Year: 2015

Lift Profile: Centennial Chondola at Beaver Creek

Peter Landsman3 Comments
Centennial is the world's only 6/10 chondola lift.
Centennial is the world’s only 6/10 chondola lift.

Beaver Creek Resort faced a unique challenge last year when they needed to replace their aging workhorse lift.  The original Centennial Express was one of Doppelmayr’s first high speed quads, built in 1986.  Vail Resorts wanted the new lift to serve skiers as well as private events at the Spruce Saddle Lodge while at the same time achieving a high hourly capacity.  Originally announced as a regular six pack, Vail and Doppelmayr later decided to build the world’s only chondola with six passenger chairs and ten passenger gondola cabins.

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This is the longest Uni-G terminal I have ever seen.
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During summer operation the loading carpet is covered but queuing gates remain.

The result is an impressive lift nearly 8,000 foot long that moves 3,400 passengers an hour.  25 10-passenger CWA Omega gondola cabins alternate with 125 chairs in a 5:1 ratio.  The old lift had 195 quad chairs but moved 35 percent fewer people.  The new Centennial rises over 2,000 vertical feet in 7.9 minutes at 1,000 fpm.  It has 25 towers, five fewer than the original.

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Park City’s Motherlode Upgrade

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Top of the new Motherlode lift. Obviously it still needs to be painted.
Top of the new Motherlode high speed quad.  Obviously it still needs to be painted.

Park City removed the Motherlode triple early this spring to make way for a new high speed quad in the same alignment.  Instead of a brand new lift, Vail Resorts opted to relocate the King Con lift, originally built in 1993.  Both CTEC terminals have already been moved and all tower footings poured.  Motherlode will get new tower tubes but just about everything else is coming from King Con.  The lift may need some new chairs due to the increased length of Motherlode.  The new tower tubes and haul rope are on site.

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Park City’s New King Con Six

Peter Landsman1 Comment
The new Motherlode under construction July 14, 2015.
The new Motherlode under construction July 14, 2015.

In addition to the new Pinecone Gondola, Vail Resorts is doing a major lift shuffle at Park City Mountain this summer.  The King Con high speed quad (1993 CTEC) is being replaced with a brand new Doppelmayr six pack.  King Con is being refurbished and relocated to replace Motherlode higher up on the hill.  More on that in an upcoming post.

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Both terminals for the new King Con are largely complete as of this week.  The Uni-G model terminals will be dark red and silver to match the new Park City Mountain logo and brand which will be unveiled on July 29th.  Rumors are that the word resort will be removed from the PCMR name and the new logo will be a dark red version of the Canyons infinity logo.  Most of the existing detachable lifts at Park City have already been painted in the new color scheme.

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King Con Six will re-use the CTEC tower tubes from the old high speed quad.  New tower heads are being assembled in the base area parking lot.  The bottom terminal will have a loading carpet as is standard with all new detachable lifts at Vail Resorts these days.  The lift is a top-drive, bottom-tension configuration.  Doppelmayr EJ six passenger chairs are already on-site.  All three of Park City’s new lifts will have Redaelli haul ropes which have also been delivered.

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News Roundup: SkyTrac Gets a Lift

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Twin lifts at Solitude, Utah earlier this week.
Twin lifts at Solitude, Utah earlier this week.
  • Pomerelle Mountain near Twin Falls, Idaho announced they will replace their 39-year old SLI double chair with a new SkyTrac triple.  This is SkyTrac’s only publicly announced project for this summer.  Apparently they have another contract for a lift in Arizona.  Leave a comment if you know where.
  • Saddleback, Maine has listed their Rangeley lift for sale for $350,000.  They had previously listed just the drive terminal for $200k.
  • Steamboat’s new master plan including two new six packs approved by Routt County.
  • State of Pennsylvania opens bidding for a new quad chairlift at the troubled Laurel Mountain State Park.
  • Jackson Hole’s new Sweetwater 8-passenger gondola approved by the Bridger-Teton National Forest.
  • Sugarloaf removes the damaged drive terminal for the King Pine lift which rolled back in March to make way for a new Doppelmayr terminal.
  • Group wants to reopen Mt. Ascutney in Vermont.  It’s tough to run a ski resort with no lifts, however.  The mountain’s high speed quad was sold to Crotched Mountain and other lifts went to Pat’s Peak.
  • The Pope rides one of Bolivia’s new Doppelmayr urban gondolas.  The entire line had to be closed until he finished his ride.

North America’s Top Ten Longest Lifts

Peter Landsman4 Comments

North America’s top ten longest lifts are all gondolas or aerial tramways and only half of them are directly used for skiing.  Silver Mountain’s Gondola is number one although it is no longer the world’s longest.  Since 2014, that title has belonged to the Bursa Uludag Gondola in Turkey which is a ridiculous 28,871 feet.  This list does not include systems which have multiple haul ropes, such as Blackcomb’s Excalibur, which I consider to be two separate gondolas.

Silver Mountain's VonRoll gondola was the world's longest when it opened in 1990.
Silver Mountain’s VonRoll gondola was the world’s longest when it opened in 1990.

