Watched the whole thing never thought someone could make chairlifts an entertaining topic

In the Alps, we have a lot of detachable high-speed chairlifts, but you rarely see them operating at full speed. Only when it's crowded will most operators turn the speed up a notch. The more modern the chair, the slower it often operates. But when the chairlifts operate at near full speed, most tourists get caught off guard because the chair suddenly moves a lot faster in the station, resulting in stops x)

This video clearly took a lot of work, planning, gathering and research to put it all together. Very professional and informative - great job!

I ski mainly in Italy where the chairs are all detachable which decrease the lines, I know he mentioned that the detachable lifts could hold less people but if you install an 8 seater lift which compaines such as Leitner and Doppelmayer both make (In my opinion these two are the best brands) there should be no problem. With an 8 seater and with the speed of the detachable the lines would decrease (all depends on usage). I also want to remind you the labor behind the dismantaling of the chairs. For example during high winds or high snowing levels a detachable chairlift can be stored with new Doppelmayer and Leitner ropeway systems doing this all by themselves with there new technologies using AI, which fixed griped ones cant be removed with ease from the rope. To conclude I totally agree with his point that smaller slopes need fixed grip, there is no arguing on that, but what I dont understand is why some resorts are still using machinery from 50 YEARS AGO and I know FOR A FACT they can afford, but I do agree that small slopes require fixed-grip lifts while big ones do need those detachable ones. Hope this helps on the "debate" on which is better.

We have an express detachable quad at my local mid-Atlantic ski hill (Whitetail, PA), which sports about 935 feet of vertical. If the lift is running below capacity, you can get a ton of runs in. If I ride up, ski right down without stopping, and get back on the lift, I can get more than 10 runs in an hour. Can't do that on a fixed grip lift. In the old days, it could take me all day to get 20 runs, now I can do it in about 2 hours. But I am retired and ski mid-week, so the lift is always sending empty chairs up the hill, which is the way I like it.

Hit the nail right on the head. High speed detachable are another one of those goodies that marketers jumped on to increase sales from a manufactures point of view and to one up the ski area competition or keep up with the Jones from a ski area marketers point of view. There's marketers and there's engineers. People wonder why lift tickets are so expensive......double or more installed cost, double or more operating cost which includes much higher electrical and mechanical maintenance cost (if you can find the qualified people}. Now the idea of moving carpet for loading is something we are going to look further into as this may resolve the loading stoppage issues with the fixed grips.

I enjoy taking the original 2-person lift at boyne MTN next to their 6-person high speed chair and watching everyone standing in line as I slowly but surely make my way to the top faster.

Great analysis! Learned a lot, when I thought I had it all figured out! 🤯

Nice content. Learned a lot!

Can’t believe I missed this video 4 days ago lol! Rly interesting topic and amazing video

Just did my final college project on this, fixed grip lifts with loading carpets all the way

Call me ignorant or even insight-free but I've often had to put up with fixed-grip lifts having to slow to walking pace or stop altogether because of some poor kid whose reflexes aren't quite fast enough or a clumsy snowboarder. Detachable ski lifts tend to move slower at their terminals so people are less likely to be caught off-guard by the ski lift slamming into the backs of their knees. As an end-user, I'm willing to pay more for a ski pass ticket if it means I get a safer and more tolerable journey to the top. Just my two cents.

Good video!!

GREAT VIDEO. Many great ideas I never thought of before, and have been on both types for 50 years. I thought only the initial cost was the determining factor on the choice.

Another factor is how long is the lift ride time. If the chairlift ride is 8 minutes or less and isn’t crowded, keep it fixed. Those chairlifts are better than waiting in lines on busy day. But if it’s a summit chairlift at a busy mountain, a high speed chairlift is better. 4 years ago, Killington replaced the Snowdon quad (10 minute chairlift ride)with the Snowdon 6 which takes 4.5 minutes to get the summit. It put less pressure on the K1 Gondola. Killington also has a triple on Snowdon that has a mid station and is good for when it’s busy. 3 years ago, Killington replaced the Northridge triple with the Northridge quad (fixed). The old chairlift was old and the new one increased uphill capacity in the pre season when just Northridge is open at Killington.

Long live fixed-grip doubles! The most sociable lifts around.

Great To see that you included my local Scottish ski area in this video maybe you could make some more videos about Scottish skiing in the future

Lets goo new videooo what's up

Mind blown 🤯

Yeah, I forgot that people think detachables haul more people. Cost is always the #1 factor and honestly, putting one on a 300' hill is silly. You're only cutting a minute or so off the lift time. Great explanation and video.

