Superstar chair

[Southside_Bobby]

The grapevine told me it is going to be a bubble-6. Seems a little unnecessary to me. It's a relatively short ride, and I find the line to be fairly well protected from the wind most of the way. Granted, a new lift would likely be higher off the ground on the new line.

All things being equal (meaning a decision not based on which lift is most falling apart or village plans), I would go for a bubble-6 at Rams next. But the grapevine also told me that bubbles don't work for mountain bikes. Is that true?

[machski]

Would a six pack get a barn? Do they have the space to build one at the base of Superstar.

It will need a barn if the chairs have bubbles.

Not necessarily. Dopp D line terminals double as rack barns and that racking system is an automated 1 button push. I have seen some be open air terminals with the chairs racked (Boyne Mountain with their new Disciples or fully enclosed terminals like SR has on the Jordan 8 and Barker 6. I am not certain if L-P has the terminal racking tech yet or not, but they might.

[Big Bob]

Would a six pack get a barn? Do they have the space to build one at the base of Superstar.

It will need a barn if the chairs have bubbles.

Not necessarily. Dopp D line terminals double as rack barns and that racking system is an automated 1 button push. I have seen some be open air terminals with the chairs racked (Boyne Mountain with their new Disciples or fully enclosed terminals like SR has on the Jordan 8 and Barker 6. I am not certain if L-P has the terminal racking tech yet or not, but they might.

Loon's base building for the lift and chair storage is larger than the Governors lodge next to it. L-P may not be the manufacture of the new lift as Dopp representatives have been seen in the Killington area. Let's hope so!

[Grmmtnhkr34]

Talked to an employee today who said the replacement will be a 6er no bubbles. One was already on order and superstar was supposed to be closed by now but the bad xmas caused them to cancel. It was going to be a dopp. Maybe summer '25.

[snoloco]

They haven't filed for permits yet, so I find it hard to believe that anything was ever planned for 2024. I'm sure they are taking bids from both companies, but I would still lean towards it being LP, unless they really want Doppelmayr's D-Line system, which LP has no answer to.

[ANGUS]

It may be an out dated retro lift. Will they replace it? Who knows. Won't be in time for next season. I'll still ride it. At the 20 minute mark of a lift stoppage. I deploy the swiss seat. At 30 minutes I repel. F the sheep.

[Skivt2]

The constant arguments about an interconnect are pretty hysterical in this context. Pico is open at best from end of December to the first weekend in April and we have seen that season as short at 1/6-3/15 in recent memory. In addition the interconnect itself is only viable on natural snow for maybe 2.5 months. With all the other big ticket needs it seems laughable that anyone thinks that it would happen in the near future.

off topic but yeah don't envision a pico interconnect until well after the village is up & running if ever. the ROI will be minimal compared to infrastructure costs of 2 lifts, snowmaking, a new lodge, parking and upgrades to some of the other lifts which are all dinosaurs. other than shifting the entry or start point for some folks, don't see a massive influx of skiers who are finally gonna ski killington just because of the interconnect. it will barely move the needle on the number of skier days. plus the "commute" will be a bitch. imagine getting from pico to bear.

Funny…when we lived at Pico we skied over, went under the Ram’s tunnel, took the Snowshed chair to the Superstar chair and straight into Bear to meet friends there for lunch. Ironically the interconnect is there and usable in that direction. Gotta get the bus back from snowshed though.

[skiadikt]

The constant arguments about an interconnect are pretty hysterical in this context. Pico is open at best from end of December to the first weekend in April and we have seen that season as short at 1/6-3/15 in recent memory. In addition the interconnect itself is only viable on natural snow for maybe 2.5 months. With all the other big ticket needs it seems laughable that anyone thinks that it would happen in the near future.

off topic but yeah don't envision a pico interconnect until well after the village is up & running if ever. the ROI will be minimal compared to infrastructure costs of 2 lifts, snowmaking, a new lodge, parking and upgrades to some of the other lifts which are all dinosaurs. other than shifting the entry or start point for some folks, don't see a massive influx of skiers who are finally gonna ski killington just because of the interconnect. it will barely move the needle on the number of skier days. plus the "commute" will be a bitch. imagine getting from pico to bear.

