It's All Downhill: A few thoughts on lift line scanners

[View web version]( [It's All Downhill. The latest from the slopes of New England and beyone by Matt Pepin] Friday, March 16 | [Follow Matt Pepin on Twitter]( PASS or fail? I have a real love-hate relationship with those RFID lift-access gates that many ski areas have installed in the last decade or so. You know the ones, where you keep your ticket inside a pocket and when it registers the gates swing open and you get to proceed to the chairlift. On one hand, it's great to know everyone's paid up to use the ski area and that guy ahead of you isn't just getting to the top first but also getting a free ride. And the wealth of data that comes from all that ticket scanning surely will help ski areas better understand user habits and trends and allow them to game-plan to improve the customer experience. There are also a lot of safety benefits to these systems because of the way skiers can be tracked, and the opportunity to update a card online and go straight to the lift is a nice perk too. But they can be really maddening when they fail. Have you ever been there when the person ahead of you is unable to get through? First they back up and try to glide up again, often to no avail. Then they kind of lean closer to where they presume the sensors might best detect their card. Sometimes that works, sometimes not. Hopefully by the third try, a liftie notices and comes to help. By then the lift line is in a pretty bad state, the rest of the person's group has stopped to wait for their stranded companion, and chairs start going uphill empty. I recently watched 10 chairs go by without a passenger while one person got their ticket issue sorted out. It's not always the system's fault. I've heard the spiel about keeping your ticket in its own pocket a hundred times, but at the same time I bristle at the notion of being told how to allocate my pocket space. I've also heard the thing about keeping your phone away from the ticket because it can interfere with the sensors, but I'd wager 99.9 percent of the skiers on the mountain have a phone. Manufacturers have to account for this in RFID version 2.0. Some resorts do it better than others. One thing I've noticed is the ones where you encounter the scanner well ahead of the actual loading area tend to be much smoother operations. For instance at Wachusett, the Polar Express scanners are situated so that even when there are problems, enough people have already gone through to keep the chairs loading close to capacity. But on the nearby Minuteman Express, the scanners are so close to the loading area that issues can cause serious disruptions. Hopefully the technology improves sooner than later. I'm confident it will indeed improve, and I've already seen places like Waterville Valley that have added RFID cards but instead of the gate-style scanners, lift-line attendants merely point a scanning tool in your general direction to get a reading instead of fumbling for a close-up scan of a bar code on a jacket tag. But still, an indelible impression from last season was when I waited in a long line at Winter Park in Colorado to pick up my pre-purchased ticket, and it seemed like almost everybody else in line was reporting a problem with their RFID lift card. The systems are here to stay, at least until they start tracking payment and lift rides in an even higher-tech way. Then again, maybe chairlifts won't even be how we get to the summit in 10 or 20 years. CLICKWORTHY GOOD ADVICE: In February, Vermont Ski + Ride magazine published [tips from five pros on how to ski the trees.]( Seems like a good time to brush up if you're heading north to enjoy the bounty bestowed upon New England by the recent storms, which has surely replenished the snow in New England's glades. DON'T WATCH: A chairlift in the country of Georgia had [a horrible malfunction that caused it to run in reverse]( at a very high speed and cause serious injury to the people on the chairs. Some jumped off as the chairs approached the load zone, but others remained on the chairs and were flung from them. At least 10 people were injured. [The Washington Post's headline says it all]( "Don't watch this video of a malfunctioning chair lift if you ever plan to ski again." SPENDING MONEY TO MAKE MONEY: Alterra Mountain Co., which made a big splash with the introduction of the Ikon pass, announced it will invest more than a half-billion dollars in its resorts' infrastructure. In New England, [that means a new Snowbowl lift at Stratton.]( [The Denver Post has more on the big picture with Alterra.]( EPIC ADDITIONS: Not to be outdone as Alterra goes all-in to attract skiers to its properties, Vail Resorts has added three more resorts to its Epic Pass, including two in New England. Okemo in Vermont and Mount Sunapee in New Hampshire join Colorado's Crested Butte on the Epic roster for next season. [Here's more from the On The Snow website.]( GAME ON: The World Pro Ski Tour returns to Sunday River in Maine March 30-31. [Details are on the tour's website.]( The moguls portion of the US Freestyle Championships will [be held at Waterville Valley in New Hampshire March 20-24.]( MOUNTAIN INTRIGUE: The fate of the Saddleback ski area in Maine has been up in the air for some time, and now there's new concern. [News Center Maine reported]( that the CEO of the company that is trying to buy Saddleback was recorded saying he "won't lose any sleep" if it doesn't open because his primary goal was using the purchase to access the EB-5 program that lets foreign investors gain US residency. But the Portland Press Herald [subsequently quoted Sebastian Monsour denying that claim.]( It sounds complicated, which probably means there won't be skiing or snowboarding at Saddleback anytime soon. [Subscribe to BostonGlobe.com]( mountain view Mike Chait took this photo at Vermont's Smugglers' Notch this week, and reports the following: "Unreal conditions right now. Yesterday we broke 6 feet in 7 days and there's still more snow falling." [Like It's All Downhill? Tell a friend to subscribe.]( [Sign up for more Boston Globe newsletters.]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( [Pinterest]( About This Email You received this message because you signed up for the It's All Downhill newsletter. 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