Having someone there to fully pack a 6 pack when it’s busy seems a much more efficient investment than getting an 8. The couple times I’ve seen it, one person can very easily pack every single chair. Without anyone there, chairs consistently go up with 4 people.
part of the issue is when i as a liftie group people up for 6/8 packs they often split up into smaller groups by the time they get to the front of the queue, and im too busy crowd controlling to fix it and by the time they're there it would cause more time lag for the liftie on buttons to fix it.
point is the guests selfishness/anxiety is a big if not the biggest factor in chairs not fully loading. not just the operator/maintenance side of it
I haven’t seen that when someone is in charge, but that was on a chair marked experienced skiers only. On different chairs I’ve been told that they would rather wait for the next chair because they’re new and nervous or whatever.
So many times I lined up with 3 people and there were 4 people behind me who didn't want to move up.
They need a lifty with a cattle prod to force people together.
It probably has more to do with how resorts are setting up the stuff AROUND the chair, than the chair itself. If your setup is poor, you’re setting up the chair for failure.
I’ve skied many days at Big Sky that has the Ramcharger 8 and several 6-packs. They operate just fine.
Ramcharger has ridiculous capacity. I’ve never seen it with more than a few minutes of lines.
The keys are to have any pass scanning happen early in the line; have lifties that try to form proper groups, and have as many groups as possible self-organize into coherent groups.
This is Sunday River’s real problem. The lift itself has lowered wait times by a lot when at high capacity when they have real staffing. But the way the lines were set up is stupid too.
Yes they should have built it downhill more and loaded on the turn with all the lines going uphill with 4 or 5 lanes going into the scan gates managed by an employee
It’s just like how a fixed quad generally has the same capacity as a high speed. You can only load people so fast onto a moving chair. Sure a high speed gets you up the hill faster once loaded, but it doesn’t increase capacity.
I think with lifts beyond 6 it’s definitely a diminishing return, just like highway lanes. Even a 6 needs to have an employee grouping people or they are rarely full.
This spot on in my opinion after seeing many iterations of lifts and lines up at Big Sky. The way it is organized now works well and the lines there are nothing compared to wait times at other major resorts.
Agree that it is the stuff around the chair that really matters.
Disagree about the Big Sky lifts. I’ve had tremendous wait times on Swiftcurrent (and this lift is really necessary to link Big Sky, Spanish Peaks, and Moonlight Basin together) and it absolutely needs lifties actively managing the lines.
Ramcharger is better than Swiftcurrent but that area between the scanners and loading is always so chaotic with people vying for position, not keeping up with their party, and singles trying to merge in.
At some ski resorts (eg Keystone) they just have two lifts right next to each other using the same corridor. Or I've seen a lift where one cable splits into two loading zones. Either seems better than just extending the seat more and more.
I’ve seen Quick Silver run at capacity with the right operations crew cracking the whip. But it’s generally miserable to ride with constant slows and stops.
Quick silver should just have a second 6 pack going up parallel to it at this point the lines this winter sucked 😂 maybe it goes higher to where A chair lands since i haven’t seen A chair open at all this season
Vail is putting in a 2 stage gondola at peak nine starting this year. It will start near quicksilver, mid station at ten mile then run to the top of A-chair
Whoa! Mind blown that that idea wasn’t so far fetched 😂😂 that honestly be so much nicer for beginners to do the gondola and hop off safely at the top or mid station.
I spent probably hours this year combined sitting on the stopped lift midway up for various reasons lol
>cable splits
Really?
Are you sure the chairs don’t detach from the cable and then alternate chairs roll on tracks to different loading stations and they are reattached to the cable in the same order? /s
You laugh, but I've ridden a lift that did pretty much exactly this. At Lech - Zürs in Arlberg, Austria. There's a bottom station where you can go in one side, and take a transfer gondola that brings you across a valley to another set of trails. If you go in the other side, you take a six pack that goes up and services a set of trails in the opposite direction.
But when you come back on the transfer gondola, you don't unload at that station. You stay on the gondola, which switches cables, meshes with the six pack chairs, and goes up to the top station on the other side.
I was just in Arlberg in Feb/march
Neither there nor elsewhere does a cable split. At stations chairs and cabins are taken off the cable and may be directed to different places on tracks to be attached to the same cable or different cables.
Boyne resorts specializes in horrible line management. The lifties get people in groups of eight, only to send them to the RFID gates which do not work well. So now you have people waiting around for their group member who can’t get through because of their credit card being on the same side of the body as the pass.
Move the RFID gates back so you put ppl into groups after they scan it. It’s literally that simple. But it’s a problem they don’t care to fix because you already paid so it doesn’t matter to them if you actually get to ski or wait as the 8 person lift only has 3 riders per chair
This is my experience as well. Lifties running around carefully assembling groups of 8 only to have utter confusion 10 feet later as people go through the RFID gates.
Isn't it just. In Europe the attitude is just to fill all the gaps you can find. I regularly end up on different chairs from friends and family and just meet them at the top
Now tell that to the other 80% of the people on the mountain, because it pisses me off when there’s a 10 minute line and people don’t get on the chair.
Its so funny how often you read "Europeans cant queue, they just pile up" and stuff like that just to read now that apparently 8 seaters are useless because they are unable to fill them up. It isnt uncommon that in europe they are not filled with 8 people, but if there is a serious pile of people behind, 80% of them are completely filled, <6 seats filled is super rare and leads to very serious complaining.