1. Silver Mountain Gondola, Silver Mountain, Idaho – 1990 VonRoll 8-passenger gondola

16,350′ ride time 16.4 minutes

2. Sunshine Village Gondola, Sunshine Village, Alberta – 2001 Poma 8-passenger gondola

14,894′ ride time 12.4 minutes

3. Peak 2 Peak Gondola, Whistler-Blackcomb, British Columbia – 2008 Doppelmayr 3S tri-cable gondola

14,497′ ride time 9.8 minutes

4. Sandia Peak Tramway, Albuquerque, New Mexico – 1965 Bell 50-passenger tramway

14,338′

5. Silver Queen Gondola, Aspen Mountain, Colorado – 1986 Poma 6-passenger gondola

13,216′ ride time 13.2 minutes

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Park City’s New Pinecone Gondola

Peter Landsman3 Comments
It's not hard to figure out where the new gondola goes. This is looking down from the top of Crescent.
It’s not hard to figure out where the new gondola goes. This is looking down from the top of Crescent.

I found myself near Park City this week and had to check out all the construction creating Utah’s largest ski resort.  It’s one thing to read Vail Resorts’ press releases touting $50 million in improvements but it is quite another to see hundreds of workers scrambling to complete a long list of projects spread over 7,300 acres.  This post will focus on what is perhaps the most exciting part – the new Pinecone Gondola that will link Park City to Canyons.

PCMR terminal and Snow Hut Lodge under construction.
PCMR terminal and Snow Hut Lodge under construction.

The 8,200′ long gondola starts adjacent to Park City’s Silverlode six-pack where a new Snow Hut lodge is also being built.  The terminal and first two tower footings have already been poured.  From this point, the line crosses over a modest ridge and descends before beginning the climb to Canyons in earnest.  There is a break halfway up Pinecone Ridge where the liftline moderates before a steep section to the summit.  Most of the holes for the towers in this portion have been dug including the two breakover towers just before the ridge-top mid-station. I was surprised at how sharp the midstation’s angle will be – around 30 degrees.

Looking up the lift line from tower 4.
Looking up the lift line from tower 4.

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Garaventa Building Record-Breaking Tram in Germany

Peter Landsman4 Comments
Germany's highest mountain is getting a new tram. Photo credit: Bayerische Zugspitzbahn Bergbahn AG
Germany’s highest mountain is getting a new tram. Photo credit: Bayerische Zugspitzbahn Bergbahn AG

Just weeks after opening two record-breaking aerial tramways on the Italian side of Mont Blanc, the Doppelmayr/Garaventa Group has begun construction on an even more remarkable tramway to Germany’s highest summit.  Replacing a 1963 jig-back tram, the new 120-passenger Eibsee Cable Car on the Zugspitze will leave a base terminal at 3,337 feet and top out at 9,718 feet with only one tower in between.  Two other aerial tramways that reach the same summit, the Tyrolean Zugspitzebahn and the Zugspitze Gletcherbahn, will remain unchanged.

Summer rendering of the new bottom terminal building. Photo credit: Bayerische Zugspitzbahn Bergbahn AG
Summer rendering of the new bottom terminal building. Photo credit: Bayerische Zugspitzbahn Bergbahn AG

The new cable car will maintain the old version’s record for the largest vertical rise of a single tramway span at 6,381 feet, down slightly from 6,398 feet.  Its lone tower will be the tallest in the world at 416 feet – 43 feet taller than the current tallest on Austria’s Gletscherbahn Kaprun III.  The new cableway will also have the longest unsupported span at 10,541 feet, breaking the current record of 9,941 feet on the Peak 2 Peak Gondola’s middle span.

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Top Ten Steepest Lifts in North America

Peter Landsman17 Comments

Below is a list of the top ten steepest lifts in the US and Canada.  I calculated these using a ratio of slope length to vertical rise using data from the manufacturers. To give you some perspective, Snowbasin’s tram has the lowest ratio at 1.11 while Whistler’s Peak 2 Peak has the highest ratio at 120.  The average lift is 4.65, meaning 4.65 feet of length to rise one vertical foot, on average.  Only three of the top ten are chairlifts and only five serve ski-able terrain.

Snowbasin's Mt. Allen Tram, built for the 2002 Olympics, is the steepest lift in North America.
Snowbasin’s Mt. Allen Tram, built for the 2002 Olympics, is the steepest lift in North America.

1. Mt. Allen Tram, Snowbasin, Utah – 1998 Doppelmayr 15-passenger tramway

1,165′ slope length x 1,047′ vertical rise = 1.11 length to vertical ratio

edit: Ski Area Management’s lift construction survey had the incorrect vertical for this lift.  It is actually 510′ making the Mt. Allen Tram about half as steep as posted above.

2. Mt. Roberts Tram, Juneau, Alaska – 1996 Poma 60-passenger tramway

3,098′ slope length x 1,746′ vertical rise = 1.77 length to vertical ratio

3. Lone Peak Tram, Big Sky Resort, Montana – 1995 Doppelmayr 15-passenger tramway

2,828′ slope length x 1,450′ vertical rise = 1.95 length to vertical ratio

4. Sulphur Mountain Gondola, Banff, Alberta – 1959 Bell 4-passenger bi-cable gondola

4,498′ slope length x 2,292′ vertical rise = 1.96 length to vertical ratio

5. Honeycomb Return, Solitude Mountain Resort, Utah – 2002 Doppelmayr CTEC quad

1,300′ slope length x 655′ vertical rise = 1.98 length to vertical ratio

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