Deer Valley’s 32-person lift maintenance team has a daunting task keeping the resort’s 21 lifts spinning with a perfect record.No down time, no injuries, no soiled ski suits. Guests smile and grab the next chair. Seamless.The team works full time and year-round. Summer’s no vacation. And for obvious safety reasons, each lift requires careful attention to meet the minute-to-minute expectations of reliable service.With opening day for pass holders bumped up to Friday, a first for the resort, the team is in the final days of completing the last to-dos.There are 26.3 miles of cable hauling 1,645 chairs up a vertical rise across the entire 20,029-feet resort. The numbers may be tough to reckon for the average skier with a butt in a chair, but for the lift maintenance department, reckoning is the job. They are focused on keeping all 21 lifts safe, clean and dependable for the nearly 150-day ski season, December to April.Mike Renz, a 37-year Deer Valley employee, heads up the team. He started on the trail crew and worked his way up to manager of lift maintenance.“I enjoyed being part of the lift maintenance team as a tight, close-knit group, working across the changes in mountain seasons and operational focus,” he said. “We used our ingenuity to overcome challenges and accomplish hard things, often learning as we went along.” His right hand is Troy Mathews, who’s been on the team 31 years. “I enjoy being part of a great group of people,” Matthews said. “There is a good camaraderie within our department. It is very satisfying to have a season with little down time. That is what we all strive for.” Mike Renz, left, is the Deer Valley Lift Maintenance Department manager. His right hand and assistant manager is Troy Matthews, right.Deer Valley recently gave the team the green light to expand the team. The job listing included these qualifications:Enjoy outdoor work in all conditions, including adverse, often severe weather. Ability to climb lift terminal stairs and tower ladders. Comfortable working at heights. Advanced skiing abilityKnowledge of:Lift theory, operation, and practice Mechanical, electro-mechanical and hydraulic systems AC and DC motor theory, operation and maintenanceA couple of those points are worth underscoring: Your office would be all weather conditions imaginable. Dangling 70 feet above ground while servicing one of the 279 lift towers is not unusual. And, you need to have some chops on your skis. To run with this group, you must be able to ski every run on the resort confidently and in all weather and snow conditions.Deer Valley East Village, formerly known as Mayflower, will open with three new lifts in December and then explode next season with six to seven new chairlifts and one new gondola. Renz expects his group to double by next fall, when they assume responsibility for all of that lift-served growth.When the 2023-24 ski season came to an end in April, the team immediately pivoted into inspection, repair and service mode. The group inspected every single chair, tower and terminal at the top and bottom of all the lifts. A specialized contract engineer examines all of the cables and mechanical components of every lift and then reports his findings to Renz and team. There was routine preventive maintenance to be done, and some components needed to be replaced or rebuilt. This off-season, the gear box, or the lift transmission system, similar to what’s in your car, on the Wasatch Express lift needed to be rebuilt. That lift went into operation in 1996, and replacement parts needed to be custom made in Switzerland by the original manufacture.In May, technician and metal fabricator Weston Spencer, an 18-year veteran, took on the task of dissembling the 2,000-pound gear box, figuring out what needed to be replaced, and ordering the necessary replacement parts. In October the new gears arrived, and he put the complex box back together, making sure that each of the components meshed within 1/1,000 of an inch of tolerance. Spencer’s dad was an automotive mechanic, and that technical know-how was a father-son gift that enabled Spencer to grow into his specialized role. One of the perks of working for a ski resort is that a season pass is part of the deal for many employees, which has given him the opportunity to teach his three teenage kids how to ski. Naturally, Deer Valley is their home mountain.Weston Spencer, an 18-year veteran on the Deer Valley lift maintenance team, rebuilds the gear box of the Wasatch Express lift.Lindsay Havdoglous is one of the few women in the industry working as a lift mechanic. She joined the Deer Valley team this spring after 15-plus years at Park City Mountain. This off-season, she inspected her share of every lift and chair, replacing bolts, washers, nuts, brackets, you name it, all in preparation for opening day.“I like the day-to-day variety, being outside, new challenges and learning new stuff every day,” she said.Lindsay Havdoglous replaces bolts on the safety bar of the Sterling Express lift. She joined the Deer Valley team in the spring after 15-plus years at Park City Mountain.Jackson McDonald loves working with his hands and being outdoors in a role that can vary from day to day. He has been on the team for four years and sees himself with this group for quite some time. Tough weather conditions don’t faze him, nor do the awkward contortions needed to tighten loose bolts while doing an annual inspection of every chair.Today’s task for Jackson McDonald is to inspect every one of the 138 chairs on the Sterling Express lift and replace components that show any sign of fatigue or undue wear.A corroded bolt from one of the 138 chairs on the Sterling Express. The team replaced this bolt.A training day on the third tower of the Judge lift for members of the lift maintenance team at Deer Valley included the annual exercise for every member of the department to practice lowering a partner safely to the ground as if the partner had fallen off the tower.The team meets each day at 7 a.m. to review the daily checklist and then spreads out across the mountain with their assigned tasks. Once the lifts start spinning for real and guests enter the cues and lift lines, there will be a member of the team strategically placed to have immediate oversight of every lift on the mountain. One more factoid the team does not take lightly: Deer Valley lifts have the capacity to carry nearly 51,000 passengers per hour across the entire resort, and like that epic number, they, too, hope for a few epic runs each week.The post There’s no ‘off’ season for Deer Valley’s veteran lift maintenance team appeared first on Park Record.