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Sunday River is Getting an 8 Person Bubble w/ Heated Seats

MissySki

Angel Diva
The video almost makes it look more like an amusement park ride than a chair lift!

Well, Loon will have one to try out this season too! I usually head to Loon for the demo day in December, I'm hoping it happens so I have an excuse to go check out their new lift. The 8 pack is now where you usually ride from the demo tents, as long as that base is open already. Usually it is, but I've had a couple of seasons where it went out of the main base area because it wasn't.

They do make it look like a big spectacle in the video haha. The "Sunday River" red is pretty cool looking, I have no doubt it'll at least look really nice.
 

MissySki

Angel Diva
Boyne Resorts is also putting in a D-line 8-pack at Boyne Mountain. While that may seem like overkill for the slopes, it's replacing two lifts. More importantly, it will be used in conjunction with a sky bridge that's going to be built. Boyne built a sky bridge when they had to replace the chairlift in Gatlinburg, TN after it was damaged by fire several years ago.

My sense is that when Boyne put in the D-line 8-pack at Big Sky, they already knew what they wanted to do at other resorts in the not too distant future. They know from Boyne Mountain and Boyne Highlands that improving features related to being a 4-season resort is key to having a successful and sustainable business.

I would love them to do more to be a 4 season resort at Sunday River. The activities are very lacking in the offseason right now. Adding the observation tower and mountain coaster, both on North Peak, would be a great start!
 

BackCountryGirl

Angel Diva
I would love them to do more to be a 4 season resort at Sunday River. The activities are very lacking in the offseason right now. Adding the observation tower and mountain coaster, both on North Peak, would be a great start!
If I recall correctly the 2007 or 2008 plan called for a water park, a summer camp for kids, mountain biking, and ziplining. The first two never happened and the latter 2 were tried and scrapped. I wouldn't be surprised if the next plan calls for a petting zoo. Seriously, they talk a great game.
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
I would love them to do more to be a 4 season resort at Sunday River. The activities are very lacking in the offseason right now. Adding the observation tower and mountain coaster, both on North Peak, would be a great start!
Boyne Resorts bought SR in 2007. Then the recession hit in 2008. Boyne bought back SR and other resorts in 2018. That's means any plans developed around the time Boyne decided to buy SR were delayed by a decade. Quite a bit has changed in the industry and the market so it's not a surprise that the plans going forward from 2020 are different than they were in 2008.

Les Otten of American Ski Company developed Sunday River. Very different business model and personality than Boyne Resorts and Stephen Kircher. The rise and fall of ASC happened relatively fast. In the era that SR was bought, Stephen was responsible for Boyne resorts in the east, while his brother was handling Big Sky and the other western resorts. The development of Boyne Resorts has been slow and steady since the 1950s.

Big Sky is the flagship resort for Boyne Resorts. They never sold Boyne Mountain, Boyne Highlands, or Big Sky. I think paying attention to what's happened and happening to those three resorts can be helpful in understanding what's likely to happen for SR. Boyne Mountain and Boyne Highlands have been 4-season resorts for a long time. There is plenty of competition in Michigan during the winter and summer seasons. I stopped by to take a look one summer when I was in the area visiting a cousin. Renovations on the old lodges (slopeside rooms) were just starting to happen.
 

BackCountryGirl

Angel Diva
Boyne Resorts bought SR in 2007. Then the recession hit in 2008. Boyne bought back SR and other resorts in 2018. That's means any plans developed around the time Boyne decided to buy SR were delayed by a decade. Quite a bit has changed in the industry and the market so it's not a surprise that the plans going forward from 2020 are different than they were in 2008.
I'm not sure I follow you. The 2020 plan WAS a Boyne plan, not an ASC plan. Then ASC sale was to a REIT (CNL) and Boyne managed the properties. CNL sold out to Ziff, and then the REIT dissolved, albeit later than it was supposed to, and Boyne bought the property outright. I'm only guessing that was the plan and Boyne simply needed the funding from outside to get things going.
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
I'm not sure I follow you. The 2020 plan WAS a Boyne plan, not an ASC plan. Then ASC sale was to a REIT (CNL) and Boyne managed the properties. CNL sold out to Ziff, and then the REIT dissolved, albeit later than it was supposed to, and Boyne bought the property outright. I'm only guessing that was the plan and Boyne simply needed the funding from outside to get things going.
Correct, in 2007 Boyne was ready and willing to come up with a 2020 plan with at least some projects that were to get started some time in 2008. That was based on what ASC had done to develop SR initially as a New England destination resort meant to be 4-season with plenty of high end lodging. The golf course was put in a few years before the sale to Boyne. Then the 2008 recession hit. While Boyne could continue to operate all the resorts they sold to CNL, they were in no position to go through with any grand plans. Other than adding the zip line, there wasn't much done even at Big Sky until the cooperative purchase of Moonlight Basin. However, clearly the Kircher family still had plenty of interest after 2008 in going forward with long term ideas for Sunday River, Loon, Big Sky, and other Boyne resorts. They were willing to wait until the time was right. The other choice would've been to carry a lot of debt after 2008.