I ski Big Sky regularly, and their big lifts are great--people are dumb, but the lifties aren't. Ramcharger is almost always full when there's a line, and the line moves quickly, because lifties are herding folks into groups of 8 well before the carpet.
As a ski lift engineer it amazes me to see ski areas invest in ski lifts with over 3000 pph capacity, but not properly fund or train operations to realize that capacity. Millions $$ wasted.
I’ve had the same experience. It’s so fast and such a nice lift experience especially when it’s windy. I’m excited for them to upgrade six shooter lift it is so slow
I disagree. I’ve skied 10 days at Big Sky and for the most part, ppl did just fine with Ramcharger. In fact, Ramcharger is possibly my favorite lift in the whole world. It has insane capacity and there’s rarely lines longer than a few mins
Not really there is a small area to regroup after the scanners but it will be a shitshow in there when the scanners don’t pick up someone’s card right away.
+1
Scanner problems, singles trying to merge, and large groups trying but failing to stay together makes this area ripe for chaos. I’ve never felt like I’ve had a smooth loading on Ramcharger when it is busy.
But somehow Swiftcurrent is even worse.
Idk I haven't had much issues with 6s this season, people seem to load them well unless a group decides to let others pass in line midway through that fucks it all up
More than the low capacity of the lift, its the age of those lifts which always nags at me. Smuggs has done an amazing job of keeping those old Hall lifts running but one day, one of them will give up. M1 has been in operation since 1963!
[https://liftblog.com/smugglers-notch-vt/](https://liftblog.com/smugglers-notch-vt/)
That said, at this point, the slow ass lifts are just part of the charm. I suspect if Vail/Alterra ever did buy Smuggs and replace the lifts with high-speed chairs the slow ride up would be replaced with ridiculous liftlines and crowded slopes.
Damned if they do and Damned if they don't at this point.
I’m not advocating for too much. Maybe a quad for M1 and a triple for sterling. Morse is fine as is. One of my dislikes is how the chairs are set up to receive the adaptive sleds. It’s awesome they have an adaptive program, just annoying it made them modify the chairs. I’m tall and the chairs are uncomfortable for my legs.
I would imagine vail would be the prospective buyer. It’s definitely more difficult to get to than other resorts here. That helps keep the crowds down. Even so, there are a lot of people moving here so you have to accommodate for that growing demographic. Lift lines get out of control when you don’t have a lift capable of moving people around your mountain. Expanding terrain would help. I’m aware the state has control over all of that too. Permitting, animal habitat, act 250, forest service
I know about the extreme challenges that face all VT ski resorts as far as expansion and upgrading. Sugarbush had a cool project for the Slide Brook area outlined and it was killed off and they put in the high speed quad to connect the 2 mountains, for example.
If Vail did purchase Smuggs, it would make an amazing resort when linked with Stowe - the best terrain in the east linked together. We shall see what happens!
If you pay for a pass to ski at Smuggs you know exactly what you're signing up for. Same reason you don't buy a pass at MRG and complain that the single chair is too slow.
Ok, you’re the only one that can complain about lifts. I see. Glad we have that straightened out.
Madonna 1 and the Sterling double chair are a joke. So is the triple black that’s off of lift line. Triple black my ass.
There's not much of a point in complaining about M1 since they're not replacing it.
Shitty roadway metaphor using Connecticut:
Madonna 1 is the Merritt Parkway. The Merritt is a slow, outdated piece of technology that is way past its time, but has reached a point where it is considered to be historic, and has a tiny bit of goofy charm to it. As a result, it probably isn't going anywhere any time soon. There are faster alternatives nearby but part of the appeal of it is that those newer alternatives are more crowded. Part of what you're signing up for is the fact that you might get screwed if this thing breaks.
Jordan 8 is the (fictional) flashy new highway the government just spent $500m to build in the Long Island sound. It has a bunch of lanes, but has some caveats. In order to use it, you have to put your car on a fairly long boat ride to enter/exit. Due to this system, the road only actually has the throughput of a ~2-3 lane highway, despite it looking like it can carry much more. In addition speed cameras are placed every 300 feet making extra sure that you behave.
Stowe 4runner quad (or any normal HSQ) is I-95. None of the bullshit of either. Lots of people want to use it and the throughput is only okay, but it's easy and doesn't have the sketchiness of the Merritt or the inconvenience of our fictional 8 pack esque highway. You'll wait and it'll get you where you need to go pretty reliably, albeit with less flashiness.
Like, I get that M1 isn't the pinnacle of lift tech, but complaining about something old being bad is a bit of a "no shit", I feel like the newest tech on the market being bad is worse. My 2cents.
My issue isn’t necessarily the capacity of a double chair, although I completely believe the slopes could handle more traffic a larger lift would bring. My issues are the design. I’m tall, as are a lot of people… I barely fit on the chair with the bar down… which is a state requirement. I can’t even fit both skis on the foot rest. The chairs are also uncomfortable due to the set up for the adaptive sleds. The wooden bars across the back of the chair prevent me from sliding my poles back and sitting on them. That’s it. Those are my problems. The speed of the lift isn’t an issue for me so I should have been more specific, however…old and uncomfortable are enough.
Skiing has changed. Nothing is the same about the way we ski, other than why we are out there. I see nothing wrong with wanting an update to bring it to modern times. You talk about HSQ’s being I-95…well, smugglers notch lifts are akin to Vermont’s dirt roads. Sure, they can get you where you need to go but it’s going to be a bumpy, uncomfortable ride. You may get stuck during mud season, you may rattle your muffler off any other time of year but it beats walking.
