How Tall is Too Small?
Méribel in Les Trois Vallées, France, needed a way to measure the size of the children who were riding alone on the ski lifts and found it with this cute sign which says, “You are too small to go by yourself.” The picture sign presents a friendly approach and provides the exact height requirement, which at this resort is 1.25 meters or 49 inches.
Many ski areas are struggling with the issue of what height (age) to use as limit or cut off measurement for some activities such as snowtubing and alpine slides. As a comparison, here are some amusement ride limitations seen at Knoebel’s Grove Amusement Park, Pa., for children riding alone: antique cars—48 inches, bumper boats—48 inches, ferris wheel—48 inches, parachute drop—42 inches, roller coaster—42 inches and Tilt-A-Whirl—46 inches.
Better Lift Phone
Telephones on ski lifts have short, rough lives and are exposed to all kinds of indignities. For example, handsets may be used to knock ice from a snowboard or to pound nails in a lift building.
The older sound-powered phones are expensive, but not very reliable and have limited capacity. On top of that, they can’t be used to call Pizza Hut for a late night delivery or for dialing 911 in an emergency—a more serious deficiency.
Thad Philpott, mountain manager at Snow Trails, Ohio, found a solution. He installed a low-priced but powerful PABX telephone system manufactured by KCE Technology Corp. The unit he selected was model FX-207. It sells for $300 and offers the same advantages as a more expensive PBX system, but uses less expensive standard phones. A chairlift at Snow Trails has four phones connected to the system—at the top and bottom stations, outside the bottom terminal, and in the motor room. The modular system is also connected to the ski area’s main phone, allowing calls to be made directly to ski patrol. A battery backup was added to each FX-207 to meet ANSI B77 code requirements. Replacing a busted phone these days at Snow Trails costs about $19.
For questions, contact Thad Philpott at [email protected] or call (419) 756-7768, ext. 115. Web sources: www.blackbox.com and www.hometech.com.
Recycling Idea
Recycling plastic bottles, aluminum cans and paper is a great idea that lots of ski resorts have adopted. The problem is, collecting these items outdoors is not an easy task. Open recycle containers collect snow or rain, get knocked over or are visited by all sorts of wildlife. To solve this problem the mountain crew at Massanutten, Va., came up with a clever box equipped with a shelf that holds plastic collection containers. The structure shown here is located on a sun deck. It is built using 2 x 4 lumber and T1-11 siding with a roof to keep the snow out.
If you don’t think recycling can save much money, here are some interesting numbers from Massanutten. In a three-year period, Massanutten recycled 92 tons of cardboard, 38 tons of glass, 25 tons of paper, 18 tons of scrap metal, 5 tons of plastic and almost 2 tons of aluminum cans. Additionally, 90 percent of the non-recyclable trash is being burned in a local clean air burner and provides heating and cooling for a local university. Only 9 percent of the resort’s trash ends up in landfills, saving a bundle on tipping fees.