A lot has happened at Boyne resorts since 2018. I'm guessing SR was lower on the priority list for assorted reasons. The chondola cost $7 million and was installed for the 2008-09 season. After that, Boyne didn't have the control or the financial backing to do any major new projects like the chondola. My impression is the focus shifted to snowmaking infrastructure. Boyne has enough resorts that they can't do multi-million dollar projects at all their resorts starting at the same time.

I only started paying attention to the ski industry in terms of history and business decisions a few years ago. Reading Ski Inc. and Ski Inc. 2000 was fascinating. The family businesses, large and small, are my primary interest. So I've done other reading about the Kircher family as well.
 

ski diva

Administrator
Staff member
An eight seater is a big honkin' lift. At Okemo, we all thought it was excessive when they put in a six-pack. Now we're pretty used to it, but I don't know -- 8 seems like a lot. The Okemo lift has a bubble and heated seats, too, and I have to say, they're pretty great on cold days.
 

Iwannaski

Angel Diva
Other than a gondola, the biggest I’ve been on is a 6, with 4 people on it. How do you get 8 people off a lift, though? Like, the number of paths and likelihood of collision seems high, no?
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
Other than a gondola, the biggest I’ve been on is a 6, with 4 people on it. How do you get 8 people off a lift, though? Like, the number of paths and likelihood of collision seems high, no?
Really wasn't an issue at Big Sky to unload Ramcharger8 as I remember. The seats on a D-line 8-pack are relatively wide, so there is more space between people than on a typical quad.
 

MissySki

Angel Diva
Other than a gondola, the biggest I’ve been on is a 6, with 4 people on it. How do you get 8 people off a lift, though? Like, the number of paths and likelihood of collision seems high, no?
The chondola we have is a 6 pack, I’ve been on that full plenty of times with no issue. Also have been on an 8 at Big Sky without issue. Usually the unloads are quite slow on larger chairs, and people are less likely to try and go the complete opposite way of where they’re sitting because it doesn’t work logistically. That being said, you probably still want to be more cognizant of what people are doing at unload. :smile:
 

newboots

Angel Diva
8 seats:
This sounds mike a bad idea. What do you do with beginners? Snowboarders?

Heated seats:
It seems to be hit or miss. Sometimes they aren’t working. Sometimes the seats are a little wet. Sometimes the bubble is so steamed up you can hardly tell you’re reaching the top! Yikes!

All in all, it has been nice to sit someplace warm for a couple of minutes.
 

MissySki

Angel Diva
I don’t know, what do you do with beginners and snowboarders on a 6 pack? It’s only 2 more spots so I don’t really see this as an issue. I’ve never had any big problem with offloading the Chondola 6 person seats. I kind of try to avoid those people, when possible, even on smaller lifts though lol. No offense to the snowboarders here as I ski with great ones too that this isn’t an issue for in the least.

When I’m getting off of a lift, where I don’t trust who is beside me and depending on the offload area, I try to hold back so they can get ahead and I can see what they’re doing and whether they are going to try and cross in front of me. This is usually easier on larger lifts because it’s a slow offload on longer flatter areas. Or if I’m lucky enough to be in an outside seat I peel off. I also try to speak to those around me in sticky areas and ask which way they intend to go before we reach the top. This makes them think about it if they haven’t yet, and we all can have a plan at the top. When in doubt though I try and go straight and hold back a smidge so I can see what others are doing, and also won’t be right beside them if they do go down so we aren’t dominoes. :smile:
 

elemmac

Angel Diva
What do you do with beginners? Snowboarders?
You ride with them...just like everyone else :wink:

I can't speak for an 8-pack, I've never been on one, but I can imagine it's no different than a 6-pack. The 6-pack at Sunday River, and others I've been on are SO much easier to load/unload than many 4-packs, and especially easier than any fixed grip lift. They slow down to a snails speed; which leaves you not needing to hurry to get out of the way of the chair whipping around the bullwheel just after your butt leaves the seat. The off-ramps also tend to be long and flat, rather than others where you're immediately on a double-black-diamond-steepness, which never fairs well for those beginners and snowboarders.

