- Global ropeway market will grow to $4.6 billion by 2024, research firm says.
- Doppelmayr’s latest Wir Magazine features Big Sky, D-Line and the new Doppelmayr Connect control system.
- New Northwoods at Vail won’t have a loading carpet.
- Snowbasin traces Wilcat history from single to six-pack.
- Village removal is already underway at Sugarbush.
- Three years after commissioning, Rampart at Snoqualmie finally gets electric power.
- Hunter Mountain’s F Lift (1984 Poma) is apparently down for the season.
- FIS says Aspen likely won’t get another World Cup race until Lift 1A is replaced.
- Submit your name for Eldora’s new six-pack to liftname@eldora.com by April 9th.
- Big Sky experiments with season passes that exclude select lifts with prices ranging from $149 to $6,000.
- Austrian company Salzmann Formblechtechnik produces enclosures for up to five Doppelmayr Uni-G stations every week.
- Gatlinburg Sky Lift steel is up and boy is it orange.
- Utah Valley University students float gondola link over I-15 to the Orem FrontRunner station.
- Workers dig and dig some more to keep the Jackson Hole Aerial Tram above record snowpack.
- Forest Service sends a letter of noncompliance to Ski Apache resulting in the closure of a lift.
- Beloved lift maintenance team lead Mark McFadden dies in workplace incident at Kicking Horse. A Gofundme page has been setup to support his family.
Lift Blog 
That is a great shade of orange.
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Kind of interested in your thoughts/insights for Big Sky’s “no-tram” pass variant. To offer up a less expensive ticket to less “heavy” users of the resort? To make tram users really pay for a congested lift?
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Fellow Boyne Resort Crystal Mountain tried no gondola ticket and pass options for a few years but later abandoned them. My thought is some of these desirable lifts have too low of capacities in the first place. Lone Peak Tram is 200 an hour, Mt. Rainier Gondola 600 per hour. Both experience massive lines so charging extra is the only option to try and mitigate aside from building new lifts. In the Big Sky case, 200 may have been adequate in 1995 but the resort has grown like crazy ever since. The Crystal situation is unique because two high speed quads pre-dated the base-to-summit gondola. All things considered, charging more for these lifts is not a bad idea. Sort of like the HOT high occupancy toll lanes popping up on highways. Both logical but not very popular solutions.
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why did they build such low capacity on the gondola? one would have thought that would end up being a super popular lift.
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Crystal was initially approved to build a low capacity aerial tram. At one point Boyne had a contract with Superior Tramway to build it which was a real head scratcher. My understanding is when that fell apart Doppelmayr offered a deal on a gondola. It has only 23 cabins and was designed for a maximum of 36, crazy low for a nearly 7,000′ system. Low speed and low capacity kept costs down as it has only 15 towers and short terminals.
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I’d love to get some more info about the Superior Tramway Crystal Mountain Tram. Any links?
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I saved some articles at the time. Here’s one from the Spokane paper:
Superior lands two jobs to add lifts at ski areas
Crystal Mountain, Lookout Pass hire company here to do $6.5 million of work
Superior Tramway Co., of Spokane, has been awarded contracts totaling about $6.5 million for projects at Crystal Mountain, a ski resort near Mount Rainier in Western Washington, and at the Lookout Pass Ski & Recreation Area along Interstate 90 near the Idaho-Montana border.
Superior will do design, engineering, fabrication, and component purchasing, under a $6 million contract, for a new two-cabin, enclosed, gondola-style ski lift at Crystal Mountain, says John Kircher, Crystal Mountain Inc.’s president and general manager. He says he believes the lift will be the first of its type in Washington state and one of only five or six such lifts in the U.S.
At Lookout Pass, Superior was awarded an about $500,000 contract to do engineering work and to supply and install a used chairlift that will serve five new ski runs at the ski area.
Engineering work already is under way at Crystal Mountain and will last into next summer, says Kircher. He says some construction work at the resort, which currently accommodates about 380,000 skiers annually with 10 chairlifts, will begin next year. Yet, the bulk of the construction for the new gondola-style lift will be done in 2007 and 2008, with the goal of having the cars operational for the 2008-2009 ski season.
Kircher says installation of the new lift, which will be designed to carry about 100 passengers at a time and will provide skier access to about 60 percent of the ski terrain at Crystal Mountain, will cost about an additional $800,000. The ski resort will act as general contractor on the work, and will subcontract for concrete, helicopter, steel, and other services. Superior will remain on the job as a supervisory engineer during installation, he says.
