EXTEND-O-HANDLE

“This was a brainchild of the entire lift maintenance department. We were looking for an easier way to pump up our brakes, so various team members grabbed some scrap steel and welded together a few different designs, and this is the one that stuck. Through the power of leverage, we are able to efficiently pump up our E-brakes. The tool gives anybody the ability to pump up the brake with little to no effort, and it eliminates the need for a ladder or having to stand on any other precarious object. Inspiration for this design came from our lead mechanic, Ryan Abel.”

EASY LOADING

“We installed a new carpeted ramp, and during the first season we had a lot of misloads on the inside of the chair. We noticed that, at loading, the person on the inside was able to stand inside the ramp boards, but still not be lined up with the chair. Yet we like having a little wider “wait here” room to allow guests ample space to approach the loading area. To solve our dilemma, our in-house mechanic/master carpenter Gary Schafer added a board that funnels the guest to the right position, and then covered it in caution-yellow-colored plastic to accentuate it. This has drastically reduced our misloads, and was much cheaper than reconstructing the entire ramp.”



BEST OF 2013

We called this “Ram to the Rescue” and it comes to us from Patti Spence from Stowe Mountain Resort, Vt. This was featured in the July 2013 issue of SAM and is a great idea for lift maintenance——a mechanical chair-lifting device using a hydraulic cylinder. The lifter raises the chairs off the rope and lowers them to the ground. It can also lift the chairs back up onto the running rail for reinstallation. Congratulations to Patti and her team——you’ll be receiving a SAM Dickies shirt, as well as bragging rights for the year!

The following to ideas come from Tim Bayer, lift maintenace supervisor, Camelback Mountain Resort, Pa.