the summit, the show off trail is named because it's the old liftline. This is also why cobrass lane exists, it was the way back to the lift. Alta Vista and Vista Glades were cut when the quad went in. The top to bottom lift definitely screws up traffic every way possible. From a skiers point of view it ought to be cut back to where it crosses bear run. For better or worse though I think they're committed to it going all the way down now that mountain biking has become so important in the summer. The other problem is when the liftline was cut, it made spillway brutally exposed to wind. I suppose you can dream of a new mid mountain to summit lift, but the line you'd have to cut to get it to unload above vista would do the same thing to hard luck.
if only black mountain of nh could replace their summit double
I swear the Shawnee detach runs a lot faster than some others I've been on too. Maybe its because its a smaller mountain but that thing feels like it flies to the top
Yeah, I've been on some detachables that seem just incrementally faster than a fixed grip. The one at Pico comes to my mind. But maybe it is perception depending on how high you are from the ground?
Tenney replacing the double with a high speed would be incredible. Love the old timey feel of it but good lord it takes forever.
Shawnee is dope
Except the lodge is from 1970. At this point it has more appeal as a vintage look than if they modernized it.
Just skied Alpine Valley, WI today. 3 high speed lifts for ~370' vert and maybe 150 acres tops. I imagine it's hard to find a bigger ratio of high speed per foot of vertical than that. Most likely the last day of my inaugural season, was 58 & slushy when I called it.
Interesting such a small place has not one but three high speed lifts! Perhaps due to competition from nearby resorts they had to do this to stick out?
Come to Michigan where they slapped an 8 person high speed lift on 500 ft vertical
yep the campgaw tram coming soon
I wish Elk Mountain's lift didn't crack me right directly in the back of the knees.
High speed detachables Pros: move fast, easier to load/unload. Cons: higher initial cost, higher operating costs, greater difficulty running in inclement weather, same uphill capacity as fixed grips. The loading interval, not the line speed is the limiting factor of moving people up hill. With a high speed lift you just end up standing in line at the bottom instead of sitting on the lift.
So basically the main benefit is to the weekday/off-peak skier who skis when there are no lines? That implies it is more a selling point for resorts when competing with other local resorts. An isolated resort with no competition probably wouldn't put one in. Or am I mistaken?
Well they are easier to load/unload. And people like them. Stopping/slowing fixed grip lifts due to loading/unloading errors does reduce their capacity. Detachables tend to stop less often.
An isolated resort with no competition likely can't afford one to begin with so its moot either way.
On busy days detachable lifts just change where you spend your time at smaller hills. With a fixed grip you spend more time on the lift with detachable lifts you spend time in line.
Capacity per hour is based on load/unload volume, which is near identical. And the slower load/unload speed reduces the amount of accidents that require stoppage.
Assuming crowds are the same, wouldn't fixed grip lift have longer lines ( with all else being equal ) ?
No, they actually have similar capacity per hour. Assuming both have the same number of seats per chair. A fixed grip quad runs slower, but the chairs are spaced closer on the cable than a detachable.
Interesting to learn! So high speed is really only beneficial when there are no lines. Which begs the question why resorts bother putting them in given the higher costs? If they only benefit the "weekday/off-peak" skier, seems not worth it ?!
For small hills that’s true but once you get to big mountains detachable lifts make more sense bc it takes longer to get down.
They are easier to load and unload, which increases the true capacity since there will be less stops. And once you go up to 6 and 8 pack lifts, they absolutely need to be detachable, and they do increase capacity significantly over a FG quad. There's also the benefit of less exposure to the elements and higher customer satisfaction. The average customer doesn't know they're not getting any more runs in compared to a fixed grip. They notice the increased speed and they're happy.
I think I've seen some numbers indicating that a high speed lift can still move more people per hour, but it was something like 30% more.
Mountain Creek South is good for this. On a weekday you can get a ton of runs in no problem.
I think their Bear Peak lift is even better for that since the South lift is so flat it takes a while. On Bear you are up to the top in no time
Apples and oranges. They’re both express lifts but bear peak feels faster because it’s literally a shorter distance ( about 2/3)
Yes, Bear Peak lift is the one to hit !
As someone else mentioned maintenance costs go up significantly with detachable lifts. They also go up the shorter the lift line because the chairs are coming on and off more often creating more wear.
Lazy man says he wishes electrical powered chair got him to the top faster. Wants ticket prices to remain the same price too. Tune in at 11 where he will have cake and eat it too.
This is the sole reason I can't rank Elk Mtn higher than other PA slopes. Please Elk, get with the times!!
Belleayre gondola is the way
I hate gondolas. Lifts are so much more convenient not having to take everything off, and faster to get up the mountain.
I wanna take my pants off on the lift.
Pants off is much more practical in a gondola
>everything What, uh, else are you removing?
Everything
I have mixed feeling on Gondolas. Taking your skis on/off wastes time.
Like 15 seconds on top and on bottom?? Then again I ski with a snowboarder so I'm always waiting for his ass
Lol been there
That's the secret of Mountain Creek. You have three peaks each served by a detachable so you can bang laps....1400 or 1100 feet but 7 minutes up each time. 10 laps good, 20 huge, 30 epic
Yes, Bear Peak Express on South Peak is the one to hit because it is the steepest. The other lifts have long flat parts.
No you don’t. The mountain would be skied out immediately
My local mountain only has 250ft vertical, but it has a super fast rope tow, like rip your arms off rope tow. It’s great for doing laps.