Dec 28, 2019: AVOID BEAR, NEEDLES, SKYESHIP

[Spyderman]

Rogman, were you trapped? Hear Sunrise lift may turn by Thursday Jan 2nd

[skiadikt]

8am start. quit at 10:40. 5 runs total says it all. at open nothing running at bear. got shuttled to skyeship. first run back to bear ok but after that, ben & jerry's must have had a sale on chunky monkey. damn that was rough. then got caught in the needles cluster. many folks hiked up high road to get out. we eventually got dieseled out of there on the skyeship. admittedly on our last run back to bear (which we had to ourselves), lower skyeburst had softened. nothing running at bear and the line for the shuttles up the hill and around the back. drove a few of the stranded back to snowshed. what a cluster over there. they were parked passed the mountain inn.

really an unfortunate set of circumstances for the mtn.

[MrsG]

Our last ride on the Sup lift (9:50ish), it stopped for about five minutes - may have been start of electrical issue as every lift we could see was stopped - Canyon, K1, Triple, Bubble!! We had already been to Bear and Needles - all either dust on crust, or that Chunky Monkey sale - last run on Snowshed to shuttle nothing to write home about either!

Once again Mother Nature dealt Killington a bad hand - while skiing, I wondered how they decided which runs to open - another double groom would be helpful tonight

[skiadikt]

Our last ride on the Sup lift (9:50ish), it stopped for about five minutes - may have been start of electrical issue as every lift we could see was stopped - Canyon, K1, Triple, Bubble!! We had already been to Bear and Needles - all either dust on crust, or that Chunky Monkey sale - last run on Snowshed to shuttle nothing to write home about either!

Once again Mother Nature dealt Killington a bad hand - while skiing, I wondered how they decided which runs to open - another double groom would be helpful tonight

a late freeze after yesterday's meltdown was the culprit on conditions. late start at bear due to a late groom. power issues came later. heard a transformer blew.

[tyrolean_skier]

I got stuck on the OL chair for more than 1/2 hour. We had to head to the lodge to defrost. Saw the long line for the shuttle so called Skidork to come pick us up and drive us back to the other side. The lines were huge at the K1 and Bubble so we opted to ride the Snowdon triple but that turned out to be a chilly run and we needed to meet up with Iceman and another at the Canyon Quad so we skied a slick Lower East Fall. Iceman told us Cascade (which had been closed this morning) was not worth skiing as it was worse than Lower East Fall.

We decided to ride the North Ridge Quad since it was running (not running this morning) and we skied Rime under the guns. Reason was the best run there. Iceman said it was not worth doing upper East Fall. Upper Double Dipper skied OK too but Iceman said the moguls were horrible. The run down Northern was a sh*t show with so many people on it. Mouse Trap under the guns was not too bad but lower Bunny also had lots of people. Called it a day after that.

I was told that a tree fell in the Northbrook area that took the power out but the person was not sure when the full power would be restored.

[Bubba]

8am start. quit at 10:40. 5 runs total says it all. at open nothing running at bear. got shuttled to skyeship. first run back to bear ok but after that, ben & jerry's must have had a sale on chunky monkey. damn that was rough. then got caught in the needles cluster. many folks hiked up high road to get out. we eventually got dieseled out of there on the skyeship. admittedly on our last run back to bear (which we had to ourselves), lower skyeburst had softened. nothing running at bear and the line for the shuttles up the hill and around the back. drove a few of the stranded back to snowshed. what a cluster over there. they were parked passed the mountain inn.

really an unfortunate set of circumstances for the mtn.

You skied on a Saturday??

[Bubba]

From Killington’s Facebook post:

Aside from a down tree that took out power affecting our south side lifts this morning, it's been a pretty good Saturday on the slopes.

Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?

More info from Boston Globe

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2019/ ... story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[hillbangin]

From Killington’s Facebook post:

Aside from a down tree that took out power affecting our south side lifts this morning, it's been a pretty good Saturday on the slopes.

Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?

More info from Boston Globe

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2019/ ... story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I think we are going to get worse news than a downed tree and a little inconvenience today.... Hoping nothing on the news tonight.

Quote of the day after the first run. 'the hill should be closed'.

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[TheLurker]

WCBS radio reported the downed tree and power outage around noon today in NYC. They mentioned the Skyship, which they said holds up to 2,000 people but didn’t know how many were on it, and two other lifts were down.

[rogman]

Some days it be like that. Of course, anyone expecting a great day on the hill today is clearly dumb enough to be posting regularly on Kzone. Low bar, and somehow Killington found a way to limbo their way under it. Honestly though, a tree???? WTF??? I guess we have our answer to "if a tree falls in the woods..." apparently, if it's at Killington, it makes the Boston Globe. My guess is the publisher is a disgruntled Okemo skier. Still sucks to be them, though. So I'm inclined to give the mountain a bit of a pass on that fiasco, and move on.

No point writing about the conditions, we all know it wasn't very good. A legitimate question: When did death cookies become chunky monkey? Or is there some subtle distinction I'm in the dark about? One observation, before it all went south, Lower Skyeburst was a dangerous over crowded terrifying mess. One route for down for two lifts. C'mon, someone at Killington needs to use a lick of common sense. I hope they got out and saw the consequences of their decisions. Once the blowout made it so they couldn't light up Lower Wild Fire, they should have gone into damage control mode and done something else: either Falls Brook or Lower Dream Maker. In that respect, the power outage was a saving grace.

Edit for clarity: an air line to lower wild fire blew out; they spent a couple of days with a back hoe replacing 100’ or so of pipe. Appears to be all fixed now.

[Bubba]

In that respect, the power outage was a saving grace.

Was JT out in the trees with a chain saw?

[realreddy]

It would be really helpful if Killington would utilize a remind app to notify those who have registered of up to the minute stats. I know Great Adventure has an app that provides users immediate statistics of wait times, closed rides, special offers, deal of the day etc... We got stuck in the Needles mess for well over an hour and just hung out at the Jerk with a beer, once they were able to open the register, until we got out on the restarted sky ship. A Manhattan side walk at rush hour was less crowded than the top of sky lark. The wife was done at that point so early happy hour.


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[Mister Moose]

Mylar balloon North Ridge Triple power debacle, Southside tree fell power debacle, what's next?

Since bad luck comes in threes,

wcax January 17, 2020
Cascading power failure plunges central Vermont into darkness.

A tractor trailer carrying 30,000 lbs of bananas lost its brakes and careened down Pico Pass and hit a power line pole, causing a short to ground and cascading circuit breakers to trip across the entire grid. The road was so slippery from all the crushed bananas emergency crews had trouble approaching the site.

"It's going to be some time before we can get this fixed", said Malcom Chapin, a DOT official at the crash site. "It's very slippery, and as you might imagine, our road salt is completely ineffective in treating bananas".

Half of Killington was without power, although lifts were able to be evacuated on diesel power. A Killington spokeswoman said "Our skiing is closed, but the bar is open!"

Update at 11.

[newpylong1]

Stating the obvious, the following lifts need dual Diesels so they can run no matter what Vt Power does:
Skyeship
Skye Peak Express
K1 (already has them I believe)
Snowshed or Ramshead

No one “trapped” anywhere.

Not easy to retrofit once lift is built without essentially replacing everything in the terminal and the controls. The lift needs to be ordered with the Primary and APU diesels as part of the design.

[rogman]

About the lifts, definitely a case of unfair second guessing, but given these problems will never go away, it needs to be part of their planning going forward.