Pajarito-Bred
New member
It looks to me there's some pent-up demand for some space to rant on this topic (or any topic, while waiting for the snow to fly) here's my list of lifts that are annoying to have to ride or annoying (re) alignments that don't make any sense.
Telluride's first on my list for poor lift placement, where a wretched combination of challenging topography, changing area ownership, and moving base area location have conspired agianst a sensible lift layout.
Not sure how much I can rant at Telluride's annoying lifts, present and past, since I just got my Telluride card the other day.... It sure was annoying (early and mid 1980's) to have to ride 4 double chairlifts to get to the top of the Plunge, 3100 vertical feet of powdery joy, but there was a part of the soul of the place that was lost when it became easy to access with a front-side triple chair, and winch cats flattening down the crowd-induced moguls.
A more annoying ride was the original double chair 5 (Palmyra) to access the upper part of the mountain, with loooong minutes spent gaining precious few vertical feet. That was compounded by having to ride # 4 first, almost as flat, with a short bulldozed cat-track in between. Now they're both HSQ's, mostly same annoying alignment.
It sure was a bummer to see the old Campground lift at Snowmass torn out, only to be replaced by a brand new fixed-grip double that only traversed the bottom 1800 vertical of what was formerly a great 2400 vert run (still is, but only after a traverse to finish riding up Sam's Knob lift. The original ride was a long 16 minutes..... but..... (there's apparently not room at the top anymore, the top spot was given to a new restaraunt)
I tried to rant for a while about how so many perfectly good double chairs have been ripped out and replaced with high-speed quads, but...... they keep coming out as more rave than rant. Sheer Bliss at Snowmass, Birds of Prey at Beaver Creek, Chair 10 at Vail, and now, for this season, Vail's orignal back-bowl chair 5.
Telluride's first on my list for poor lift placement, where a wretched combination of challenging topography, changing area ownership, and moving base area location have conspired agianst a sensible lift layout.
Not sure how much I can rant at Telluride's annoying lifts, present and past, since I just got my Telluride card the other day.... It sure was annoying (early and mid 1980's) to have to ride 4 double chairlifts to get to the top of the Plunge, 3100 vertical feet of powdery joy, but there was a part of the soul of the place that was lost when it became easy to access with a front-side triple chair, and winch cats flattening down the crowd-induced moguls.
A more annoying ride was the original double chair 5 (Palmyra) to access the upper part of the mountain, with loooong minutes spent gaining precious few vertical feet. That was compounded by having to ride # 4 first, almost as flat, with a short bulldozed cat-track in between. Now they're both HSQ's, mostly same annoying alignment.
It sure was a bummer to see the old Campground lift at Snowmass torn out, only to be replaced by a brand new fixed-grip double that only traversed the bottom 1800 vertical of what was formerly a great 2400 vert run (still is, but only after a traverse to finish riding up Sam's Knob lift. The original ride was a long 16 minutes..... but..... (there's apparently not room at the top anymore, the top spot was given to a new restaraunt)
I tried to rant for a while about how so many perfectly good double chairs have been ripped out and replaced with high-speed quads, but...... they keep coming out as more rave than rant. Sheer Bliss at Snowmass, Birds of Prey at Beaver Creek, Chair 10 at Vail, and now, for this season, Vail's orignal back-bowl chair 5.
