What's the Deal with the Lifts?

Good news is PayDay is expected to open for business on Wednesday morning. As Justin stated in his previous blog we pulled the gear box from McConkey's to get PayDay up and operating as quickly as possible. Our lift maintenance team worked through the night to get PayDay's gear box out. This picture was taken at 8 am this morning. The gear box is an intricate piece of the 12,000 pound bull-wheel assembly shown. 

As for McConkey's, we are in the process of ordering the parts needed to replace the broken ones in PayDay's gear box. We should know when we will receive the parts by tomorrow morning. In the meantime, the terrain serviced by McConkey's can be accessed via the South Traverse around Jupiter Peak, which is dependent on snow safety.

I'm sure all of you are just as befuddled as I am about how another lift could experience mechanical problems at Park City Mountain Resort. I have been on the phone all day with Jan Leonard, president of Doppelmayr CTEC, the manufacturer's of our six-passenger chairlifts. Of the 22 lifts that have this gear box installed, only the four at Park City Mountain Resort are six-passenger chairlifts, the others carry less of a load (ie, four-passenger chairlifts or less). He has assured us that they will do everything they can to resolve these issues. In an interview that we did together with the Park Record, he will be quoted as saying, "Park City Mountain Resort could have done nothing to prevent these lift failures. It is an engineering or materials problem within these gear boxes."

When Bonanza went down four weeks ago we made the decision to retrofit PayDay lift with a larger gear box in April, when the season ends. There are now discussions to retrofit the other three six-packs with the larger gear boxes to prevent this from occurruing in the future.

Our lift maintenance team performs numerous tests on the gear boxes each summer. In fact this past summer they logged more than 18,000 hours in maintenance. These test show any indications of metal fatigue and cracks that can't be seen by the naked eye. Last summer the PayDay Lift passed with flying colors, so the recent breakdown is even more perplexing to us.

We will keep you updated as we find out more information. Make sure you check back here often to see the updated posts. It's dumping outside right now...the forecast is calling for up to a foot by storm's end. There should be a lot of great snow! See you on the mountain.