Strange things are afoot at Alpenglow. Long known for providing an alternative ski experience for Anchorage, Alpenglow's three lifts offer low-cost ski entertainment to thousands who can't afford to ski Alyeska - moneywise or timewise.But as this year's ski season comes to a close, Alpenglow's very existence is threatened.
Faced with aging equipment malfunctions, state shutdowns, and a troubling financial situation, Alpenglow is struggling with lift safety regulations that threaten to cost them more than they can spend.
At issue is when the resort will be asked to comply with current safety standards; they are currently bound by 1982 regulations because of the age of the lifts and the cost of bringing them to current code. Al Dwyer, Chief of Mechanical Inspection at the Alaska State Department of Labor, says he plans to get the ball rolling in about six months to change the regulation which allows Alpenglow to abide by outdated standards. He says Alpenglow will be given a reasonable amount of time to comply, but such compliance will nonetheless be very costly, and potentially disastrous, to the resort.
While lift problems are a central issue, revolving around all of this is a raging internal battle involving potential litigation, state inspectors, contract bidding, and some very pissed off people. With charges like sabotage, conspiracy, and fraud being thrown around like confetti on Cinco de Mayo, I couldn't help but investigate further.
The web is tangled and the players numerous. The basic structure of Alpenglow is simple enough - Chugach National Forest owns the land, the Anchorage Ski Club owns Alpenglow, Fort Richardson owns the road, and Facilities Management, Inc. (FMI) holds the contract to run the place.
At the heart of the controversy are some documents (inspection reports on Alpenglow dating back to 1985) I dug up from the Alaska State Dept of Labor, Mechanical Inspection Division. The key inspections occurred on Nov.14 and Dec. 23 in `94, and April 7, 1995, and point to lift safety problems that, despite a State order, have yet to be fully resolved.
The political anguish involves a former employee turned subcontractor, Jeff Hodges, who left Alpenglow in disgust because, he says, they weren't paying him and had difficulty maintaining lift safety. FMI maintains it was Hodges' responsibility to maintain code compliance, but he alleges that FMI made it impossible for him to do so. Both FMI and Hodges' company, Ptarmigan Services, believe that the lifts were repaired to ensure safety and compliance with the 1982 code, and plan to resolve some of the problems addressed in the April 7 report through exemptions and administrative channels.
"Jeff Hodges is a very talented maintenance individual," says Bruce McCurtin, President of FMI, "but he's now claiming he didn't do work we paid him for. Not only that, he disabled our ski lift." The incident McCurtin refers to was referred to by others as `sabotage,' but McCurtin fairly pointed out that no property was damaged. "He pulled a couple wires and fuses, but in such a way that we needed a professional to look at it and put it back together," he says, adding that it cost Alpenglow six hours of downtime on Chair 2.
Hodges claims he disabled the lift because it wasn't supposed to be running for safety reasons, and was awaiting a spare part. Furthermore, he says, "[McCurtin] couldn't pay his bills. He still owes us $8,000, and it's 90 days past due." According to Hodges, Ptarmigan stopped performing work for Alpenglow as their bills continued to mount, and out of concern for their liability exposure, feeling that a substandard maintenance budget was leading to dangerous lift conditions Ptarmigan could be blamed for.
As you can imagine, making head or tail of who's right in this situation would be complicated and require (in addition to more time spent investigating) information accessible only through subpoena. I present it and this disclaimer solely for your amusement.
Ptarmigan has their sights set on winning the Alpenglow contract when it comes up for bid again next year, and according to Kelly Vrem, member of the Anchorage Ski Club Board of Directors, Hodges has already submitted Ptarmigan's bid. Though they have been accused of it, Ptarmigan denies any intentional attempt to discredit FMI through their actions. "They couldn't pay their bills, they didn't run the place effectively, and I know I can do it better," says Hodges.
The first thing you need to understand about Alpenglow is its small operating budget. They're running old lifts and can't afford to keep them up to the most recent ANSI codes from 1992. The fact is, Alpenglow can barely afford to keep the lifts up to 1982 standards which, according to Dwyer (the Dept. of Labor person responsible for making the regulations stick), is the minimum set by the state.
According to McCurtin, Alpenglow spends 30% of its budget ($85,000 this season with another $30-40,000 this summer) on maintenance. In addition, he says, "Every spare penny we get goes back into the ski area," mostly towards maintenance.
This is evidently not enough. The April 7th inspection revealed what the inspector considered serious problems that were originally reported in the November and December inspections, and not corrected to the inspector's satisfaction. Dave Wilson, Lift Manager at Alyeska Resort and owner of Tramway Consulting Services, inspected the lifts on all three occasions. "[Those problems were] supposed to be corrected, and they were not," said Wilson.
Again, to be fair, you must understand that Wilson inspected the site based on `92 codes, and unofficial word is Hodges got verbal clearance from someone in the state to do a certain set of repairs, the most crucial of which were supposedly done. Why in four months this information didn't make it to the inspector is beyond me...
Alpenglow has two chair lifts and one T-bar. According to McCurtin, the T-bar was built in 1959, Chair 1 in `69, and Chair 2 in `77. Chair 1 has been out of service all season, awaiting an auxiliary power unit (at an estimated cost of $10,000 Alpenglow doesn't have) required by the state this year to operate the lift. Chair 2 was supposed to be out of service until it was fixed - whether it was fixed or not is a bone of contention between Alpenglow and the State. The T-bar has been allowed to operate for the season, but also has problems that need to be fixed by next season.
On the December DOL report for Chair 2, Wilson wrote, "Lift cannot operate for public until drive sheave brake, rollback limit switch and tower alignment are corrected." These exact same problems appear on April's report, obviously not resolved to the State's satisfaction. And the lift was red-tagged (not allowed to operate), until a new inspection confirms the repairs.
Ptarmigan says they fixed the problems so the lift would be safe, but not to match the requirements set by Wilson. According to a Ptarmigan representative, the switch will stop the lift, but will not cut power to it - a major improvement over the last time, when the switch didn't stop the lift at all.
"Evidently they were operating the lift in direct violation of our order that they fix the problems before loading the public," said Wilson, "They've got a major safety concern on their hands, and they're just fortunate an incident didn't happen. The rollback limit switch is one of the major concerns in lift maintenance, and their setup presents a life-and-death situation. They should not have been running the lift."
McCurtin says that his budget is probably adequate to ensure compliance with the `82 standards within their summer maintenance schedule, but acknowledged that's only a temporary solution. "The handwriting is on the wall," he says, "Sooner or later, they're going to require us to comply with the new standards, and that'll cost at least $150,000 that we don't have." FMI is trying to get money from the legislature with the argument that such an unfunded mandate is unfair.
Dwyer says he's never heard of such a thing happening, and believes such a scenario to be unlikely. He suggested the most workable plan would be a move towards requiring the standards, and giving Alpenglow the time necessary to implement them.
Others express a more pessimistic view, pointing to Claire Summit, a Fairbanks ski area which closed down because it couldn't afford to adhere to ANSI lift standards.
So often these inside political struggles are a result of miscommunication and poor internal PR techniques - largely avoidable, and yet somehow not. All sides of this issue - Ptarmigan, FMI, the State of Alaska, and the ski club - believe Alpenglow is a vital addition to skiing in Anchorage, and whatever it takes to keep it alive and growing is what should be done, within safe limits.
Alpenglow plans to have at least Chair 2 and the T-bar operating next season, and hopefully Chair 1..