Andy Wrote:
when wind blows from the west the top of the access chair / plateau can be the windiest place on the mountain whilst the main ski runs are sheltered by bulk of the hill. depending on just a chairlift across plateau at Glencoe would be a disaster.
Yet the access chair can still run...
The question is how often is the wind in just the right direction and of sufficient strength that a suitably engineered plateau chair could not run but the access chair could?
My guess and I admit it is a guess is that is a pretty narrow range of wind speeds and directions. Further when these conditions do occur there will be very few punters on the mountain anyway. Most people are not willing to ski/board in such weather conditions.
From a strictly business point of view the revenue from that limited number of skiers on these probably infrequent days has to cover the
entire cost of maintaining the plateau poma.
I would be surprised if it would be financially viable to keep both a plateau chair and poma going. You would obviously have to run the numbers, but I doubt you could make a business case for it.