The ski lift will include about 7,000 feet of cable and will raise skiers—who will carry their skis with them inside the gondola—about 2,450 feet in elevation. Kircher says the maximum speed of the cars will be about 2,000 feet per minute, or about 23 miles an hour.
The gondola-style cars work well at moving big groups of people up steep terrain, says Kircher. He says the enclosed cabins, which likely might be built in Switzerland, will be equally well-suited for scenic summer rides, which the resort will offer.
Crystal Mountain is located along state Route 410 about 11 70 miles southeast of Seattle. It’s one of six ski areas owned by Boyne Resorts Inc., of Boyne Falls, Mich., of which five are in the U.S and one is in Canada.
The Lookout Pass lift happened, Crystal’s didn’t. The idea that Superior could build a 100-passenger tram for $6 million was silly. This was the same year Jackson Hole spent $31 million+ with Garaventa. Ultimately Crystal bought the gondola from Doppelmayr but it took two extra years and cost $2 million more.
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Thanks for the info!
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The tram is way under cap for the turf served. From my understanding Dopplemayr has developed modifications to buy the current system more time assuming the rate of settling at the base station doesn’t change. A new system has also been proposed but it is similar to the existing just adding an additional cabin to each side of the system, so around 400pph. There is talk of a detachable chair from the back extending only as high as Yeti travers allowing access to most of the south and southeast exposures of the peak but this lift will likely have wind issues. Time will tell what solution is chosen. I have my own idea but its cost would rival Jackson hole’s system and considering the frugality of Boyne would be unlikely to be considered.
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The terrain above Yeti should be Tram or Hike to only. If you can actually ski the Big or North Summit, you can hike in no problem.
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Please think of how your statement comes across when replying in the comments, saying “if you can actually ski” makes you sound like an (substitute slang for jerk that involves a posterior body part) who is insulting a complete stranger who was posting about the proposed solutions.
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CVS, that was probably bad phrasing on my part. I’m not commenting on their ability at all, in fact I don’t give a damn. I liked what he said, and personally a Liberty lift would be my favorite solution. I don’t think any terrain above Yeti (NS and the Big) should be considered in where to put the lift because so few people can ski it, both ability wise and that patrol limits access. If the lift dropped below the Rock Maze it would give access to Liberty, Marx, Lenin and a few others, which constitutes the bulk of the terrain skiable off Lone.
Again, if there was any internet tough guy in my original comment, that’s my bad, I didn’t intend for it to be there.
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Speaking of under-capacity trams, this picture from Jay Peak raises some questions. https://www.instagram.com/p/BR_2iNtA1i5/
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I know there has been maintenance issues with Jay’s tram lately, but you think given the whole Ariel Quiros EB-5 fiasco that the resort would double down and begin investing in such a large project?
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The plan was for Garaventa to do a bunch of work this spring but those look like Riblet chairlift assemblies to me. Jay Peak does not have any Riblet lifts so they caught my attention.
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The (relatively) rare east coast Riblet! Can’t be more than 10 or 12 still operating in New England right now. Any theories on where they’d put it?
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This is wild speculation but all I can think of is a temporary lift from the top of the Green Mountain Flyer to the summit while the tram is addressed over time. Sort of like the East Ridge chair Jackson operated for two seasons. Like I said, that picture raises questions because it does not appear to show tram parts.
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Jay used to have a double going to the top where the tram ends now and starting in a spot that looks lower then the present Green Mountain Express’s top terminal (it’s hard to tell exactly where because the Green Mountain Double was in operation at that time and did not go nearly as far), but it was removed in the early 1970s. It was a Doppelmayr centerpole double built in 1965 (http://www.newenglandskihistory.com/lifts/viewlift.php?id=285) and was initially the only way to the summit until the Tram opened one year later. I think what Jay has acquired is a used Riblet Double, and I think they will install it this summer on a line similar to the former Skyline Double to service the summit while the Tram is being repaired (or possibly removed and / or replaced).
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Also there has only been one Riblet chairlift removed in New England in recent years, which is the former Summit Quad at Crotched Mountain, NH (removed 2012), and the sheave assemblies shown in the picture look the same (not sure it Riblet had ever made different styles of sheave assemblies).
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All the Riblets removed since 2010…
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They are parts to help with assembly of the tram upgrade. Sheaves to ride on cables to carry weight.
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Mystery solved. Thanks!
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