- Packsaddle II at Keystone gets the first Skytrac tension-return station based on the Monarch terminal.
- Searchmont’s 1989 Doppelmayr quad chair will spin this season for the first time in six years. The mountain’s nonprofit owner could not afford to address two service bulletins until now.
- See how urban gondolas are evacuated if the need arises.
- Paris’ first urban gondola will be bigger than London’s.
- With orders from Sandia Peak, the Oakland Zoo and Jackson Hole, CWA has now supplied 2,000 cabins in the United States.
- Fernie flies a winter’s worth of diesel fuel – 5,300 gallons – to the Polar Peak triple by helicopter.
- See tons more photos of LST’s first detachable here.
- 42,584 passengers ride Mexicable in its first two days of operation.
- The Navajo Nation Law and Order Committee votes 5-0 to oppose the Grand Canyon Escalade.
- NewEnglandSkiIndustry.com has the latest on all four of New England’s new lifts.
- The new Doppelmayr DCD Chair will debut in Hochzillertal on one of five D-Line installations to be operating in Austria by the end of the year.
- Winch cables and chairs apparently don’t mix well.
- Doppelmayr posts a video tour of the proposed Wälderbahn next-generation 3S with sections of elevated guideways in place of cables.
- Montana Snowbowl throws in the towel on TV Mountain until next spring.
- Echo Mountain sale closes and the mountain will open in December.
Month: October 2016
Instagram Tuesday: Flying
Every Tuesday, we pick our favorite Instagram photos from around the lift world.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BLJMo5BhtJP/?tagged=liftmaintenance
News Roundup: Happenings
- Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto inaugurates Mexicable today with free rides all week and an impressive span of service: 4:30 am to 11:00 pm. Mexicable also features the first Leitner DirectDrives in North America.
- Doppelmayr looks at building a gondola network in Port-au-Prince, Haiti financed by China.
- Three public agencies agree to fund $15,000 preliminary study of Austin’s Wire idea with results to be released in nine weeks. Hint: 19 stations is way too many.
- El Paso’s Wyler Aerial Tramway, built in 1959, breaks down.
- Doppelmayr showcases its Koblenz urban 3S at Innotrans in Berlin. Leitner was there too.
- Sunday River sells chairs from South Ridge, Suicide Six sells more from its old double.
- Pebble Creek’s new owner has 4.8 million followers on YouTube.
- Fatzer and Doppelmayr splice the record-breaking Giggijochbahn and the stats are impressive: 4,500 pph, 134 cabins, 6.5 m/s, 62 mm rope.
- The most expensive lift ever built opens Oct. 22nd at Stubaier Glacier.
- America needs an urban gondola done right, Mike Deiparine of Engineering Specialties Group tells Wired.
- First cabin takes a trip on the Blue line, La Paz’s 5th urban gondola.
Instagram Tuesday: Red
Every Tuesday, we pick our favorite Instagram photos from around the lift world.
Sweetwater Gondola Project Enters Home Stretch at Jackson Hole
A winter weather advisory is in effect all week for Teton Village and the top of the Jackson Hole Tram is already buried under feet of snow. Luckily the Sweetwater Gondola project lies mostly below the snow line, where the Doppelmayr crew is working on final assembly of America’s only new gondola for 2016. All three terminals now have roofs and local resident Norm Duke presided over a splice of the 45mm haul rope Sept. 20th. This week, the team is finishing the final, giant enclosure at Solitude Station. The mid-station also got its maintenance/parking rail last week, which will eventually link to a storage barn on the south (downhill) side. JHMR has always parked Bridger’s cabins inside on winter nights but Sweetwater’s will remain on the line this winter.
An eagle-eyed reader, Charles Von Stade, advised me the other day that Sweetwater’s rounded UNI-G enclosure at the return station is not the first in the world after all. Doppelmayr designed a similar enclosure for the top station of a 2009 six-pack in Austria called Kettingbahn that looks just as sweet as Sweetwater’s.
Fall Blackfoot Construction Update from Grand Targhee
Work on Grand Targhee’s fourth quad chair is in full swing this weekend with new stations and towers arriving for the all-new Blackfoot quad amid fall foliage and fresh snow. The first shipment of steel from Doppelmayr included 13 towers and the support structure for the bottom station, which is in a new location uphill of the old Riblet. Still to come are the CTEC-style operator houses, bullwheels, motor room, haul rope and chairs. Concrete is in the ground and towers are nearly assembled for when the weather cooperates to fly them. Although Grand Targhee is scheduled to open Nov. 18, Blackfoot usually doesn’t usually open until December.
The new Blackfoot will utilize a Tristar-model drive/tension station at the bottom with a fixed bullwheel on a concrete mast up top, the same setup as Challenger up the road at Big Sky. We’ve now seen at least three different return station styles and four drive station models on this year’s new Doppelmayr fixed-grips, including the Alpen Star (Wilmot, Red River); Tristar (Big Sky, Caberfae, Targhee); and Eco (Mont Bellevue). I find it interesting how many different station models Doppelmayr continues to offer when their competitors each have basically just two.
Stay tuned for more updates in the coming weeks from Arizona Snowbowl, Big Sky, Jackson, Powder Mountain and Sundance as the snow flies and this year’s crop of new lifts is completed.
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