high speed lifts

[rhm]

i was riding a lift last year and a couple of guys were discussing high speed quad lifts. these guys said that they make the mountain more crowded because they shuttle more people up the hill. i thought that since they pick up slow and drop off slow that they just make the ride shorter from top to bottom, but do not really take more people up the mountain. anyone else have any ideas on this?

[KSC]

Weird question. A lift operator must give this kind of stuff a lot of thought.

Here's what I think you're saying your rationale is: old style lifts just go at a constant medium speed. You may get wacked hard in the ass as you sit down on the chair, but it's going to max speed the instant you're on the lift. A modern high speed quad comes up to you nice and gently, you kiss your girl, sit down, and the lift operator tells you how much your mother loves you. The chair then slowly picks up speed as it lifts off until it reaches it's maximum speed, and then starts slowing down again near the exit. So it may be faster at max speed, but all that slowing down at the beginning and end make the average speed the same?

How did i do? I think you're way off the mark, but just trying to figure out the reasoning.

Anyway, clearly the whole point of the high speed lifts are to get more people up the mountain faster. Even if the speeds were the same, the mere fact that the chairs carry 4 or 6 people instead of 2 dramatically increases the number of people you can get up each in a day (you do the math). That, in addition to faster speed means more people on the mountain at a given time, more laps for you, shorter lift lines, more money for the ski resorts, and snow getting tracked up oh so fast.

[rhm]

i understand that a quad lift moves more people than a double or triple chair, and i am not saying that the speeding up and slowing down averages out to the speed of a low speed lift. i am saying that it is all about the rate that a lift picks up and drops off. the chairs on a low speed lift come around and pick up four people at the same rate that the slow moving chairs on a detachable lift do. then both lifts have to drop people off at that same rate. the high speed lift moves no more people up the hill. it just make's the time on the lift shorter.

[bshack93]

you guys need more free time

[&d]

so if an old lift gets 2 people every 20 seconds and a new lift gets 4 people every 40 seconds then were even, but i dont think the easy-on speed is quite half of the speed of the oldschool lifts, so, assuming lift tickets are still as affordable as they used to be, the snow is as good as it ever was, and gas prices aremt so outrageous that middle class texans cant afford to come ski, there are more people on the hill nowadays

of course, our old 3 seaters were the first to become quads, so there is a curve i dont feel like tracing.. plus some of the old two seaters were going alot faster than some of the other ones.. so .. damnit.. whos got AT gear for sale anyway? avalance safety classes anyone? know what, screw it. imstaying inside all winter

[mjpowhound]

I don't think so. Consider if you're riding up a fixed chair next to a detachable. Think about how many chairs pass you (assuming some gapers didn't fall off at the top or bottom and it's running full speed...very rare). I don't think you pass that many at the top and bottom. If you measured it, you should find that the ratio of chairs passing by at the top and bottom is the same as in the middle: the chairs, while moving slower at the top and bottom on a high-speed, are much closer together.

[Geezer]

The rope on the high speed quads is moving much faster and the on/off time doesn't factor in. You're going slow about 8 seconds at the bottom and at the top but the rest of the time you are moving very fast. Yes, it gets more skier to the top quicker to the slopes do seem to be more crowded.

Me, I put on my skins most the time and use my slow speed quads all the way up the hill.

[yetigonecrazy]

Originally Posted by &d

so if an old lift gets 2 people every 20 seconds and a new lift gets 4 people every 40 seconds then were even, but i dont think the easy-on speed is quite half of the speed of the oldschool lifts, so, assuming lift tickets are still as affordable as they used to be, the snow is as good as it ever was, and gas prices aremt so outrageous that middle class texans cant afford to come ski, there are more people on the hill nowadays

of course, our old 3 seaters were the first to become quads, so there is a curve i dont feel like tracing.. plus some of the old two seaters were going alot faster than some of the other ones.. so .. damnit.. whos got AT gear for sale anyway? avalance safety classes anyone? know what, screw it. imstaying inside all winter

ha ha ha yeah remember how long the old keystone triple used to take? of the east river double? fifteen minutes of freedom baby! ha ha

i like old lifts, unless theyre wicked long. Monarch and Loveland both kick ass, and yeah, they have old lifts, but theyre so short you jsut lap them all day long! its only lifts like Campground at snowmass that make you just want to jump off

[psu96]

I can't believe I read this post. Stay away from Monarch, unless you have some goods....see you in the trees

[KSC]

I'd love to refute your argument if I could just understand it.

the chairs on a low speed lift come around and pick up four people at the same rate that the slow moving chairs on a detachable lift do. then both lifts have to drop people off at that same rate. the high speed lift moves no more people up the hill. it just make's the time on the lift shorter.

It still sounds to me like you're making the argument I just described. The "time on the lift is shorter" means time between when you plop yer ass down and when your skis hit the ground at the top. If that's shorter, than the only way for the high speed lift NOT to move more people is if you're loading people much more slowly, i.e. the gap between chairs is large.

How about an extreme example to illustrate the point:

Time on lift = difference between when you sit down in the chair and when you exit the chair

Let's suppose both lifts have only a 1 person chair so we can ignore that variable.

Suppose:
This time interval for a slow speed chair equals 10 minutes.
This time interval for a high speed chair equals 1 second.

If there are 10 chairs going up at any given time, then you get 10 people up every 10 minutes.

Assuming there are 10 chairs going up at any given on the high speed lift, then you get 600 people up in 10 minutes.

The only way you'd get the same number is if one person shot up there, and then you didn't put another person in the next chair for another 59 seconds.

But we know the gaps between chairs are essentially the same on high speed vs. old chair.

If this doesn't convince you, try riding each chair with psu96 and I think it will become painfully obvious how much longer the old chairs take. (just joking)