An already bumpy offseason for Eaglecrest Ski Area got another jolt last week as officials announced one of two lifts to the top of the mountain is broken and there is a strong possibility it will remain closed during the entire coming ski season.
In addition, concerns about “immediate safety upgrades” and other work recommended for the resort’s snowmaking equipment are being expressed following the release of an expert’s report requested by Eaglecrest. Leaders at the ski area — including a new general manager who started last month — are also trying to address financial struggles that have them seeking help from the Juneau Assembly.
The problem with the Black Bear chairlift, which provides access to the east side of the mountain, was discovered during routine pre-season maintenance, said Mike Satre, chair of Eaglecrest’s Board of Directors, during a board meeting Thursday night.
He said “at the very least” it is certain the lift won’t be repaired by the resort’s scheduled Dec. 7 opening date and “depending on what solutions the team comes up with, and what we are able to mobilize in terms of resources, could potentially push operations of that chairlift into the next season.”
Further assessment of the Black Bear lift is being done by Eaglecrest staff, as well as contractors doing maintenance and engineering work, with options expected to be presented to the board at a future meeting where public input will also be sought, Satre said.
“In the meantime we’ve certainly been going through the other lifts to make sure that they’re available for the season,” he said.
Among the related topics brought up by board members during the meeting is how the lift’s closure will affect season ticket sales — with roughly 2,000 adult and youth passes sold as of Oct. 2 — and what options and/or discounts should be offered to people. That is likely to be among the issues addressed during a subsequent meeting when more about the lift’s status is known.
Charlie Herrington, a former Eaglecrest marketing manager, told the board during public testimony another key concern should be single-day and other non-seasonal ticket sales, which account for about one-third of total ticket revenue.
“If snowmaking is not happening and if Black Bear isn’t running the hurt is really going to come from decreases in day tickets, multivisit cards and flex passes,” he said. “And it’s these day ticket sales that are the traffic to drive everything else — food, beverage rentals, lessons (and) retail.”
Eaglecrest is well into its “Tier 2” season pass sales for early purchasers that ends Nov. 11, following the “Tier 1” early period offering a larger discount, and there was no mention as of Monday morning of the Black Bear lift’s problems on the Eaglecrest website’s main page, season pass page or news page. A public announcement was made by the City and Borough of Juneau — which owns Eaglecrest — at its website and social media pages, as well as Eaglecrest’s social media page and email subscriber newsletter.
Also raised at the meeting was how the problem with the Black Bear lift escaped notice during earlier inspections. Eaglecrest’s Aug. 14 newsletter, for instance, notes a summer survey of the resort’s four lifts by a contractor notes “per initial inspection…Superior Tramway is confident in another 10 years of operating with continuous, aggressive summer maintenance.”
However, the more severe fault was found upon a more detailed inspection, said Craig Cimmons, Eaglecrest’s new general manager as of Sept. 30, who was attending his first board meeting in that role.
“They took apart a part of that to get deeper into it and there were broken parts,” he said. “There was a broken bearing, an exploded bearing, in one of the gears.”
While it was lucky the gear didn’t jam during the past winter as a result, “that sent some problems down through the shaft, problems on the shaft down to the gearbox and the gearbox is what we’re investigating,” Cimmons said.
The simplest solution in theory might be replacing the bearing, but the question is what caused it to break and what further problems might occur if employees try to operate the lift without answering that question, he said.
“What we’re trying to figure out is how much we’ve got to fix, how fast we can fix it, is it a good solution, is it a permanent fix, or is it just a band-aid?” Cimmons said. “We risk opening it back up, running it, (and) we didn’t actually fix the heart of whatever caused that bearing to explode and it explodes again, and this time it does jam up that gear. We’re talking about lift evac(uation) and lift evacs never happen on warm, sunny days.”
Snowmaking system shortcomings
Eaglecrest’s snowmaking system, touted for its upgrades last year by former longtime General Manager Dave Scanlan, got a far more harsh assessment in a report presented to the board by Towsley Welding and Construction, a company that manufactures such systems and spent two days at Eaglecrest this summer inspecting its equipment.
“The Snow Making system at Eaglecrest is very much a homemade system built on a limited budget and maximizing available key snowmaking resources — water, compressed air and the power to operate them,” the report states. “While the ingenuity, effort and desire to make this system work is obvious and admirable there are some immediate safety upgrades we recommend as well as some operational upgrades to maximize long-term efficiency.”
Immediate recommendations include replacing all existing water hydrants; inspecting all air hydrants; replacing all air and water hoses that are in disrepair or are not rated for correct operating pressure; repairing or replacing fan guns and replacing the fan gun control board; plus numerous other inspections and repairs of components.
The report also notes Eaglecrest’s snowmaking system has some inadequacies in the system that are limiting their ability to maximize snowmaking during favorable weather conditions, with several long-term upgrades recommended as a result.
“Safety and operational training is highly recommend for full and part time snowmakers prior to letting them operate the system,” the report adds. “Protocols and safety procedures should be implemented and documented.”
Some of the immediate repair work is taking place, including new water hydrants, said Justin Spurrier, Eaglecrest’s mountain safety manager.
“It’s not going to be enough for complete replacement of everything on the mountain, but it’ll give us kind of a good start through the year,” he told board members, adding work is also proceeding on valve, piping and other work.
Satre said at Eaglecrest’s next board meeting “I do want to touch on — (since) we do get questions on snowmaking as planned — talk a little bit about our snowmaking strategy, and what’s been done and what’s been accomplished.”
Eaglecrest’s financial crunch occurring as city facing far bigger flooding concerns
The ski area already was facing financial problems before the problems with the Black Bear lift and snowmaking system were revealed, with Eaglecrest sustaining a loss of about $275,000 during the past fiscal year, according to Kirk Duncan, a previous general manager for the resort who has been hired as a consultant during its management transition.
Eaglecrest is also expected to struggle to meet its revenue target for the current fiscal year and, in a Sept. 18 memo to the Assembly, Duncan requested a funding increase of $518,000 to cover increased costs — noting the ski area expects to increase its revenue once a gondola in the initial stages of installation begins year-round operations within a couple of years.
Christine Woll, the Assembly Finance Committee chair and liaison to the Eaglecrest board, told members Thursday that while the Assembly has taken steps toward providing such funding as a supplemental allocation rather than a loan to be repaid, leaders at the ski resort should be aware of the urgency and amount of funding involved with addressing record flooding from Suicide Basin the past two years.
“I expect a challenging budget year, primarily because the Assembly has been spending and talking about spending quite a lot of funding to respond to the flooding in the Valley,” she said. “That is an emergency need that our community has and we have money in our emergency funds to take care for that now, but we’ll have to repay that funding. All that conversation has just started, but I just wanted to flag for you all (because) that will have a pretty big budget impact on the city’s finances.”
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
A map of Eaglecrest Ski Area, with the Black Bear chairlift on the left half of the mountain. (City and Borough of Juneau image)
