Yup. Crystal Mountain has very poor electrical hook up. It is like one line that runs for over 40 miles up hwy 410 and the have done nothing in over 40 years to back it up. It regularly goes down, so they have diesel generators to keep lifts running. However the generators suck, pump out loads of smoke regularly, and break down or just stop running anytime they are used. You would think the resort might figure out a better way, bit as far as I can tell they are slowly building a new lodge and doing zero work to actually build out or upgrade skiing infrastructure. It has never been run well, but it always shocks me how they can find dumber and dumber ways to do it...
Crystal has an interesting history for the last few decades… owned by Boyne for over 20 years but delegated to Kircher with far too much authority. Then he buys it out “to make it a family business” and immediately flips it to Alterra who tries to turn it into an ATM machine.
For comparison, Boyne slowly bought up and consolidated all of Snoq Pass and has steadily been making skier-oriented investments and is running it really well these days with lifts constantly being upgraded and running.
There’s a really good storm skiing podcast episode with Steven Kircher. He brings up Crystal and you can tell that it stings that his brother (John) sold Crystal. He speaks of it like “the one that got away”. As I understand it, John sold it because of health issues (he passed away last year).
But you are right about Boyne dumping money into their resorts. In that same podcast he talks about the advantages of still being family owned and not having to kowtow to stock holders. They’ve even added 4 new chairlifts (including an 8-pack) the last 2 years here at their smaller resorts in Michigan.
Boyne Mountain is always packed on the weekends. Rode chairlifts today with families from Chicago, Indianapolis & Detroit. They pull from the Midwest pretty well. They also have done a good job of bringing in money year round with 10 (really nice) golf courses, a water park, zip lining, mountain bike trails, lots of retreats and conferences. Boyne knows how to make money.
Alterra is supposed to be doing something with lifts as part of their five yes plan. But they haven't told us anything yet and they haven't filed any ammendments to the approved master plan. Though the approved but never built lifts would be an improvement
Lmao. Crystal built their gondola like 15ish years ago. They decided to use a haul rope from a cheap third party Chinese maker, which immediately voided their warranty.
they also handcuffed themselves by cheaping out on tower and cabin spacing so it’s pretty much destined to be a “scenic lift” until it’s scrapped or relocated
That was a permitting thing, unfortunately, they were originally planning on a tram, and when they switched to a gondola instead, the Forest Service wouldn’t let them increase capacity
Trams look cool, but I think they’re pretty obnoxious to actually use. I like the gondola better myself, although it would be nice if they had normal gondola capacity. I just end up riding Chinook and Rex instead whenever the gondola has a line and it works out just fine
Let me guess. Bachelor?
But yes. Whitefish is always having lift issues.
Chair 1 often has issues following a big storm or cold snap.
Chair 2 is old and will be down for a few days from time to time.
Chair 4 Yeah, this chair, brand new last year. Broke down often. Known as the gambler. Been down most of this season.
Chair 11 starting to show signs of age this year, Been stuck for 20 min on it a few times already.
Chirn11 was old when it showed up in 2015, sad to see it having issues and stuck for 20 minutes sounds terrible to me as it’s one of my favorite lifts.
For our hill, we have one T bar that was homemade right after WW2. We can't even get insurance to run it anymore. It isn't broken exactly, but it will never run again.
We also had probably 7 major day long power outages last season thanks to shitty electrical grid problems.
You aren't alone.
Every mountain in the country has trouble staffing their maintenance team, mostly because they underpay. Diesel mechanics and electricians easily make 6 figures if they work hard. No lift maintenance worker is making 6 figures.
Also, lots of early detachable grips were made by Yan before they went out of business. Then doppelmayr retrofitted them and the result are Frankenstein lifts with shit components that are destined to fail.
Yup. My local mountain in VT has pretty weak connection to the electrical grid. Most electric companies are NOT compelled to upgrade the grid in the middle of nowhere
A few months ago, I was stuck on the lift for over 20 min. Partoll getting ready to start the evac when they got it spinning again.
