Catamount Mountain Resort on the New York-Massachusetts border today announced the retirement of its 49 year old double, a Ski Lift International classic called Glade. A triple chair will take its place next summer, servicing the summit alongside the existing Ridge quad. The lift will be the second new triple installed by the Schaefer Family since they purchased Catamount in 2018. A manufacturer for the project was not revealed.
With the removal of Glade, fewer than 20 SLI lifts remain in operation out of more than 70 constructed across the United States. Catamount’s other double chair is now the last remaining SLI lift in the Northeast. Ride it while you still can!
Lift Blog 
There is still an abandoned SLI double chairlift at the long-defunct Mountain Run ski area in Virginia.
https://www.dcski.com/lostareas/viewlostprofile.php?id=26
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So they removed the lift now and will only add a replacement for the following season?
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Correct.
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I believe this will be the Hay Fever Triple from Hermitage Club. Berkshire East (owners of Catamount) are now consultants for Hermitage Club. They announced earlier this summer that they are removing the Hay Fever Triple from Hermitage as it is a redundant lift now that they have the six pack
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I think Hay Fever is going in at Bousquet this fall. Do the Schaefers have another lift in storage from somewhere? I have an inquiry in to Catamount and will update if I hear back.
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Wonder if the double chairs will be moved to Bousquet to replace the blue chairs on the blue lift.
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If you notice on the Facebook post, SLI chairs from both Glade and Catamount are in the parking lot. I wonder if some of the bail style Glade chairs will go to Catamount to replace that lift’s older center pole chairs.
The Hall center pole chairs at Bousquet are bomber. I don’t see any need to swap those out.
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HayFever will likely go in at Bousquet, another area the Schaefers (<—spelled that wrong) own. That is what I've heard.
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Beginners chairlift, parents with kids have a hard time getting the kid on the chairlift, with that center pole (Bousquet)
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I’m a Berkshire native. Circa 1990, starting in first grade they’d let us out of school at 2 PM for ski lessons at Bousquet. I never had any problems riding the Blue Chair as a kid. The Yellow Chair though, that was a challenge! Higher off the ground and the chairs would swing a ton after rounding the bullwheel.
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I wouldn’t be surprised if a possible NDT failure was a culprit here. I can’t think of any reason for Catamount to remove one of their chairlifts without replacement the next year, especially with Covid limiting capacity. As it’s a double, they could have perhaps used this as a singles lift on peak days, or just simply used it as an alternative route to the summit which would probably get some use considering people want to spread out on the mountain. If they weren’t forced to remove it early or they weren’t able to operate it another season, I really don’t see the point of this.
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What does NDT failure mean?
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NDT stands for Non-Destructive Testing, something that lifts have to go through to open to the public. I’m not sure about the fine details, but if a part on a lift fails NDT requirements, the lift cannot operate. My theory is that a problem was discovered with this lift and it couldn’t operate without modifications that the resort didn’t want to make when they could just install a new lift with a higher capacity. Another possibility is that corporate was planning a replacement in advance to this, and the lift failed NDT and the resort figured they’d just take it out instead of making temporary modifications.
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Thanks for the info, wonder if catamount goes brand new, their history(Berkshire East owners) always buy used.
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Almost always. Summit at Berkshire East came new from Skytrac in 2014.
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I did some measurements on Google Maps, it doesn’t look like they’ll be able to use excess parts from Promenade. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they bought used, Promenade, Ridge, Meadows, Mountain Run at Catamount and Summit Triple, Mountain Top, West, Top Notch and Diamond Express at Berkshire East were all installed used. One thing I’m wondering, what happened to the excess parts from Barnstormer that weren’t used at West NY?
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I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if they used Wonderama. Even though it’s at Butternut, they really have no use for it there. That could just be a temporary storage location before Catamount uses it next summer to replace Glade.
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I spoke with someone at Butternut, it sounds like they have some plans for Wonderama but they are keeping quiet. I’m willing to bet it’s an expansion past overbook, it was in the works many years ago
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Where did the Promenade Triple come from? Was it the former Summit Triple from Berkshire East that they acquired from Magic? This scenario would make sense.
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@Justin, I agree. I would imagine that they would use it for a future expansion west of Overbrook. Not really sure why they shelved the west area plans, there was a pond there already for snowmaking water. They upgraded all of their existing lifts, so their mind obviously wasn’t set on it.
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Sullivan, Promenade actually has a pretty long history
It was originally scheduled to be installed at Tenney, NH in 1986 as the Eclipse Triple. There were lawsuits going both to and from Poma due to a payment issue, and Poma ditched, leaving Borvig to finish the job. The lift was installed a year later at Magic, VT as their Sunshine Corner lift. It was sold to Berkshire East, MA after Magic went bankrupt in 1991 and became their Summit Triple until it was replaced with a Skytrak quad in 2014. BE kept it in storage for potential future use, but in 2018 they purchased Catamount and installed it here.
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They took down the old Glad Chair at Catamount 3 seasons ago and the replacement, which is used and not a new chair, was installed but is still NOT operational. Why do you think that is?
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