The interconnect supposedly adds a lot of blue terrain, plus the publicity of the new terrain and the village together will draw new skiers to Killington.

just don't see this huge pool of skiers waiting on the sidelines for this interconnect. everyone in the east has already skied killington. you'll certainly get a bit of a bump because people will be "curious". but not this great influx. and don't believe there's gonna be this amazing intermediate pod in there. and then they'll have to make snow on whatever trails there are. guess you didn't read the complaining on the zone about the lack of snowmaking at K this season. and as it was, RM was begging for snowmaking on certain trails at pico this season.

you're talking about an area that's already closed 2 days a week and financially is break even at best. and then you have killington who runs reduced lifts during the week suddenly deciding to run the 6 additional lifts necessary (the pico lifts and the 2 interconnect lifts) on tuesday's & wednesday's in addition to the snowmaking needed in interconnect area and there being an increase in skier days to make it a worthwhile ROI. nope.

[skiadikt]

The constant arguments about an interconnect are pretty hysterical in this context. Pico is open at best from end of December to the first weekend in April and we have seen that season as short at 1/6-3/15 in recent memory. In addition the interconnect itself is only viable on natural snow for maybe 2.5 months. With all the other big ticket needs it seems laughable that anyone thinks that it would happen in the near future.

off topic but yeah don't envision a pico interconnect until well after the village is up & running if ever. the ROI will be minimal compared to infrastructure costs of 2 lifts, snowmaking, a new lodge, parking and upgrades to some of the other lifts which are all dinosaurs. other than shifting the entry or start point for some folks, don't see a massive influx of skiers who are finally gonna ski killington just because of the interconnect. it will barely move the needle on the number of skier days. plus the "commute" will be a bitch. imagine getting from pico to bear.

Funny…when we lived at Pico we skied over, went under the Ram’s tunnel, took the Snowshed chair to the Superstar chair and straight into Bear to meet friends there for lunch. Ironically the interconnect is there and usable in that direction. Gotta get the bus back from snowshed though.

if you start at the base of pico, you take the golden, the summit, then ski under the tunnel (quite a slog), then take snowshed (dealing w that liftline), superstar and you're finally at bear. if you want to ski the canyon, that's 4 lifts as well. coming back a similar thing. fine if you don't mind spending a good chunk of your day commuting. no thanks.

[easyrider16]

But the grapevine also told me that bubbles don't work for mountain bikes. Is that true?

If it is, somebody should tell Loon, because their Kank-8 bubble chair is what they use for their mountain bike park.

As to the interconnect, seems to me it could be the logical long-term solution for Killington's coming climate change challenges. They could shut down Skyship, close down that whole area below Needles, and open up the interconnect area as a replacement. The current interconnect trail itself is a nice long run that would nearly replace the peak to creak, and it has the virtue of being much higher elevation and probably easier to open and maintain snow. The investment of new lifts there would probably have much better future ROI than fixing up Skyship. They could also build a ton of new slope-side condos all along the bottom of the interconnect area.

[simpletwist]

The constant arguments about an interconnect are pretty hysterical in this context. Pico is open at best from end of December to the first weekend in April and we have seen that season as short at 1/6-3/15 in recent memory. In addition the interconnect itself is only viable on natural snow for maybe 2.5 months. With all the other big ticket needs it seems laughable that anyone thinks that it would happen in the near future.

off topic but yeah don't envision a pico interconnect until well after the village is up & running if ever. the ROI will be minimal compared to infrastructure costs of 2 lifts, snowmaking, a new lodge, parking and upgrades to some of the other lifts which are all dinosaurs. other than shifting the entry or start point for some folks, don't see a massive influx of skiers who are finally gonna ski killington just because of the interconnect. it will barely move the needle on the number of skier days. plus the "commute" will be a bitch. imagine getting from pico to bear.

Funny…when we lived at Pico we skied over, went under the Ram’s tunnel, took the Snowshed chair to the Superstar chair and straight into Bear to meet friends there for lunch. Ironically the interconnect is there and usable in that direction. Gotta get the bus back from snowshed though.

if you start at the base of pico, you take the golden, the summit, then ski under the tunnel (quite a slog), then take snowshed (dealing w that liftline), superstar and you're finally at bear. if you want to ski the canyon, that's 4 lifts as well. coming back a similar thing. fine if you don't mind spending a good chunk of your day commuting. no thanks.

This is going to become a much more attractive option once the village is built and the parking is gone. Right now, it's faster to just drive over to K or Bear, butt if you have to park down by Mary Lou's and take a shuttle to Snowshed, driving becomes much less appealing for me.