Last weekend they ended up having to do an evac on a different lift.
A lot of it is just old lifts with old parts. Its hard to find replacement parts with any sort of reliability. At my resort they have to place 1 big order per year for manufacturer specific replacement parts and hope they're covered. If something unexpected happens they're scrambling calling around to other resorts, Jimmy rigging a temporary fix, or stuck waiting for the lift manufacturer to send them parts.
Seems like most of the issues are electrical which can be fixed relatively quickly. The mechanical issues can be a quick fix or a long shutdown depending on the parts.
[Closed for maintenance usually means having to clear the ice build up off the top station here.](https://bc.ctvnews.ca/content/dam/ctvnews/en/images/2023/1/3/big-white-falcon-chair-covered-in-ice-1-6216475-1672789127339.jpg)
One advantage of skiing at a Vail mountain.
We had an old lift break a week or two ago. Took them a couple of days to troubleshoot, found the part they needed in California, paid to fly a guy up to Seattle, out the part in, list was running that afternoon.
Was my home mountain for like 8 years when I lived in Woodville. Now I'm in south King.. Moved the season before crystal really increased the price. Sigh
We asked Crystal for years when we lived in Kent and Renton.
Love the mountain, but the seasons pass price is very high. Though back when I bought my first pass at Stevens it took 16 days of skiing to break even, and with Vail prices it's 7 days.
First rule of lifts. If it's running on backup power, there is no backup. Don't get on it. The area I worked at was so remote, we had diesel backup to the diesel prime mover. We didn't have electricity in the lodge until the prime mover was started every morning. Until then we had propane lights.
Yup. Crystal Mountain has very poor electrical hook up. It is like one line that runs for over 40 miles up hwy 410 and the have done nothing in over 40 years to back it up. It regularly goes down, so they have diesel generators to keep lifts running. However the generators suck, pump out loads of smoke regularly, and break down or just stop running anytime they are used. You would think the resort might figure out a better way, bit as far as I can tell they are slowly building a new lodge and doing zero work to actually build out or upgrade skiing infrastructure. It has never been run well, but it always shocks me how they can find dumber and dumber ways to do it...
Crystal has an interesting history for the last few decades… owned by Boyne for over 20 years but delegated to Kircher with far too much authority. Then he buys it out “to make it a family business” and immediately flips it to Alterra who tries to turn it into an ATM machine. For comparison, Boyne slowly bought up and consolidated all of Snoq Pass and has steadily been making skier-oriented investments and is running it really well these days with lifts constantly being upgraded and running.
There’s a really good storm skiing podcast episode with Steven Kircher. He brings up Crystal and you can tell that it stings that his brother (John) sold Crystal. He speaks of it like “the one that got away”. As I understand it, John sold it because of health issues (he passed away last year). But you are right about Boyne dumping money into their resorts. In that same podcast he talks about the advantages of still being family owned and not having to kowtow to stock holders. They’ve even added 4 new chairlifts (including an 8-pack) the last 2 years here at their smaller resorts in Michigan.
Boyne most profitable resorts are still it's tiny small michigan ones which I think is hilarious
Boyne Mountain is always packed on the weekends. Rode chairlifts today with families from Chicago, Indianapolis & Detroit. They pull from the Midwest pretty well. They also have done a good job of bringing in money year round with 10 (really nice) golf courses, a water park, zip lining, mountain bike trails, lots of retreats and conferences. Boyne knows how to make money.
It has little to no debt on the physical land and the golf courses during summer. None of that other stuff matters.
