Powdr Co. has reached a deal with Doppelmayr to build a new Kokomo high speed quad at Copper Mountain, following a recently announced Eldora six-pack for 2017-18. The new lift will extend downhill of the current triple chair, built in 1981 at Copper Mountain’s West Village. Kokomo Express will serve 362 vertical feet of dedicated beginner terrain with a four minute ride time, “setting the bar for an exceptional beginner ski and ride experience,” Copper said in a press release today. The new Kokomo follows on the heels of the Union Creek Express, built in 2011, and two new surface lifts in 2013, all installed by Doppelmayr USA.
Copper also announced implementation of RFID lift access technology at key lifts and a mountain coaster for next season. “The future is extremely bright for Copper,” said Gary Rodgers, President and General Manager of Copper Mountain. “These strategic capital improvements will enhance our product offerings and truly elevate the year-round guest experience at Copper.” The Kokomo Express is the seventh lift to be announced at Colorado resorts for this summer. New lifts will also debut at Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Eldora, Keystone, Vail and Wolf Creek next winter. The addition of Kokomo means Doppelmayr will build at least 14 North American lifts in 2017; last year the company built 18 in the United States and Canada.
Lift Blog 
I assume this lift will run the route of the proposed gondola by Intrawest in 2003.
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Actually it wont, it was decided some time ago to abandon that plan. The map given is close representation, the top will be near the fairway/prospector split allowing skiers to use both Prospector and roundabout trails from the lift. In the future it is planned to also upgrade Lumberjack to a detachable.
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Save the gondola for the new Flyer.
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I hope they are getting new operator houses as part of the deal!
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Dam right, I hated those shacks as they had no space to store tools or anything else.
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I hope they are planning to reuse K to build a new C1 as that was the plan 5 years ago.
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No, that thing is awful. It is very slow as well
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The plan was to extend C1 down the mountain so it would utilizes the old tenderfoot terrain on the golf fairway, as this is about 1/2 as long as the existing K lift ride time wouldn’t be an issue plus other than the ski school and condo traffic going to Super Bee the green acres terrain is not heavily used.
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What is C1?
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The Flyer has got to be next. That thing is an old-school Poma Alpha Falcon detachable and has to be near end of life.
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Eagle is on the short list before flyer due to its high hours and year round use. The last time I spoke to John (Flyers mechanic) the resorts plan was 5-10years more for flyer. With the addition of UCQ, Flyer got an extension on its life as it lessened some demand on the lift.
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If anyone can keep that thing going 5-10 more years, John is the man.
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Any plans to get a high speed lift to the top of Lumberjack. Even if from T-Rex.
Under Lumberjack is great terrain and not well used due to very slow lift access.
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The new Kokomo will be brought down to the elevation of the Union Creek cafeteria to make it much easier for every to use and some grading will be done to open up the lower part of the Roundabout run. The Flyer lift is being discussed in several configurations including a “chondola” which incorporates chairs and gondola cars intermittently. I would like to see it go to the top of Union Creek bowl with the existing top terminal area being a mid stop.
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While I am happy about the bottom of the chair being relocated further down the mountain, I would sure rather see the high speed lift resources being used elsewhere on the mountain. We have been awaiting a lift up Tucker mountain for quite awhile now and the flyer could stand an upgrade. It is unfortunate the new lift cannot be routed to terminate at the top of Lumberjack chair. The positive is the comfort for beginner skiers and riders, the negative is they will spend a whole lot of money to upgrade the lamest lift on the mountain which could delay future, more useful lift changes.
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Dear Boardski. You don’t fix what isn’t broken. Flyer, although long and cold most of the time works
just fine as a mode of uphill transportation. Kokomo on the other hand is a fossle that doesn’t work. It is usless as a training tool. 2 runs with novise or bigginer student and your morning is shot. Kokomo makes people unhappy. It’s tough to get to, slow as hell and super crowded at all the wrong times. Your resoning for wanting to skip improvments to Kokomo is one sided at best.
The growth of this industry depends on new customers. Think about it,as a new skier/boarder
would you want to climb up 100 vertical feet over a 10th of a mile only to stand in line for 1/2 hour to ride a chair that stops every 15 seconds to plop you off in a heeping pike of fallen skiers an hour
after you started. Unhappy Cold and wet newbies don’t come back. Copper made the right desision. BRAVO for them. You Sir will just have to wait. Deal with it!!
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I cynically think that the lift up Tucker (which would transform skiing at Copper) will have to await the new Aspen group putting enough money on the table to get a deal done with Copper (Vail would probably encounter anti-trust concerns). Hopefully there will be enough money in the larger group to fund the CAPX for the Tucker lift. But this has been a long and frustrating wait.
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