I somehow missed this last year - excellent pros and cons - mostly cons - to a high speed in the Midwest - see if you can get on The Storm podcast and set that Utopian straight. :) That said - a Midwest focused podcast with ski hill managers/owners could be a great supplement to your business. I'd love to hear the ins and outs of running a ski hill from the owners of Mount Lacrosse, Buck Hill, Christy Mountain, etc... Also, please consider doing a follow up at Bruce Mound early next year - they really need the riders/skiers. Not a good year for them this past one - they had a hack groomer and... well when the country runs the ski hill efficiency isn't really a consideration.

Just installed a high speed detachable for Benjamin Bartz this summer, that threw me for a loop😂 I was watching this for my own entertainment purposes.

As someone who used to ski at Stratton a lot don’t rely heavily on high speeds and grooming. Trust me when I say the more the merrier doesn’t apply for a ski mountain.

Great video! I had to search Giants Ridge skiresort and checked is there really chairlift called Helsinki 😂 I'm from Finland.

Great video. Can't the problems with loading/unloading on fixed grip lifts be helped with short magic carpets that match the speed of the lift?

Interesting, and well put-together video! Which are safer/less likely to fail and cause injuries? I was at a ski resort in the midwest about 11 years ago and as I was walking up to one of the lifts something failed and the lifts started flying backwards in reverse, injuring a few dozen people who were on the lifts and had to jump off. Now I'm curious to know if they figured out how to prevent that from ever happening again as it was pretty chaotic and there were a lot of broken bones and emergency room trips for people that night.

I do not always drink beer on the ski lift, but when i do, i drink Pabst Blue Ribbon 🍻😊😁

Altho a high speed quad has the same capacity as a fixed grip quad assuming perfect operation, high speed lifts can carry much more people. What I mean is that you NEVER see a fixed grip six pack or eight pack lift. Those are only for detachable lifts. And seeing a high speed triple lift is really rare.

Well, my biggest issue with US resorts are the cost. $150+ per day is crazy. In Austria, we're payling ~$80 per day and a week ticket makes the average day even lower. And still, most of Austria is covered in detachables. So where's is the price difference coming from? Detachables are not the reason...

Yet they keep putting in high speed chairs in the Midwest. Especially true in Wisconsin. Pretty soon they will price their own backyard out of being able to afford to go there. They already have for some resorts already. Cascade used to be a great deal at 65 dollar lift tickets and a free one for anyone 12 and under with a paid adult. Skip ahead 2 years 90 dollar lift tickets, and although still free for kids under 12 90 dollar lifts is quite a bit more than 65. Granite peak, HA their own backyard will ride Nordic and the small hills. Remember all the high speeds they just had to have, the RFID chips, ect and so on. Ski industry is going to die honestly, at least in the Midwest if we have old crappy resorts with high speed lifts with ticket prices the area really cant afford. That's the real cost of your high speeds here in Wisconsin. Great video, didn't know learning about lifts could be entertaining, big fan of your channel and I don't even ski, I board. But great resort information. Need to make it out to the Twin Cities and hit some slopes. only ever road the UP and here in WIsco.

here in sweden we just remove the fixed ski lifts and replace them with 6 to 8 person detatchebles

What about a high-speed eight pack that would move a lot of people

So basically since there is no real competition in the US the resorts don't really care about providing the customers a good experience. It's seriously entertaining to see how much more expensive US resorts are while having subpar infrastructure compared to European resorts. 😅

4:23 meanwhile on a austrian mountain: purchases detachable lift for about 70 million euros

Modern detachable system brings 2400 people per hour to mountain, and it is comfortable , fixed grip chairlifts is lowend in 21 century. Oldschool pomagalski detachable j-bar is faster than fix grip chairlift

why are the first detachable chairlifts sideways

6:43 little bug flying around

You can take the Yugo, I would rather drive the BMW. Little MT Holly is putting in their second hi speed this year and all the customers will be cheering.

The answer is price and maintenance cost. Let's not make this overly complicated.

conclusion....everything about a Highspeed Detachable is doubled except the skier capacity

Biggest problem is that the average skiier and boarder these days has declined in skill and ability. So fixed grips in the wrong location can cause massive issues. I find uphill capacity is measured by the least skilled individuals doing the circuit.

i my opinion, its mildly infuriating when you have to spend 10 minutes on a slow fixed grip