Year: 2015

The Ten Shortest Detachable Lifts in North America

Peter Landsman24 Comments

I”ve written a few times about the longest lifts of different types but what about the shortest? The considerable expense of a detachable lift is usually justified for long profiles where speed makes sense.  The average detachable lift in this part of the world is over 5,200 feet long while the average fixed grip lift is under 2,800 feet.  However, the slow loading speed of a high-speed lift also make sense for beginners and foot passengers regardless of the length of the line.  Hence there are plenty of very short detachable lifts that cost millions and take less than two minutes to ride.  Below are the ten shortest ones in the US and Canada.

Beaver Creek's Buckaroo Gondola is among the shortest detachable lifts but makes for a perfect beginner lift.
Beaver Creek’s Buckaroo Gondola is among the shortest detachable lifts but makes for a perfect beginner lift.
  1. Cabriolet – Mont Tremblant, QC – 1994 Doppelmayr detachable 6-passenger cabriolet

Slope length: 1,100 feet, ride time 1.4 minutes.

  1. Easy Rider Express – Sierra-at-Tahoe, CA – 1996 Doppelmayr detachable quad

Slope length: 1,165 feet, ride time 1.3 minutes

  1. Chair 3 – Horseshoe Resort, ON – 1989 Doppelmayr detachable quad

Slope length: 1,400 feet, ride time 1.6 minutes

  1. Super Glide – Alpine Valley Resort, WI – 2011 Leitner-Poma detachable quad

Slope length: 1,421 feet, ride time 1.4 minutes

  1. Valley Flyer – Alpine Valley Resort, WI – 1999 Poma detachable quad

Slope length: 1,426 feet, ride time 1.6 minutes

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A Chondola for Gatlinburg, Tennessee?

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anakeesta

Gatlinburg, Tennessee is the surprising home to a half dozen aerial lifts including the Gatlinburg Sky Lift and Ober Gatlinburg ski resort with a 120-passenger VonRoll aerial tramway.  This town of less than 4,000 may now be adding a Leitner-Poma chondola to the mix.  A new mixed-use development called Anakeesta includes the AerialQuest Adventure Park and a new hotel with a chondola connecting the two.  The project’s website is unclear on exactly what type of system is coming, but apparently it will take 12 minutes each way and have between four and eight passenger cabins (the photoshopped cabins on the website are Gangloff, not Sigma.)  The site calls it a chondola and Telemix although its not clear the person who wrote the copy actually knows what those terms mean.  Websites are cheap, gondolas are not so we will see if this one really opens in the Spring of 2017.

Site plan with the chondola connecting hotel to adventure park.
Site plan with the ‘chondola’ connecting hotel to adventure park.

News Roundup: Pardatschgratbahn

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  • Its been six weeks since the Berry family, owners of Saddleback, Maine, said they would close the resort if they could not find financing to order a new lift by August 1st.  Regardless of the outcome, this has been a PR disaster with a desperate announcement and then silence.  Not a good sign when the general manager refuses to talk to the state’s largest newspaper.  My take: despite the bluff they will find a way to open.
  • Ligonier Construction awarded $4.6 million contract to re-build the State of Pennsylvania’s Laurel Mountain Ski Area.  The project includes a new quad chairlift but I could not find a lift manufacturer identified in the bid documents.  Nearby Seven Springs Mountain Resort will operate the ski area on behalf of the state.
  • Snow Summit proves again that snowmaking systems can save lifts and buildings from wildfires.
  • What if Aspen had a gondola from Ajax to Buttermilk and Snowmass?
  • Not one but four 15-passenger gondolas proposed to link a cruise terminal with George Town in the Caribbean’s Cayman Islands.  I’m thinking even that won’t be enough when Royal Caribbean’s newest ship shows up with 6,000 passengers tired of being on a ship with 6,000 passengers.
  • “No one has contributed more to the task of transporting skiers and snowboarders up the ski mountains of the United States than Jan Leonard,” said the President of the NSAA in the Salt Lake Tribune’s obituary.  Services will be held tomorrow.

