Stowe mountain 9/22/11

Today our class drove up to Stowe mountain to take a look at their new Premier quad ski lift that is currently undergoing construction. When we first arrived, a Stowe mountain employee took us for a tour of the mountain showing us various things from their historical old stone hut, to their new lift. There new lift was installed because the other lift was getting old and needed to be replaced. Their old lift was also their most used lift, so it led them to replace it. As a class we were able to take a look at the inside of the new terminals which was also a great experience. One thing that did catch my eye was stowes idea to save on heating costs. Towards the top of the new lift, they were building a new mountain ops station. Stowe figured that since the lift was nearby they would run PVC pipe from the lift to the new building. The enormous amount of heat being let off from the lift would then travel through the pvc to heat up the building. Towards the end of the day, we assisted in taking apart the old towers. Also on the 20th of sept. we assisted LOC in a Haul rope splice. Although we didnt get to finish watching the splice because of the rain, we helped prepare for the following day. We measured out and marked the length of the new haul rope being replaced and layed it all out so that the next day all they had to do was splice it. It would have been nice to watch the whole process, but on the other hand we were able to talk about the fall festival alittle more.