Why Crystal sux

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Sounds like a marketing department response...

Hahahah...+1

"So I go to Crystal yesterday. It's packed with the 15 minute line at Chinook and they are running the Miners Basin chair which is mostly empty. The line at Chinook is set up the same way. No one loading the chairs and the singles line ends about 40 feet from where the chair loads. THREE out of FOUR chairs had 3 people on them."

Quote Keith H.

I feel your pain. I skiied today and experienced some lift line confusion. Worst I've seen in a long time. I can give you some insight to hopefully clear the air and ease your pain.

I worked as a lift op 3 years ago. First and foremost, they need to pay those guys a little bit more. You get what you pay for.

Second, and probably the most important reason for the chair chaos is that Crystal's long time Lift Manager-Jace, quit after last year. I believe he worked for Crystal for some 20 years. Great guy. Got the lift ops fired up, excited about doing a good job. Jace himself, on a busy weekend or holiday would get his stick out and yell and scream, but he filled the chairs. He would rotate to the chairs to give guys lunch breaks and ski breaks. I have to say, it was a great winter working under Jace as a liftie. He kept things organized. He made the lifties clean out the shacks at the end of the day. Keep your area tidy and demanded some discipline from the younger crew. (No piercings, shave every morning, good grooming etc)

It looks like Crystal may be short staffed on lifties. They fired up the Miners Chair today, but then shut it down. I asked Eric what happened, and he said because the upper mountain was shut down  that they had sent home some lift ops.

Crystal needs a good strong Lift Manager. One who can take control. It might take a while.

With the upper mountain closed today, the lines were insane. At least they only charged $40 for a lift ticket.

The snow was fantastic. 5* temps this morning ,sucked out every bit of moisture. It was Alta like snow. And sunny to boot!!!!!

Would anyone like some swiss cheese? Stop whining and take a step back to reflect on all the things you enjoy in life, and how lucky we are to have such a great mountain like Crystal in our backyard. If lift lines on weekends are the only thing you can complain about then I must say...what do you expect for a weekend in January? And by the way, Crystal does have a host program. I was greeted yesterday by them as I was in the lift ticket line and they were very friendly and helpful. Now stop complaining and go ski!

I think you're missing the point. The complaint isn't the lift lines themselves, yes any given weekend in January is bound to have busy lift lines and should be expected, but when a 6 person chair lift has a long line and chairs are very consistently being loaded with only 3 or 4 people that to me is a problem.

I'm pretty sure that the op is ranting here because he took the time to give the management some helpful information and got back nothing but air for his troubles. His rant is legitimate of course.


Empty chairs bug me too by the way.

This weekend it was puking snow and the laser reader was having trouble detecting the bar code. Chairs were going by that weren't getting loaded because of this. When the liftie asked how everything was I let him/her know about it. Next time around there was someone else checking tickets.

Crystal needs a good strong Lift Manager. One who can take control. It might take a while.

Ians Working hard but hes managing both the liftes and the ticket Checkers.

Thankfully Stevens is really good about sending up FULL chairs on busy days, and singles line merging up at the front line as you get on the lift. Empty chairs... that would drive me nuts (what a waste)!
That's why I don’t ski Crystal on weekends/holidays at least till after mid Feb.

Oh Please ???-

Somebody call the Whaa-ambulance!!!