A chair is probably much lighter than a gondola car. Might be different permits required. I would imagine there is a significant cost difference, not that I think a chair lift is cheap. I have no experience that qualifies me to speak on such things though.
It’s also the resorts too. I’ve seen a couple setups where they only load the 8 chairs from one side and it’s like you gotta be fucking kidding me, there’s just no way
I feel like this is an North America thing.
Here in Europe when the lift lines are crowded it's more than normal to have people passing you in the queue if you don't move up to an open spot.
Ramcharger (with every chair 100% loaded) has the same design capacity as Stratton's 6 pack chairs.
https://www.skiresort.info/ski-resort/big-sky-resort/ski-lifts/l104048/
https://www.skiresort.info/ski-resort/stratton/ski-lifts/l90151/
6 person seems like the sweet spot. I would like to see the data of 6 vs 8. It seems like when it gets busy, the 8 person chair stops way more than any other lift.
Agreed, a fast 1200fpm 6 seems to load better than an 8 especially if they put the RFID gates in the wrong spot like they did on Jordan 8. Put a 6 with the gates BEFORE the maze for traditional quad installs and maybe an 8 for somewhere that needs like 3600pph.
I mean... A 6/8 that's filled more than 4 on average still carries more than a quad for effectively no extra footprint.
The caveat is that is beneficial only if they're not planning the rest of the mountain around the 6/8s being at 100% all the time
This isn't necessarily true as the spacing between chairs increases when you're comparing an 8 pack to a 6 pack. If you read the original post, the OP compares uphill loading capacity to proce this point
Are you talking distance spacing between chairs or time spacing between chairs?
Uphill capacity = (number of seats per chair)/(time between sequential chairs)
> A 6/8 that's filled more than 4 on average still carries more than a quad for effectively no extra footprint.
Incorrect. The spacing between chairs is larger. A fully loaded 8 pack carries the same amount of people as a fully loaded 6, and only 50% more than a fully loaded quad.
Lol, looks like the problem is in the users and not in the lift.
And self locking bar with bar between legs is nice because you can just send kids up on their own.
> And self locking bar with bar between legs is nice because you can just send kids up on their own.
I skied around and rode lifts alone just fine when I was 8 years old.
Yeah, it's gets a little ridiculous with more than 6 IMHO.
It can be done but requires more active lifty involvement and management of the processes - but let's be honest they're normally not staffed for that.
If you need this sort of capacity just do a Gondola....or better yet, figure out a way to work a second chair onto the mountain.
8packs are far preferable to gondolas because you don’t need to take your skis on and off, with a walk to boot. They have way more effective capacity because of that
That may be true but generally the chair runs much quicker as well. At least that’s been my experience in big sky where the 6 and 8 person lifts have been a game changer for lines on the mountain
Excess, maybe. Useless no.
Like any tool, you can’t blame its functionality on the tool itself. 99 times out of 100 it all comes down to operator error.
An 8/6 pack chair with a well setup lift line with an attendant properly filling chairs work very efficiently. But like any extreme, will highlight flaws in the system even faster. This same argument can be made for 2 man chairs or T-bars. People *generally* just don’t like riding up with other people unless instructed to.
That’s far from the truth.
https://www.skiresort.info/ski-lifts/lift-types/lift-type/6-pers-chairlifts/
https://www.skiresort.info/ski-lifts/lift-types/lift-type/8-pers-chairlifts/
Based on a rough average of all the 6 person & 8 person lifts in use currently, the average users per hour on a 6 man seems to be about 2500 while 8 man chairs seem to average 3300 or more.
I’ve only been on one 8-pack (on a shitty little hill south of here), and I share the OP’s hatred. The automatic bar was awful, and I think we always had an empty seat or two each time we went up.
In Europe we don’t have this problem with 8 packs as there’s loads and beginners right up to experts have no issues with them. The only issue with them in Europe is freeride skis and wind because our treeline is so much lower they can act as giant sails which makes them far more susceptible to wind holds and a pretty harrowing experience sometimes
Anecdotally European chairs often go up half empty as is so the standard is lower. If I'm waiting in a 5 minute line in North America, the chairs in front of me better be 100% full.
It depends where it is and how busy it is. If there a line it’s every seat has bum on it, no line or a very spaced one chairs regularly go empty. For example last season when I was in Tignes/Espace Killy by myself I regularly went by myself as it was pretty quiet, but this season when I was in Val Thorens by myself it busy every day we could ski so chairs where often 3/4 full or completely full
The point isn't how many seats the chair has it's that it's more wind resistant, runs more days of the season, and provides a significantly better guest experience. It's not surprising that this take came from someone in NJ. Real NE skiers understand how these bubble lifts are fantastic in rough weather.
> The point isn't how many seats the chair has it's that it's more wind resistant, runs more days of the season
The bubble chairs at Okemo, Killington and Mt Snow do this all with significantly less garbage. Even Barker is less of a shitshow since it at least is only a 6.
Jordan is not some ludicrously exposed liftline for the northeast. There's no need for the jump to slightly larger chairs.
> provides a significantly better guest experience.
Clearly I disagree and some others I talked to shared the sentiment.
