Happy to report that the east quad chair is up and running as of Friday at 9am. Our third party testing procedures went very well this week. I rode the lift several times this morning and I plan to ride it much more this afternoon once the bumps on Dud’s soften up a bit.
During the past week at Welch Village we had an incident occur on our East Quad lift that requires us, in accordance with lift standards and best practices in our industry, to perform further internal inspection, testing, and independent third party analysis before we are able to reopen the lift. We want to clarify that no one was injured as part of the incident, however, the East Quad lift will not be running this weekend due to the inspection, testing, and independent third party analysis that needs to occur. Our team has started performing our internal processes of inspection late this week, however, the third party that we have contracted to perform further analysis is not available until early next week. Inspections like this occur routinely by our team at Welch Village and within the ski and snowboard industry as a whole.
Chairlift safety is of the utmost concern at Welch Village, and we feel that it is the best decision to not run the East Quad until the entire inspection process is complete. We do understand that the timing of this inspection occurring over the weekend is not ideal as the East Ridge Double Chair will now be the only chairlift servicing the East Side slopes this weekend.
In response to being down this major chairlift this coming weekend, Welch Village made the decision to sell out of lift tickets for both Saturday and Sunday in order to help alleviate any congestion for our guests on the east side, specifically our season pass holders.
We have every intention of running the East Quad again later this season once all of the necessary routine inspection steps are complete, and we thank all of our guests for understanding.
We are now selling season passes for the 2021-2022 season. Like most things this season, season pass sales are only available online. If you are considering a season pass for next season, this is always the lowest price available for unrestricted passes. These passes are about 40% off their regular rates. The deadline is March 31st. If you have questions about the sale, see our FAQ page here.
If you are planning to buy a limited pass like a Night Pass, those will go on sale at their lowest rates this summer.
If you currently don't have a season pass for this season, you can add a season pass for the rest of this season for just $59 (individual) or $159 (family pass) if you buy a season pass for next season right now.
How long will we be open this season?
Similar to opening day, we don't have a set closing day at Welch Village because it's mostly dependent on mother nature and the weather. Usually/historically, we are able to stay open into mid-March or later. Some seasons, like a couple of years ago, we had a cold March and were able to offer some bonus weekends in late March and we have even had bonus weekends in April. We will try and keep the Village open as long as we can this season, but understand it is dependent on the weather and how long our snow sticks around. Right now...there is no end in sight :) We will do our best to stay open as long as possible. Keep in mind, I have three daughters who love to ski and get very angry at dad when we close...I have to answer to them at home when we close for the season...so I myself am motivated to stay open as long as possible.
