Despite the dominance of European companies in today’s tramway business, the ubiquitous chairlift was actually invented in Nebraska by the most American of corporations. Union Pacific Railroad built the world’s first chairlift at its new Sun Valley Resort in 1936 based on a design by their lead bridge engineer. The two original single chairs were fabricated in the rail yards of Omaha and installed on Dollar and Proctor Mountains in time for the 1936-37 ski season. Dollar’s original lifts are long gone, replaced by ones from Hall and Lift Engineering (and eventually Doppelmayr detachable quads in 2007.)
Just down the road from Dollar you can go back in time to Ruud Mountain, where the world’s third chairlift still stands among 10-bedroom mansions and two holes of the Sun Valley Golf Course. The Sun Valley Company has preserved Ruud Mountain pretty much as it was during World War II with its chairlift and ski jump. The top-drive, bottom-tension lift shows just how little the fixed-grip chairlift has changed since it was invented.
SkyTrac, the new American lift builder based in Salt Lake City, is building two complete lifts this summer including one at Pomerelle Mountain near Burley, Idaho. SkyTrac seems to be gaining a following with smaller, independent resorts that need new lifts but are price-sensitive. By the end of this summer SkyTrac will have built 19 complete lifts in 12 states. Only two of those were purchased by companies that own multiple resorts (Boyne went with SkyTrac for the latest lifts at The Summit at Snoqualmie and Crystal Mountain.)
Pomerelle originally had Stearns-Roger and SLI double chairs, built in 1964 and 1975, respectively. The longer of the two was replaced by a CTEC triple in 1988 and now a SkyTrac triple will replace the shorter double chair. Work didn’t begin until late July but the SkyTrac crew has already installed most of the lift. Because of the mellow terrain, towers are being set without a helicopter and only numbers 7 and 10 are left to go up. The top terminal is finished and the bottom station just needs a motor room. I didn’t see a haul rope or chairs yet. The lift also apparently still needs a name!
Like the Quicksilver Gondola, Park City’s new King Con Express is just about ready for a haul rope. Both terminals are nearly complete and all the towers have been ready to go since August. The chairs are still down in the base area waiting to be assembled. As far as I can tell, grips and operator houses have not been delivered yet. I’m guessing Park City is getting the pre-fabricated CTEC-style houses for both King Con and the Gondola.
The most anticipated new lift of the year is starting to look like the really big gondola that it is. The drive terminal for Park City’s Quicksilver Gondola is largely complete and all 27 towers were set last weekend. Doppelmayr opted to use the same K-Max heli they’ve been using for other projects even though gondola towers are huge. The biggest towers – 23 and 24 – were actually set by crane. In fact, a two-mile long road was built just to access T21-23 on the edge of Thaynes Canyon.
The towers that were flown were split into in as many as six pieces because of the limited capability of the K-Max at 9,000 feet. At least two towers have 16-sheave trains that must weigh a ton. Some towers were flown without catwalks and railings just to make weight. I was surprised Doppelmayr did not use a heavy-lift helicopter like the Chinook but I’m sure it all came down to price and what was available.
It felt like spring at Solitude Mountain Resort, not because of the weather but because the Summit lift replacement project is really just getting underway. The new Doppelmayr detachable quad is in an entirely new alignment that is extremely rugged. There was obviously a ton of blasting and dirt work just to get to this point. Once the Summit Express is complete, Solitude will have four high speed quads and only three fixed-grip lifts left.
Highlander Lift Services is in charge of this project rather than crews from Doppelmayr or Solitude. Most of the tower forms are in but I did not see any concrete in the ground. The top terminal is just a hole and the bottom isn’t much further along. The lift is going to have around 20 towers and only the crossarms and lifting frames have arrived so far. Unfortunately it looks like these guys are going to be building a lift in the snow.
The 3S Gondola is today’s finest lift technology with large, comfortable cabins quickly moving thousands of people per hour over virtually any terrain. Doppelmayr and VonRoll pioneered the technology with Poma and Leitner developing their own versions in recent years. Thirteen of these systems operate worldwide with at least three more in development in settings as diverse as the Swiss Alps and islands of Vietnam. Here is a summary:
The world’s highest elevation 3S will open on the Matterhorn in Zermatt for 2018. It will feature Leitner’s DirectDrive technology and new Sigma Symphony cabins designed by the famous Italian firm Pininfarina. Its 25 28-passenger cabins will move 2,000 skiers per hour at 7.5 meters per second. The lift will cover almost 13,000 feet laterally and 3,000 feet vertically in nine minutes. Zermatt will be the first non-urban 3S gondola for Leitner or Poma. Construction begins next summer.
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