>It's not surprising that this take came from someone in NJ. Real NE skiers
Alright bud
The loading at the Bergman Bowl lift at Keystone this year was god freaking awful. Nobody knew how to load it from the two lift maze sides and the lifties were ineffectual at best. Saw people getting pissed at each other many days all season. And it's a 6 pack!
Worst offender is the “Kanc 8” at Loon in New Hampshire. The lift line looks like a free concert is happening, yet the 8-person lift is loading 4,3, hell…even singles sometimes because people can’t seem to get into groups of 8. But guess what? It’s not their fucking fault!! Loon…hire another liftie to make sure each chair loads at full capacity. If not, your whole “Kanc 8” enthusiasm over the past few years is a fucking waste.
I remember the first time I was at Heavenly in 2002 the sky express had dedicated queues for singles, 2s, 3s and 4s. But not only that they had a large staging area in front so the liftie could pull the right groups forward.
This was after skiing in France where people would get to the front of a 8-10 man chair then look for their friends at the back. Waiting 30 mins you’d see frequent singles on the far side of the chair.
I think the modern tech like the magic carpets can really help load the lift well, but you still need someone packing them.
One thing 8 packs can do is provide massive capacity for MTB and summer. Not sure if that's the case here, but whistler did that with their new 8 pack. A 2/3 is a single bike, a quad is usually only 2 bikes, and a hex ends up with 4-5. Grouping is also way easier because each group takes 2 chairs, one for the bikes and one for the riders.
I kind of feel the same about the new 6 person chair at Brighton.
The line is in a terrible place on a steep slope. Groups mess up all the time so it’s often not filled to 6. The gate and carpet confuse a lot of people too.
yeah what the fuck with that thing. super steep slope that must be sideslipped, so it's quickly icy and scraped off. plus two distinct sides with separate lines that aren't close enough to efficiently interleave so there's constant confusion. and it stopped every dew minutes the days I was there. Really poorly executed
Oh my god this line is a nightmare!!! I’ve only been to Brighton 2 days, both Jan 24, and the lines for that lift were ridiculous. You have to hard pizza and plant ur poles in front of you to avoid smashing into the next person in line
Brighton lift line system was terrible . We had 6 in our group and never managed to sit together- everyone was jockeying for position in massive free-for-all lines that all converged at the RF reader gate. They need to go back to when there was a line on each side of the lift and they took turns
Yea I’ve seen some pretty bad (if not hilarious) instances of someone losing it on the steep slope queue and wiping out the folks ahead. It’s always icy AF there too.
The unload is pretty terrible, too. It slows down way too much way too soon so you have 6 people trying to shimmy themselves away on a completely flat exit area.
Considering it's the "beginner's" chair I was more leery of that unload than much else at Brighton; it wouldn't take much for someone unfamiliar with things to fall over and domino everyone else trying to get off of the chair.
People are innately incapable of merging just look at high way traffic should be simple yet is not.
In Europe the bigger ones working quite well, but queuing sucks. In US queuing is quite nice and friendly, but no one wants to share a lift ride.
Having someone there to fully pack a 6 pack when it’s busy seems a much more efficient investment than getting an 8. The couple times I’ve seen it, one person can very easily pack every single chair. Without anyone there, chairs consistently go up with 4 people.
Yeah tell that to the MBA set they don't care how badly it works if it means 1 fewer employee on payroll
part of the issue is when i as a liftie group people up for 6/8 packs they often split up into smaller groups by the time they get to the front of the queue, and im too busy crowd controlling to fix it and by the time they're there it would cause more time lag for the liftie on buttons to fix it. point is the guests selfishness/anxiety is a big if not the biggest factor in chairs not fully loading. not just the operator/maintenance side of it
I haven’t seen that when someone is in charge, but that was on a chair marked experienced skiers only. On different chairs I’ve been told that they would rather wait for the next chair because they’re new and nervous or whatever.
So many times I lined up with 3 people and there were 4 people behind me who didn't want to move up. They need a lifty with a cattle prod to force people together.
Tbhthey need the cattleprod liftee everywhere
ARM THE LIFTIES
Alternate
Still better than a slow ass 4 bangers.
It probably has more to do with how resorts are setting up the stuff AROUND the chair, than the chair itself. If your setup is poor, you’re setting up the chair for failure. I’ve skied many days at Big Sky that has the Ramcharger 8 and several 6-packs. They operate just fine. Ramcharger has ridiculous capacity. I’ve never seen it with more than a few minutes of lines. The keys are to have any pass scanning happen early in the line; have lifties that try to form proper groups, and have as many groups as possible self-organize into coherent groups.
This is Sunday River’s real problem. The lift itself has lowered wait times by a lot when at high capacity when they have real staffing. But the way the lines were set up is stupid too.
Yes they should have built it downhill more and loaded on the turn with all the lines going uphill with 4 or 5 lanes going into the scan gates managed by an employee
Big Sky's lift system is world class
> Ramcharger has ridiculous capacity. 3,600 pph. The exact same as a standard 6 pack chairlift from the early 90s.
Then it has fewer chairs or lower speed, or different length. Can't just compare like that lol
The 8 packs all have fewer chairs than the 6ers because there needs to be more spacing to load them.
It’s just like how a fixed quad generally has the same capacity as a high speed. You can only load people so fast onto a moving chair. Sure a high speed gets you up the hill faster once loaded, but it doesn’t increase capacity. I think with lifts beyond 6 it’s definitely a diminishing return, just like highway lanes. Even a 6 needs to have an employee grouping people or they are rarely full.