[Skid Mark]

...and we're talking about the interconnect again

[newpylong1]

The constant arguments about an interconnect are pretty hysterical in this context. Pico is open at best from end of December to the first weekend in April and we have seen that season as short at 1/6-3/15 in recent memory. In addition the interconnect itself is only viable on natural snow for maybe 2.5 months. With all the other big ticket needs it seems laughable that anyone thinks that it would happen in the near future.

off topic but yeah don't envision a pico interconnect until well after the village is up & running if ever. the ROI will be minimal compared to infrastructure costs of 2 lifts, snowmaking, a new lodge, parking and upgrades to some of the other lifts which are all dinosaurs. other than shifting the entry or start point for some folks, don't see a massive influx of skiers who are finally gonna ski killington just because of the interconnect. it will barely move the needle on the number of skier days. plus the "commute" will be a bitch. imagine getting from pico to bear.

Funny…when we lived at Pico we skied over, went under the Ram’s tunnel, took the Snowshed chair to the Superstar chair and straight into Bear to meet friends there for lunch. Ironically the interconnect is there and usable in that direction. Gotta get the bus back from snowshed though.

if you start at the base of pico, you take the golden, the summit, then ski under the tunnel (quite a slog), then take snowshed (dealing w that liftline), superstar and you're finally at bear. if you want to ski the canyon, that's 4 lifts as well. coming back a similar thing. fine if you don't mind spending a good chunk of your day commuting. no thanks.

You also could take RH up and ski Caper/GN all the way down to K-1 and take that up and over. Still 4 lifts but no slog...

[skiadikt]

The constant arguments about an interconnect are pretty hysterical in this context. Pico is open at best from end of December to the first weekend in April and we have seen that season as short at 1/6-3/15 in recent memory. In addition the interconnect itself is only viable on natural snow for maybe 2.5 months. With all the other big ticket needs it seems laughable that anyone thinks that it would happen in the near future.

off topic but yeah don't envision a pico interconnect until well after the village is up & running if ever. the ROI will be minimal compared to infrastructure costs of 2 lifts, snowmaking, a new lodge, parking and upgrades to some of the other lifts which are all dinosaurs. other than shifting the entry or start point for some folks, don't see a massive influx of skiers who are finally gonna ski killington just because of the interconnect. it will barely move the needle on the number of skier days. plus the "commute" will be a bitch. imagine getting from pico to bear.

Funny…when we lived at Pico we skied over, went under the Ram’s tunnel, took the Snowshed chair to the Superstar chair and straight into Bear to meet friends there for lunch. Ironically the interconnect is there and usable in that direction. Gotta get the bus back from snowshed though.

if you start at the base of pico, you take the golden, the summit, then ski under the tunnel (quite a slog), then take snowshed (dealing w that liftline), superstar and you're finally at bear. if you want to ski the canyon, that's 4 lifts as well. coming back a similar thing. fine if you don't mind spending a good chunk of your day commuting. no thanks.

You also could take RH up and ski Caper/GN all the way down to K-1 and take that up and over. Still 4 lifts but no slog...

aware of that. just responding to the poster's suggestion. and even if you take caper over, that only gets you to the triple. there's still a bit of an uphill to get to the K1. just pointing out the user unfriendliness of the thing.

[newpylong1]

But the grapevine also told me that bubbles don't work for mountain bikes. Is that true?

If it is, somebody should tell Loon, because their Kank-8 bubble chair is what they use for their mountain bike park.

As to the interconnect, seems to me it could be the logical long-term solution for Killington's coming climate change challenges. They could shut down Skyship, close down that whole area below Needles, and open up the interconnect area as a replacement. The current interconnect trail itself is a nice long run that would nearly replace the peak to creak, and it has the virtue of being much higher elevation and probably easier to open and maintain snow. The investment of new lifts there would probably have much better future ROI than fixing up Skyship. They could also build a ton of new slope-side condos all along the bottom of the interconnect area.

So what happens to all those homes down off Stage I? "Sorry, we're pulling the lift, you'll have to try to buy a hypothetical house over closer to Pico?"

Also what about the loss of the access point coming from the East? That really is the second point of Skyeship - to have additional access and parking during the peak of winter. Now drive 20 more minutes and park either in a garage, or an already packed lot? No thanks.

They've replaced most of the pipe on GE below Bearly and they had no trouble getting it open this past winter. Its low elevation (for K) but let's not act like they toil away at it for a week like UEF in November or name your other trail. Stage I is not going anywhere, Interconnect or no Interconnect.