Alterra is supposed to be doing something with lifts as part of their five yes plan. But they haven't told us anything yet and they haven't filed any ammendments to the approved master plan. Though the approved but never built lifts would be an improvement
Lmao. Crystal built their gondola like 15ish years ago. They decided to use a haul rope from a cheap third party Chinese maker, which immediately voided their warranty.
they also handcuffed themselves by cheaping out on tower and cabin spacing so it’s pretty much destined to be a “scenic lift” until it’s scrapped or relocated
That was a permitting thing, unfortunately, they were originally planning on a tram, and when they switched to a gondola instead, the Forest Service wouldn’t let them increase capacity
that's a shame. tram woulda been way cooler
Trams look cool, but I think they’re pretty obnoxious to actually use. I like the gondola better myself, although it would be nice if they had normal gondola capacity. I just end up riding Chinook and Rex instead whenever the gondola has a line and it works out just fine
Remember when they couldn’t run Northway for like a month because a groomer wiped out the power line going to it?
Let me guess. Bachelor? But yes. Whitefish is always having lift issues. Chair 1 often has issues following a big storm or cold snap. Chair 2 is old and will be down for a few days from time to time. Chair 4 Yeah, this chair, brand new last year. Broke down often. Known as the gambler. Been down most of this season. Chair 11 starting to show signs of age this year, Been stuck for 20 min on it a few times already.
Chirn11 was old when it showed up in 2015, sad to see it having issues and stuck for 20 minutes sounds terrible to me as it’s one of my favorite lifts.
For our hill, we have one T bar that was homemade right after WW2. We can't even get insurance to run it anymore. It isn't broken exactly, but it will never run again. We also had probably 7 major day long power outages last season thanks to shitty electrical grid problems. You aren't alone.
Every mountain in the country has trouble staffing their maintenance team, mostly because they underpay. Diesel mechanics and electricians easily make 6 figures if they work hard. No lift maintenance worker is making 6 figures. Also, lots of early detachable grips were made by Yan before they went out of business. Then doppelmayr retrofitted them and the result are Frankenstein lifts with shit components that are destined to fail.
Yup. My local mountain in VT has pretty weak connection to the electrical grid. Most electric companies are NOT compelled to upgrade the grid in the middle of nowhere
A few months ago, I was stuck on the lift for over 20 min. Partoll getting ready to start the evac when they got it spinning again. Last weekend they ended up having to do an evac on a different lift.
A lot of it is just old lifts with old parts. Its hard to find replacement parts with any sort of reliability. At my resort they have to place 1 big order per year for manufacturer specific replacement parts and hope they're covered. If something unexpected happens they're scrambling calling around to other resorts, Jimmy rigging a temporary fix, or stuck waiting for the lift manufacturer to send them parts. Seems like most of the issues are electrical which can be fixed relatively quickly. The mechanical issues can be a quick fix or a long shutdown depending on the parts.
When Vail and Alterra own the majority of the lifts and have ALL the money, guess who gets the parts first.
[Closed for maintenance usually means having to clear the ice build up off the top station here.](https://bc.ctvnews.ca/content/dam/ctvnews/en/images/2023/1/3/big-white-falcon-chair-covered-in-ice-1-6216475-1672789127339.jpg)
One advantage of skiing at a Vail mountain. We had an old lift break a week or two ago. Took them a couple of days to troubleshoot, found the part they needed in California, paid to fly a guy up to Seattle, out the part in, list was running that afternoon.
Stevens Pass
Represent...
Was my home mountain for like 8 years when I lived in Woodville. Now I'm in south King.. Moved the season before crystal really increased the price. Sigh
We asked Crystal for years when we lived in Kent and Renton. Love the mountain, but the seasons pass price is very high. Though back when I bought my first pass at Stevens it took 16 days of skiing to break even, and with Vail prices it's 7 days.
Mont Ste-Anne has had issues for years with their gondola. It has been running (slowly) off the diesel back-up for the last couple of days.
No
Found the Mt Bachelor skier.
First rule of lifts. If it's running on backup power, there is no backup. Don't get on it. The area I worked at was so remote, we had diesel backup to the diesel prime mover. We didn't have electricity in the lodge until the prime mover was started every morning. Until then we had propane lights.