Article on Crowding on Slopes

[Brian Finch]

"My Tribe"... they were so chill, relaxed and just loving nature!

^ This, Alterra / Vail are just cultivating too much of the Planet Fitness client to bear lately.

 

[James]

Last weekend I was with a woman from nyc and the topic turned to dangerous people on the slopes. I said some of the worst offenders are dudes in their 40’s and even 50’s.

Later we were on a normally crowded trail that was totally empty. Because hardly anyone was skiing last Sat and most at that time were at the slush cup. We started down an offshoot trail that gets pretty flat, and immediately found a lost young kid walking up. We talked to him, and I walked him up to the start of the offshoot so he could go the other way.

I helped getting his skis on, I’m on foot, it’s a spot visible for nearly a quarter mile. As soon as he goes off, I take one step, and two dudes go flying by me. The first one was really close and probably doing 35-40. With the slow snow, he was probably at terminal velocity.

Fortunately, I had made the woman get out of the middle of the offshoot trail to the side even though no one was around at the time. She was not visible from above. Right after they went by, she’s going, “Holy sh**! That guy almost hit you!” She then proceeded to curse up a storm.

After that, it was “So those are the guys you were talking about.” Ironically, she works in risk management.

 

[Tex]

A combination of the above is likely the best approach. However, mor terrain and lifts is an issue that (generally) requires forestry service approval, which cans take a decade or more. In the meantime, resorts need to start finding other solutions.

They need to cut the red tape and start building! Build out Winter Park all the way to Berthoud Pass. Put lifts everywhere, and the heck with hwy 70, they need high speed gondolas coming out of Denver!

 

[JWMN]

Lines actually aren’t the issue. High speed lifts have allowed resorts to move folks up the mountain lickety split! The issue is the number of sliders on any given run at one time; the congestion on the slopes creates the danger, not lift lines which are simply inconvenient.

Yes. An example is the new gondola at Steamboat. While it is great to get to the top with one lift, and then a tired rider can ride it back to the base, each car holds 10 people. So, every 10 seconds it is unloading 8-10 people in a relatively small area where 2 surface lifts are also unloading. Most of the time it looks like lemmings going over a cliff at the top of the runs. Not fun and not safe.

 

[James]

Yes. An example is the new gondola at Steamboat. While it is great to get to the top with one lift, and then a tired rider can ride it back to the base, each car holds 10 people. So, every 10 seconds it is unloading 8-10 people in a relatively small area where 2 surface lifts are also unloading. Most of the time it looks like lemmings going over a cliff at the top of the runs. Not fun and not safe.

How’s the 8 person chair? That has more capacity.

Steamboat, CO

Click on a lift’s name for pictures. View in fullscreen↗

liftblog.com

 

[BLiP]

To me, this is the ONLY solution!

In my view the only solution is to recognize that the resorts do not have unlimited capacity and place a control on the number of guests by implementing a reservation system or similar means of capacity restriction.

 

[COSkier87]

Yes. An example is the new gondola at Steamboat. While it is great to get to the top with one lift, and then a tired rider can ride it back to the base, each car holds 10 people. So, every 10 seconds it is unloading 8-10 people in a relatively small area where 2 surface lifts are also unloading. Most of the time it looks like lemmings going over a cliff at the top of the runs. Not fun and not safe.

The phenomenon of skiers moving in herds has always intrigued me lol. Waiting 15-30 seconds off to the side usually gets you an empty slope.

 

[dbostedo]

Waiting 15-30 seconds

I think there's something about skiing that messes with the flow of time. Waiting 30 seconds on a slope feels like an eternity! (Though I do it often).

Another example... I've heard people take guesses at how long the lift line was... "We waited like 20 minutes!". In some of those cases, I've been able to use my tracker to see how long we really waited... and it's usually quite a bit less than people think - like half as much in the times I'm thinking of. An actual 20 minute lift line also feels like an eternity, but in a different way.

Third example... If you're waiting at the lift for your friend you're supposed to be meeting up with, they will show up just after you've felt you've waited forever and that something must be wrong. So you will have just gotten on the lift yourself to go find them.

 

[COSkier87]

I think there's something about skiing that messes with the flow of time. Waiting 30 seconds on a slope feels like an eternity! (Though I do it often).

Another example... I've heard people take guesses at how long the lift line was... "We waited like 20 minutes!". In some of those cases, I've been able to use my tracker to see how long we really waited... and it's usually quite a bit less than people think - like half as much in the times I'm thinking of. An actual 20 minute lift line also feels like an eternity, but in a different way.

Third example... If you're waiting at the lift for your friend you're supposed to be meeting up with, they will show up just after you've felt you've waited forever and that something must be wrong. So you will have just gotten on the lift yourself to go find them.

Adrenaline can do some funky things lol.

 

[JWMN]

How’s the 8 person chair? That has more capacity.

Steamboat, CO

Click on a lift’s name for pictures. View in fullscreen↗

liftblog.com

Steamboat only has a 6 pack chair right now, and it only goes about a third of the way up. You would have to take 2 more lifts to end up where the new gondola terminates. Ride the old gondola and you have to take 1 more lift to get there. I know Big Sky has an 8 person chair. The new Steamboat gondola is amazingly fast.

 

[DanoT]

How’s the 8 person chair? That has more capacity.

The 8 person chair at Big Sky makes seemingly long lines disappear pretty quickly. The seats get heated as the chairs pass through the loading base station and the chairs have a bubble. About the only negative is that for the person in seat 1 to talk to the person in seat 8, a cell phone is required.

 

[raisingarizona]

An aspect I don’t think mentioned is weather patterns and a changing climate. As snow reliability becomes more fickle there’s going to be more peak period times at destination ski resorts with extremely limited terrain. When there’s only a few groomer lanes with man made snow things are really dangerous.

 

[MnLakeBum]

The 8 person chair at Big Sky makes seemingly long lines disappear pretty quickly. The seats get heated as the chairs pass through the loading base station and the chairs have a bubble. About the only negative is that for the person in seat 1 to talk to the person in seat 8, a cell phone is required.

I was impressed with the 6 and 8 pack chairs at Big Sky when we visited last month and they are adding another one this summer. We didn’t wait more than a few minutes in a lift line more than once or twice a day. It made it easy to get in 24-30 runs in each day.

 

[silverback]

Lines actually aren’t the issue. High speed lifts have allowed resorts to move folks up the mountain lickety split! The issue is the number of sliders on any given run at one time; the congestion on the slopes creates the danger, not lift lines which are simply inconvenient.

It’s more the 6 & 8-pack lifts that are getting more common these days. A high speed quad and a fixed-grip (slow speed) quad unload pretty similar numbers of skiers per hour.

 

[James]

Do these 8 packs have people mixing lines so there’s actually 8 per chair? Counting is hard, 6 is bad enough.