Plus, with wider seats and foot rests, snowboarders keep to their own "corral" while riding up.
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
I can't speak for an 8-pack, I've never been on one, but I can imagine it's no different than a 6-pack. The 6-pack at Sunday River, and others I've been on are SO much easier to load/unload than many 4-packs, and especially easier than any fixed grip lift. They slow down to a snails speed; which leaves you not needing to hurry to get out of the way of the chair whipping around the bullwheel just after your butt leaves the seat. The off-ramps also tend to be long and flat, rather than others where you're immediately on a double-black-diamond-steepness, which never fairs well for those beginners and snowboarders.
Yep, not much different. The D-line 8-pack has even wider seats than the typical 6-pack. It does help to remember that different brands of chairlifts are a little different. Just as there is variation in ski design for a particular type of skis (carving, all-mountain, powder). For sure, the total space available for 8 people on a D-line is not just twice the width of a typical fixed-grip quad.

The Big Sky D-line 8-pack has a loading area that includes essentially 2 sets of 4 automatic gates, with a little extra space in the middle. The gates comes just before the loading carpet, which has lines on it for each lane. So any sorting out of who is sitting where is done before the gates. Since people are simply standing on the loading carpet and waiting for the chair to pick them up, it really works pretty smoothly.
 

ski diva

Administrator
Staff member
I love the idea of heated seats. Are they as good as they sound, or do they just melt snow then you end up sitting in a puddle?

I absolutely love heated seats. They are amazing. And I love a bubble, too. I actually think EVERY lift should be a bubble. They make a huge difference.
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
Here's a real time video from Jan 2020 for a Ramcharger 8 ride at Big Sky. The group in front of the camera was a family of four on the left and two snowboarders on the right. Note that the rolling carpet deposits people people where they will sit down on the lift, so you aren't moving when the chair comes up behind you. Skip to about Minute 5 to see the unloading. The six people in the chair in front are well out of the way before the camera reaches the unload point. Remember that the safety bar and the bubble, if used, raise automatically. So unloading is less complicated for a beginner than dealing with a fixed-grip lift or even a detachable quad with a manual safety bar.

From the detailed description on YouTube, apparently there are four heat settings.

Ramcharger serves all types of terrain from green to double-black. Includes a few really nice, long greens on the back side of Andesite Mountain. So beginners ride Ramcharger all the time to get over there.

 
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newboots

Angel Diva
As I read yesterday's post, above, I realize I was pretty snarky b*tchy. I apologize.

I had a frightening experience getting on the lift next to a snowboarder in my first year of skiing. She was a friend of a friend, and we were all getting on together (a quad, IIRC). I was all the way on one end. She has very poor body awareness, and sat down as the chair came around, leaving me no place to sit down (unless 4" would do, and it wouldn't). I stumbled, tried to shove her over, and ended up falling as the chair knocked me down. With my friends' skis and boards scraping against me until the liftie managed to stop it and peel me out from under. It was not pretty. :yardsale:

Ever since then I'm scared to load a full lift next to a snowboarder. It's probably time for me to get over it. We do see people with snowboards riding the lifts together, though; maybe they're eager to avoid paranoid skiers!
 

Iwannaski

Angel Diva
I karmically paid snowboarders back for you when I lost my ski loading a two seater (with the post) lift last year. Accidentally put the foot down without the ski while getting off…with my VERY EXPERIENCED (30 years snowboarding) friend.

You know I took us both down and stopped the lift for quite a while while we untangled and tried to get up.

PAYBACK! :rotf:
 

Abbi

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Usually if I am on the six pack at Okemo and it is full, and I am not on one edge or the other, I tend to say which direction I plan to go. I figure if I start by announcing, maybe somebody else will think about or say where they are going as well. I have seen falls where people crossed each other up because they aren’t paying any attention to anybody else.
 

AJM

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
As I read yesterday's post, above, I realize I was pretty snarky b*tchy. I apologize.

I had a frightening experience getting on the lift next to a snowboarder in my first year of skiing. She was a friend of a friend, and we were all getting on together (a quad, IIRC). I was all the way on one end. She has very poor body awareness, and sat down as the chair came around, leaving me no place to sit down (unless 4" would do, and it wouldn't). I stumbled, tried to shove her over, and ended up falling as the chair knocked me down. With my friends' skis and boards scraping against me until the liftie managed to stop it and peel me out from under. It was not pretty. :yardsale:

Ever since then I'm scared to load a full lift next to a snowboarder. It's probably time for me to get over it. We do see people with snowboards riding the lifts together, though; maybe they're eager to avoid paranoid skiers!
Oh my goodness that happened to me as well !!! Our quad isnt detachable so the liftys have to bump it only this time he pushed it sideways as well ..... same as you nowhere to go so got slammed !!
 

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