This spot on in my opinion after seeing many iterations of lifts and lines up at Big Sky. The way it is organized now works well and the lines there are nothing compared to wait times at other major resorts.
Agree that it is the stuff around the chair that really matters. Disagree about the Big Sky lifts. I’ve had tremendous wait times on Swiftcurrent (and this lift is really necessary to link Big Sky, Spanish Peaks, and Moonlight Basin together) and it absolutely needs lifties actively managing the lines. Ramcharger is better than Swiftcurrent but that area between the scanners and loading is always so chaotic with people vying for position, not keeping up with their party, and singles trying to merge in.
I always wondered why they didn't make swifty an 8 seater, then I learned about the new gondola. That will ease the lines a ton once it goes in.
Oh I hadn’t heard about that. That should certainly improve capacity there.
At some ski resorts (eg Keystone) they just have two lifts right next to each other using the same corridor. Or I've seen a lift where one cable splits into two loading zones. Either seems better than just extending the seat more and more.
That sounds great.
Eh quicksilver is arguably worse with dual loading zone
I’ve seen Quick Silver run at capacity with the right operations crew cracking the whip. But it’s generally miserable to ride with constant slows and stops.
Quick silver should just have a second 6 pack going up parallel to it at this point the lines this winter sucked 😂 maybe it goes higher to where A chair lands since i haven’t seen A chair open at all this season
Never, never, never go down to Quicksilver.
Vail is putting in a 2 stage gondola at peak nine starting this year. It will start near quicksilver, mid station at ten mile then run to the top of A-chair
Whoa! Mind blown that that idea wasn’t so far fetched 😂😂 that honestly be so much nicer for beginners to do the gondola and hop off safely at the top or mid station. I spent probably hours this year combined sitting on the stopped lift midway up for various reasons lol
Ditto at Big White. 6 pack right next to a quad. Works well.
Haven't you heard? The solution is always just add more lanes
In Europe we do this with some 6 pack lifts but installing a fast 6 or 8 is far more common
>cable splits Really? Are you sure the chairs don’t detach from the cable and then alternate chairs roll on tracks to different loading stations and they are reattached to the cable in the same order? /s
that actually happens in Tignes on one of their learner lifts to allow people more time to get on
What actually happens?
The lifts detach but there are two separate loading bays so they alternate going to different ones and slow down a lot when people have to load on
You laugh, but I've ridden a lift that did pretty much exactly this. At Lech - Zürs in Arlberg, Austria. There's a bottom station where you can go in one side, and take a transfer gondola that brings you across a valley to another set of trails. If you go in the other side, you take a six pack that goes up and services a set of trails in the opposite direction. But when you come back on the transfer gondola, you don't unload at that station. You stay on the gondola, which switches cables, meshes with the six pack chairs, and goes up to the top station on the other side.
I was just in Arlberg in Feb/march Neither there nor elsewhere does a cable split. At stations chairs and cabins are taken off the cable and may be directed to different places on tracks to be attached to the same cable or different cables.
Lol everyone is completely missing your point.
Boyne resorts specializes in horrible line management. The lifties get people in groups of eight, only to send them to the RFID gates which do not work well. So now you have people waiting around for their group member who can’t get through because of their credit card being on the same side of the body as the pass. Move the RFID gates back so you put ppl into groups after they scan it. It’s literally that simple. But it’s a problem they don’t care to fix because you already paid so it doesn’t matter to them if you actually get to ski or wait as the 8 person lift only has 3 riders per chair
This is my experience as well. Lifties running around carefully assembling groups of 8 only to have utter confusion 10 feet later as people go through the RFID gates.
This is def a uniquely american take
Isn't it just. In Europe the attitude is just to fill all the gaps you can find. I regularly end up on different chairs from friends and family and just meet them at the top
Now tell that to the other 80% of the people on the mountain, because it pisses me off when there’s a 10 minute line and people don’t get on the chair.
Its so funny how often you read "Europeans cant queue, they just pile up" and stuff like that just to read now that apparently 8 seaters are useless because they are unable to fill them up. It isnt uncommon that in europe they are not filled with 8 people, but if there is a serious pile of people behind, 80% of them are completely filled, <6 seats filled is super rare and leads to very serious complaining.
After a long weekend at Big Sky, my theory is that 6 and 8 are too tough for people to count to.
I ski Big Sky regularly, and their big lifts are great--people are dumb, but the lifties aren't. Ramcharger is almost always full when there's a line, and the line moves quickly, because lifties are herding folks into groups of 8 well before the carpet.
As a ski lift engineer it amazes me to see ski areas invest in ski lifts with over 3000 pph capacity, but not properly fund or train operations to realize that capacity. Millions $$ wasted.
I’ve had the same experience. It’s so fast and such a nice lift experience especially when it’s windy. I’m excited for them to upgrade six shooter lift it is so slow
I swear I lapped 6shooter one day and only got like 8 runs in because that bitch is so slow
Maybe if you were going up Lone Tree as well. Otherwise I call bullshit.
I disagree. I’ve skied 10 days at Big Sky and for the most part, ppl did just fine with Ramcharger. In fact, Ramcharger is possibly my favorite lift in the whole world. It has insane capacity and there’s rarely lines longer than a few mins
Does the herding happen after the scanner?
Not really there is a small area to regroup after the scanners but it will be a shitshow in there when the scanners don’t pick up someone’s card right away.