Flying Gondola Towers in Park City

Peter Landsman1 Comment

Doppelmayr flew towers for the Quicksilver Gondola in Park City yesterday and today.  I wasn’t able to make it but Instagram has us covered!  Quicksilver has 27 towers but a few had already been set by crane.  Check back next week for more updates from America’s largest ski resort.

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Teton Lift Home Stretch

Peter Landsman6 Comments

The crew from Doppelmayr is flying through work on the Teton lift with 110 days until opening.  Jackson Hole’s fourth high speed quad now has a complete top terminal with the bottom not far behind.  The Uni-G model terminals are mostly gray with white ends.  The 8,500′ haul rope, which was manufactured in Canada, was brought up the mountain earlier this week.  Eighty DT-104 Agamatic grips also arrived in crates last week. The bottom lift shack is the only large component not in already in place besides the haul rope.  At this rate I would not be surprised to see a load test by October 1st.

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Bottom terminal and haul rope.
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Those are windows on the roof.

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Lift Profile: Vail’s Gondola One

Peter Landsman17 Comments
Riding Gondola One to Vail Village.
Riding Gondola One to Vail Village.

When Vail opened the 10-passenger Gondola One in 2012, it marked the return of gondola service to Vail Village for the first time since 1976.  Gondola One is named after the original Bell gondola at Vail, which opened fifty years earlier in 1962.  After a de-ropement on that gondola the Lionshead gondola that killed four, various chairlifts served Vail Village for the next thirty years.  Gondola One replaced the Vista Bahn, one of Vail’s original detachable quads from 1985.  The Vista Bahn was a beast of a lift – over 9,000 feet long with 216 bubble quad chairs that could move 2,650 skiers per hour to the heart of Vail Mountain.  By 2011, the Vista Bahn had reached the end of its useful life and needed replacement.

The bottom terminal is located in the heart of Vail Village and has a spacious loading area.
The bottom terminal is located in the heart of Vail Village and has a spacious loading area.
The Mid-Vail station houses the drive and cabin parking.
The Mid-Vail station houses the drive and cabin parking.

Gondola One is an impressive upgrade, full of modern features and an example of how the gondola is staging a comeback.  Built by Leitner-Poma, it has 120 10-passenger Sigma Diamond cabins with heated seats, LED lighting and Wi-Fi.  Cabin 50 is painted gold to celebrate Vail’s 50th anniversary which was celebrated the year it opened.  Exterior ski racks on the cabins have space for ten pairs of skis or six snowboards and bikes can fit inside the cabins in the summer.

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Jan Leonard, 1946-2015

Peter Landsman3 Comments

Jan Leonard, founder of CTEC and a 40-year veteran of the lift-building business, died unexpectedly this morning at the age of 69.  Most recently, he was Director of Sales for SkyTrac Lifts in Salt Lake City and previously was President of Doppelmayr USA.

jan-leonard
Jan Leonard at SkyTrac earlier this year. Photo credit: Ski Area Management.

After graduating from Penn State in 1968, Jan went to work for American Bridge in Pittsburgh before meeting the manager of Killington on a ski trip and getting into the lift business. He went to work for Vic Hall in Watertown, New York in 1971 before moving to Logan, Utah in 1973 to join Thiokol Ski Lifts.  When Thiokol wanted out of the business a few years later, Leonard and Mark Ballantyne bought the company’s designs and started CTEC (Cable Transportation Engineering Corporation) in 1977.  CTEC built its first complete lift in 1981 and by 1992 was the largest lift manufacturer in North America with 450 employees.  CTEC built 144 lifts as a privately owned American company.

Leonard and Ballantyne sold CTEC to Garaventa of Switzerland in 1993.  Doppelmayr merged with Garaventa in 2002 to form today’s Doppelmayr/Garaventa Group, which ironically included Hall, where Jan Leonard started his career decades earlier.  Leonard stayed on as the President of Doppelmayr USA until 2007, when he left to be an independent ropeway consultant.   He was was off a lift company’s payroll for less than three years before joining SkyTrac in 2010 as director of sales.  “I don’t like losing.  The thrill of getting the sale is phenomenal,” he told SAM earlier this year.

News Roundup: Eco-Friendly

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