More Telluride Mismanagement: Chair 9 Replacement delayed to late January

[ChrisC]

Let’s just say if the Telluride Mgt Team had to run a ski mountain in a competitive environment (I-70, SLC, Tahoe) they would bankrupt the place.

They are lucky to be a singular special mountain experience like (Jackson, Sun Valley, Aspen).

So Telluride’s most iconic terrain basically is unavailable unavailable until Feb 1st ….. only half the season.

New Lift 9 opening delayed until late January

Telski has seen over 60 inches of snow fall so far this season, and with eight lifts currently in operation accessing nearly 40 runs, additional terrain is scheduled to open

www.telluridenews.com

You might ask - can’t they just allow skiers on the terrain at least? Short answer: not really.
1. You don’t want skiers underneath a lift undergoing all types of testing.
2. In order to get heavy equipment up to 9, they needed to keep a road scraped down to dirt for travel. And parts of this egress barely have snowmaking. They were using helicopters to ferry snow guns over last week. Wtf!?


The red is the construction trail. This also impacts the egress into town - basically the entire front/town side.

You know things are bad when you are using helicopters to move snow guns. Shows the level of desperation….and they know that they really messed up.

Anyways, I wish …. And still pray that Telluride gets sold to one of the conglomerates.

First new lift in almost 10 years …. And they manage to shut down best section of the mountain till late January.

I just feel bad for skiers who booked their trips for this time period.

 

[Tony Crocker]

So Telluride’s most iconic terrain basically is unavailable unavailable until Feb 1st ….. only half the season.

Telluride sits in a climate zone where most years you don't want to go there before Feb. 1. But chair 9's high altitude, north exposure and consistent pitch make it far and away the best terrain usually open in December/January. So yes this is a CF of the first order.

 

[Marc_C]

So yes this is a CF of the first order.

Could it be supply chain issues? That was the delay at Alta on the new Sunnyside 6-pack.

 

[EMSC]

Lift Construction delays

The linked article above doesn't get too into the specifics of why Telluride is going to be last in line to get their lift running. But overall, supply chain is a big reason for delays almost everywhere in the lift building world.

 

[ChrisC]

Lift Construction delays

The linked article above doesn't get too into the specifics of why Telluride is going to be last in line to get their lift running. But overall, supply chain is a big reason for delays almost everywhere in the lift building world.

Yeah. They didn't really seem to show pics of materials until well after other resorts started work on their lifts, but Telluride claims the issue is labor...

“It’s a culmination of a number of issues — primarily the general labor shortages within Doppelmayr, as well as with subcontractors needed to complete this project,” Telski Director of Mountain Operations Scott Pittenger said. “Supply chain hasn’t been too bad of an issue albeit it hasn’t been easy on this project.”

“There’s a lot of capital being injected into the ski industry,” added Patrick Latcham, Telski’s vice president of sales and marketing. “As a result, there were 66 new lifts under construction this summer in North America and 30 of those lifts are still under construction. At the end of the day, the labor for this type of work is limited and spread thin.”

 

[ChrisC]

Well Telluride finally opened the new Chair 9 HSQuad - claimed Thursday. My brother road it yesterday.

So for Winter 2022/23…..Chair 9 will be open February 10th to April 2nd. Less than half the season.

This must be the worst lift replacement project in US Skiing for 22/23. But they have not done a lift project since 2008 for fixed grip quad Revelation Bowl. And no HS Quads since early 2000s. Not much current experience

Chair 10 - the oldest detachable HSQuad in the US desperately needs replacement. Few parts available and relatively low capacity.

The useful life of the Gondola is almost up.

The management team at Telluride is just awful. No idea what the owner extracts cash wise from the business.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

The management team at Telluride is just awful. No idea what the owner extracts cash wise from the business.

Does Telluride's clientele, locals and visitors, all feel the same way and publicly vent about it? You've been compiling a laundry list of poor operations decisions for years now.

 

[snowave]

I was just reading that chair 10 broke down yesterday, I think... and may be down for a week or more.

Sure seems like a lot of lift problems this year, or maybe my Facebook feed is just focusing on it more. Whitefish, whitewater, telluride to name a few with all kinds of problems this year.

I know I've seen stuff about labor issues ( including your post above), parts availability, etc.. I've seen several ski areas also have continuous job announcements for lift engineers.

 

[ChrisC]

Deferred investment and maintenance.

Now the low interest (almost 0%) rates from 2009-2022 are gone.

 

[EMSC]

No idea what the owner extracts cash wise from the business.

I've seen multiple variants on this topic at ski resorts that are run poorly but still make money. Examples of claims of making no money but actually taking money:

a) Owner literally opening up the on-site safe and taking 10-20K in cash most weekends (so never even shows up as revenue for the resort since they never deposit it at the bank. Also never shows up as income for the owners personally either.
b) The owner uses a separate subsidiary to loan $$ for, say, building the new lift 9. But instead of them taking a literal distribution from Telluride the resort pays the owners other subsidiary 20%+ interest on the loan or etc... Still allows claims of never taking any money out of the resort personally, etc... while actually taking out millions.
c) Misc other schemes that are all smaller but can add up over years of time to decent $$ related to various other equipment - groomers, work trucks, ski rentals, etc...

Not saying owner of Telluride is doing those types of things, as I don't know at all; but wouldn't be all that surprised if he was based on your various posts on how everything is run there.

Sure seems like a lot of lift problems this year, or maybe my Facebook feed is just focusing on it more.

I would say same but include last year too. Not sure if lift mechanics are harder to find/retain or if it is better and faster publication of every single instance which may not have made the industry news in prior years.

Chair 10 - the oldest detachable HSQuad in the US desperately needs replacement. Few parts available and relatively low capacity.

Ties the age of Winter Park's Pioneer 1986 model D-Quad. Unfortunately for Telluride, parts still won't be available when WP replaces that lift with a 6 pack this coming summer... WP's is an old Poma not Tellurides preferred Doppelmayr. And for reference WP's lift has broken down quite a lot for at least the past 5-8 years too. Though at least it's not a key lift, it has some nice blue/black terrain for them, but is basically off to the side relative to most of the ski area.