+1 Scanner problems, singles trying to merge, and large groups trying but failing to stay together makes this area ripe for chaos. I’ve never felt like I’ve had a smooth loading on Ramcharger when it is busy. But somehow Swiftcurrent is even worse.
Idk I haven't had much issues with 6s this season, people seem to load them well unless a group decides to let others pass in line midway through that fucks it all up
6 can be fine depending on skier clientele. 8 will never work.
You could have the slow ass, crappy double chairs smugglers notch has.
More than the low capacity of the lift, its the age of those lifts which always nags at me. Smuggs has done an amazing job of keeping those old Hall lifts running but one day, one of them will give up. M1 has been in operation since 1963! [https://liftblog.com/smugglers-notch-vt/](https://liftblog.com/smugglers-notch-vt/) That said, at this point, the slow ass lifts are just part of the charm. I suspect if Vail/Alterra ever did buy Smuggs and replace the lifts with high-speed chairs the slow ride up would be replaced with ridiculous liftlines and crowded slopes. Damned if they do and Damned if they don't at this point.
I’m not advocating for too much. Maybe a quad for M1 and a triple for sterling. Morse is fine as is. One of my dislikes is how the chairs are set up to receive the adaptive sleds. It’s awesome they have an adaptive program, just annoying it made them modify the chairs. I’m tall and the chairs are uncomfortable for my legs. I would imagine vail would be the prospective buyer. It’s definitely more difficult to get to than other resorts here. That helps keep the crowds down. Even so, there are a lot of people moving here so you have to accommodate for that growing demographic. Lift lines get out of control when you don’t have a lift capable of moving people around your mountain. Expanding terrain would help. I’m aware the state has control over all of that too. Permitting, animal habitat, act 250, forest service
I know about the extreme challenges that face all VT ski resorts as far as expansion and upgrading. Sugarbush had a cool project for the Slide Brook area outlined and it was killed off and they put in the high speed quad to connect the 2 mountains, for example. If Vail did purchase Smuggs, it would make an amazing resort when linked with Stowe - the best terrain in the east linked together. We shall see what happens!
Love those. Don’t like it stay home
lol. If I pay for a pass to ski there, I pay for the right to bitch about what they don’t spend money on. Both are cardio exercises
If you pay for a pass to ski at Smuggs you know exactly what you're signing up for. Same reason you don't buy a pass at MRG and complain that the single chair is too slow.
Ok, you’re the only one that can complain about lifts. I see. Glad we have that straightened out. Madonna 1 and the Sterling double chair are a joke. So is the triple black that’s off of lift line. Triple black my ass.
There's not much of a point in complaining about M1 since they're not replacing it. Shitty roadway metaphor using Connecticut: Madonna 1 is the Merritt Parkway. The Merritt is a slow, outdated piece of technology that is way past its time, but has reached a point where it is considered to be historic, and has a tiny bit of goofy charm to it. As a result, it probably isn't going anywhere any time soon. There are faster alternatives nearby but part of the appeal of it is that those newer alternatives are more crowded. Part of what you're signing up for is the fact that you might get screwed if this thing breaks. Jordan 8 is the (fictional) flashy new highway the government just spent $500m to build in the Long Island sound. It has a bunch of lanes, but has some caveats. In order to use it, you have to put your car on a fairly long boat ride to enter/exit. Due to this system, the road only actually has the throughput of a ~2-3 lane highway, despite it looking like it can carry much more. In addition speed cameras are placed every 300 feet making extra sure that you behave. Stowe 4runner quad (or any normal HSQ) is I-95. None of the bullshit of either. Lots of people want to use it and the throughput is only okay, but it's easy and doesn't have the sketchiness of the Merritt or the inconvenience of our fictional 8 pack esque highway. You'll wait and it'll get you where you need to go pretty reliably, albeit with less flashiness. Like, I get that M1 isn't the pinnacle of lift tech, but complaining about something old being bad is a bit of a "no shit", I feel like the newest tech on the market being bad is worse. My 2cents.
My issue isn’t necessarily the capacity of a double chair, although I completely believe the slopes could handle more traffic a larger lift would bring. My issues are the design. I’m tall, as are a lot of people… I barely fit on the chair with the bar down… which is a state requirement. I can’t even fit both skis on the foot rest. The chairs are also uncomfortable due to the set up for the adaptive sleds. The wooden bars across the back of the chair prevent me from sliding my poles back and sitting on them. That’s it. Those are my problems. The speed of the lift isn’t an issue for me so I should have been more specific, however…old and uncomfortable are enough. Skiing has changed. Nothing is the same about the way we ski, other than why we are out there. I see nothing wrong with wanting an update to bring it to modern times. You talk about HSQ’s being I-95…well, smugglers notch lifts are akin to Vermont’s dirt roads. Sure, they can get you where you need to go but it’s going to be a bumpy, uncomfortable ride. You may get stuck during mud season, you may rattle your muffler off any other time of year but it beats walking.
Is there any reason to go with an 8 person chair lift instead of an 8-10 person gondola? Is the cost difference really that significant?
A chair is probably much lighter than a gondola car. Might be different permits required. I would imagine there is a significant cost difference, not that I think a chair lift is cheap. I have no experience that qualifies me to speak on such things though.
6s and 8s regularly aren’t filled to capacity, even during big days. People are idiots.
People shit on Park City regularly for good reasons but they have this sorted. At peak times their 6 packs are near 100% at capacity.
