DIY motor-room door, big water-bottle holders, and a sheave-wheel carrier. Door for Detachables With their protruding springs and rollers, detachable grips need a fair amount of clearance as they enter the lift terminal. If this opening is left uncovered at night, snow and ice can invade the terminal, making more work for lift techs as they prep the lift to open in the morning. Some detachable terminals come with doors that can be lowered to cover the space. But a detachable quad at Seven Springs, Pa., had none, so the crew built their own. The plywood door travels up and down along channel steel guides on either side of the opening. A rope connected to the top of the plywood is looped through a pulley so the crew can easily raise and lower the door. Total cost: less than $200. Design note: Director of mountain ops Joel Rerko says they’ll likely replace the plywood door with plate steel in the future, for greater durability. OVERSIZED CUPHOLDERS A few years ago, Bear Creek, Pa., gave its mountain ops personnel vacuum-insulated 40 oz. water bottles so they could stay hydrated while working on-hill. The nice new water bottles were too big for the stock cupholders of the Kubota UTV, though, so they routinely rattled around the bed of the vehicle, getting scratched and dented and—gasp—even leaking. Something had to be done. Zac Rhodes, one of the resort’s mechanics at the time, crafted a solution out of spare aluminum sheets and some hardware. The four-place bottle holder accommodates a full crew. No more misplaced or damaged bottles. BLAST FROM THE PAST... WHEELS UP “When doing our summer line work, our work basket would always be leaning to one side, and the bottom of the work basket would be cluttered with sheave wheels and difficult to get to. Our lift maintenance manager, Steve Burkholder, came up with this simple solution: welding rebar onto the basket to hold the sheave wheels, which helped with balancing and made them easy to access. This was done at no cost.” Pictured: lift ops manager Rodney Malcolm. —Flip Sowers, lift manager, Whitetail Resort, Pa.
