Yesterday our new Quad at Summit East was tested to make sure it can operate as expected under a full load. As you might imagine, testing and certification must be complete before allowing any skiers or snowboarders to load the lift. In order to simulate a full load our lift crew utilizes a simple and ingenius system. Each chair is loaded with a large carboard box with a garbage bag liner. Each box has a bottom corner trimmed off which allows part of the garbage bag to protrude once filled with water.

The crew spins the lift to bring each chair up to the bottom terminal to be loaded with boxes and filled with water. Once each chair on the load side of the lift has the specified weight in water the chair is operated for a period of time to complete the load test. After the operating cycle is complete, each bag is cut open to release the water and the load. This system makes it possible to complete a full load test in a relatively short period of time.

With load testing complete, our lift crew will now start knocking out punch list items to get the chair ready for public use.