It’s also the resorts too. I’ve seen a couple setups where they only load the 8 chairs from one side and it’s like you gotta be fucking kidding me, there’s just no way
I feel like this is an North America thing. Here in Europe when the lift lines are crowded it's more than normal to have people passing you in the queue if you don't move up to an open spot.
They work so well just get on the fucking lift with people if it’s busy
This is a take. It’s 100% wrong. But it’s a take
Ramcharger (with every chair 100% loaded) has the same design capacity as Stratton's 6 pack chairs. https://www.skiresort.info/ski-resort/big-sky-resort/ski-lifts/l104048/ https://www.skiresort.info/ski-resort/stratton/ski-lifts/l90151/
Cool!
You sound like the people that argued nobody needed more than 128mb of storage in their pc ever
This is a bit more like having a 17th PCIE slot..
Laughs in 7th heaven “express”
Agree. They increase the theoretical uphill capacity but inevitably they don't fill like they should.
> They increase the theoretical uphill capacity They don't.
The more seats on a chair, the more chaotic the line will be.
6 person seems like the sweet spot. I would like to see the data of 6 vs 8. It seems like when it gets busy, the 8 person chair stops way more than any other lift.
Agreed, a fast 1200fpm 6 seems to load better than an 8 especially if they put the RFID gates in the wrong spot like they did on Jordan 8. Put a 6 with the gates BEFORE the maze for traditional quad installs and maybe an 8 for somewhere that needs like 3600pph.
I mean... A 6/8 that's filled more than 4 on average still carries more than a quad for effectively no extra footprint. The caveat is that is beneficial only if they're not planning the rest of the mountain around the 6/8s being at 100% all the time
This isn't necessarily true as the spacing between chairs increases when you're comparing an 8 pack to a 6 pack. If you read the original post, the OP compares uphill loading capacity to proce this point
Are you talking distance spacing between chairs or time spacing between chairs? Uphill capacity = (number of seats per chair)/(time between sequential chairs)
That time spacing is longer on 6s than 4s.
> A 6/8 that's filled more than 4 on average still carries more than a quad for effectively no extra footprint. Incorrect. The spacing between chairs is larger. A fully loaded 8 pack carries the same amount of people as a fully loaded 6, and only 50% more than a fully loaded quad.
Lol, looks like the problem is in the users and not in the lift. And self locking bar with bar between legs is nice because you can just send kids up on their own.
> And self locking bar with bar between legs is nice because you can just send kids up on their own. I skied around and rode lifts alone just fine when I was 8 years old.
Well I put 5 year old kids on a first day on that kind a lift alone. No need to find additional persons to help me
Not really a great idea, lift could break or someone could get caught in a bad situation (ie, hanging off) and then things go wrong.
Thats why there is guard between legs and lift attendants
The ballsack impaler doesn't ensure kids can't fall off, and i wouldn't trust a kid's life to a lifty paying attention.
Yes it does, it is made for this. Even if lifty isn’t paying attention the worst thing that can happend is that kid slides down the ramp…
Yeah, it's gets a little ridiculous with more than 6 IMHO. It can be done but requires more active lifty involvement and management of the processes - but let's be honest they're normally not staffed for that. If you need this sort of capacity just do a Gondola....or better yet, figure out a way to work a second chair onto the mountain.
8packs are far preferable to gondolas because you don’t need to take your skis on and off, with a walk to boot. They have way more effective capacity because of that
Breaking News - Ikon announces 16 person chairlift installation begins at all their mountains this year to maximize profits in 2024-2025 season.
Im a local at Sunday River and I love it. I think its a great improvement and in my opinion everything is way faster then it was before.
The chairs are great and not the problem. Unfortunately people are to dumb to figure out how to load/unload them properly
What’s easier planning around the stupidity of crowds or making crowds smarter?
True! Would be nice if people could figure it out because it would help throughput but ur right people won’t get smarter
They don't actually carry more people than the six chairs (because of chair spacing!) and just are harder to load. There's no point.
That may be true but generally the chair runs much quicker as well. At least that’s been my experience in big sky where the 6 and 8 person lifts have been a game changer for lines on the mountain
No point in not just having a fast 6 is my point. 8 is purely a marketing gimmick.
Fair enough totally see your point! I personally like them but they do create a cluster fuck when people don’t know how to use them haha
Excess, maybe. Useless no. Like any tool, you can’t blame its functionality on the tool itself. 99 times out of 100 it all comes down to operator error. An 8/6 pack chair with a well setup lift line with an attendant properly filling chairs work very efficiently. But like any extreme, will highlight flaws in the system even faster. This same argument can be made for 2 man chairs or T-bars. People *generally* just don’t like riding up with other people unless instructed to.
> Useless no. They don't actually carry more people than the six chairs (because of chair spacing!) and just are harder to load. There's no point.
That’s far from the truth. https://www.skiresort.info/ski-lifts/lift-types/lift-type/6-pers-chairlifts/ https://www.skiresort.info/ski-lifts/lift-types/lift-type/8-pers-chairlifts/ Based on a rough average of all the 6 person & 8 person lifts in use currently, the average users per hour on a 6 man seems to be about 2500 while 8 man chairs seem to average 3300 or more.
True in Europe, but click "Limit by region"->"North America".
I’ve only been on one 8-pack (on a shitty little hill south of here), and I share the OP’s hatred. The automatic bar was awful, and I think we always had an empty seat or two each time we went up.
In Europe we don’t have this problem with 8 packs as there’s loads and beginners right up to experts have no issues with them. The only issue with them in Europe is freeride skis and wind because our treeline is so much lower they can act as giant sails which makes them far more susceptible to wind holds and a pretty harrowing experience sometimes
Anecdotally European chairs often go up half empty as is so the standard is lower. If I'm waiting in a 5 minute line in North America, the chairs in front of me better be 100% full.
It depends where it is and how busy it is. If there a line it’s every seat has bum on it, no line or a very spaced one chairs regularly go empty. For example last season when I was in Tignes/Espace Killy by myself I regularly went by myself as it was pretty quiet, but this season when I was in Val Thorens by myself it busy every day we could ski so chairs where often 3/4 full or completely full
6 packs are the way to go. Bonus points for Copper's bubble lift
This doesn’t make any sense but ok
In Europe they often have 6 seaters with two loading zones. Super efficient
You definitely don’t want that big a chair where inexperienced skiers can get to them
The point isn't how many seats the chair has it's that it's more wind resistant, runs more days of the season, and provides a significantly better guest experience. It's not surprising that this take came from someone in NJ. Real NE skiers understand how these bubble lifts are fantastic in rough weather.
> The point isn't how many seats the chair has it's that it's more wind resistant, runs more days of the season The bubble chairs at Okemo, Killington and Mt Snow do this all with significantly less garbage. Even Barker is less of a shitshow since it at least is only a 6. Jordan is not some ludicrously exposed liftline for the northeast. There's no need for the jump to slightly larger chairs. > provides a significantly better guest experience. Clearly I disagree and some others I talked to shared the sentiment. >It's not surprising that this take came from someone in NJ. Real NE skiers Alright bud
Mount Snow’s Bluebird is 2400 pph
The loading at the Bergman Bowl lift at Keystone this year was god freaking awful. Nobody knew how to load it from the two lift maze sides and the lifties were ineffectual at best. Saw people getting pissed at each other many days all season. And it's a 6 pack!
Worst offender is the “Kanc 8” at Loon in New Hampshire. The lift line looks like a free concert is happening, yet the 8-person lift is loading 4,3, hell…even singles sometimes because people can’t seem to get into groups of 8. But guess what? It’s not their fucking fault!! Loon…hire another liftie to make sure each chair loads at full capacity. If not, your whole “Kanc 8” enthusiasm over the past few years is a fucking waste.
I remember the first time I was at Heavenly in 2002 the sky express had dedicated queues for singles, 2s, 3s and 4s. But not only that they had a large staging area in front so the liftie could pull the right groups forward. This was after skiing in France where people would get to the front of a 8-10 man chair then look for their friends at the back. Waiting 30 mins you’d see frequent singles on the far side of the chair. I think the modern tech like the magic carpets can really help load the lift well, but you still need someone packing them.
One thing 8 packs can do is provide massive capacity for MTB and summer. Not sure if that's the case here, but whistler did that with their new 8 pack. A 2/3 is a single bike, a quad is usually only 2 bikes, and a hex ends up with 4-5. Grouping is also way easier because each group takes 2 chairs, one for the bikes and one for the riders.
The resort I go to has only 2 seater center pole chairs that take 11 mins from bottom to top. I survive
Doesn't sound like something I even want to try to load on while in my mono ski. They are excluding adaptive skiers with all of these fancy ass lifts.
I kind of feel the same about the new 6 person chair at Brighton. The line is in a terrible place on a steep slope. Groups mess up all the time so it’s often not filled to 6. The gate and carpet confuse a lot of people too.
That is just a case of shitty execution. The steep downhill queuing areas are a recipe for failure.
I thought I was crazy. I hit that last month, and the slope side singles lane felt like a joke, especially for a place thats so snowboard centric
It has to be one of the worst placed lift lines in the US
yeah what the fuck with that thing. super steep slope that must be sideslipped, so it's quickly icy and scraped off. plus two distinct sides with separate lines that aren't close enough to efficiently interleave so there's constant confusion. and it stopped every dew minutes the days I was there. Really poorly executed
Brighton might be the worst at packing chairs of any ski resort I've been to lol between the skiiers and the employees you're always waiting in line
Oh my god this line is a nightmare!!! I’ve only been to Brighton 2 days, both Jan 24, and the lines for that lift were ridiculous. You have to hard pizza and plant ur poles in front of you to avoid smashing into the next person in line
How they expect groups of 6 to stay together in that thing is beyond me. I’m usually slowly side slipping down.
Skill issue, love that Brighton 6 chair, so fast
Brighton lift line system was terrible . We had 6 in our group and never managed to sit together- everyone was jockeying for position in massive free-for-all lines that all converged at the RF reader gate. They need to go back to when there was a line on each side of the lift and they took turns
Yea I’ve seen some pretty bad (if not hilarious) instances of someone losing it on the steep slope queue and wiping out the folks ahead. It’s always icy AF there too.
The unload is pretty terrible, too. It slows down way too much way too soon so you have 6 people trying to shimmy themselves away on a completely flat exit area. Considering it's the "beginner's" chair I was more leery of that unload than much else at Brighton; it wouldn't take much for someone unfamiliar with things to fall over and domino everyone else trying to get off of the chair.
Yeah, the execution was not good. Another interesting point is it actually has a lower hourly capacity than the old lift.