Ontario’s Mount St. Louis Moonstone has ordered a first-of-its-kind chairlift to replace the aging Adventure Express. The groundbreaking Adventure 8 will feature a unique L-shaped Doppelmayr D-Line terminal with 90 degree loading and a massive 4,250 passenger per hour capacity. It will travel from the Moonstone base lodge to the Moonstone summit. The lift will also feature a direct drive, loading conveyor and heated seats. Together with Whistler Blackcomb’s Fitzsimmons 8 project, Doppelmayr will build Canada’s first two eight place chairlifts simultaneously in the East and West. This is also the first time in North America a six passenger chairlift will be upgraded to a larger lift.
Family-operated Mount St. Louis Moonstone is known for investing heavily in lift and snowmaking technology with a fleet of four six passenger chairlifts already on the mountain. “My family remains dedicated to providing the finest skiing and snowboarding experience in Ontario,” said General Manager Robert Huter. “This advancement helps guests spend more time on the slopes and less time waiting in a lift line.”
Lift Blog 
Will this be the highest capacity lift in North America?
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Yes, the previous record holder was the funitel at Palisades, at 4032.
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Doppelmayr has always been good at making things more complicated than necessary but damn! This takes the cake!
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Very exciting announcement! This is also the first D-Line chairlift in Ontario and MSLM’s first Doppelmayr installation.
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The latish announcement of two D-lines has me wondering if the poor ski season in Europe is going to add a bunch of late North American projects with Euro build crews this summer.
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To add to the comment from Vons3, MSLM will probably want to get started on the build early, as soon as the snow is off the hills in May, because they have always liked to add an extra fifty feet of dirt for elevation every time they have built a new high speed chair in the last 35 years. I would be surprised if this new Adventure 8 ended up being installed on the same size mountain that the old Adventure 6 is being taken off of.
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No extra vertical will be added on this project ,the lift will leave from the left side of the Moonstone Base Lodge and drop off at the top of the Venture trail which was raised in 2018 to its current elevation. Substantial grading will be done at the unload area to create ample room for unloading in all directions leaving the unload area, so there will be seamless tie in to all existing trails. There will also be a large wind wall constructed to protect the entire unload area and the return terminal.
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Will you cut the pine trees at the top that currently divide Turkey Chute run from Venture? Will the magic carpet at the bottom of the Challenge be removed?
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All spruce trees will remain between top of Venture and top Turkey Chute and Ridge Run
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Possible vons but I believe both Barker 6 and Adventure 8 were ordered many months ago.
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what’s the point of the bent lower station? to me it seems pointlessly overcomplicated.
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The ninety degree loading for the new MSLM Adventure 8 I can understand. They probably want to tuck the terminal up as close to the tree line as they can, down at the bottom of the Venture run. Looks like the Novice Carpet on the Moonstone side will have to move. This is all about showing Boyne how to build mountains. It’s also about boosting to Alterra that they know how to make snow (Blue Mountain Ont. ). I wonder if there was a lift cancellation or two in Europe and Ontario is getting the benefit?
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Kanc8 has 90° loading with a standard D Line station, why not use the same here? While Kanc8 doesn’t have the standard D Line enclosure for the lower terminal, it certainly seems like an easier design modification than this one-off terminal.
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I would imagine it is because of the high design capacity. With tight chair intervals and wide carriers the chairs will hit each other in the corners with the 90 degree loading setup (the corners get tighter to allow the chair to travel straight) Kanc8s design capacity is 3500 pph which is probably close to the most you could fit with a standard terminal setup and 90 degree loading.
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Contour loading was the only option to load the lift due to the location of the drive terminal, in order to achieve the higher capacity the L shape terminal simulates a normal straight loading terminal, after the chair is loaded with guests it simply makes a turn along a smooth arc and heads up the lift line. The L shape terminal is common on high capacity gondola’s in Austria at ski areas like Solden. Standard contour loading has capacity limitation of 3500 pp/h at least with the Doppelmayr product.
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Talk about stealing Boyne’s thunder
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Maybe they want to steal Boyne’s customers. Lots of south western Ontario skiers already drive to Michigan to ski. London Ont to Boyne Falls MI. (Boyne Mtn) is a 4h 45 min drive. London Ont to Harbour Springs MI (the Highlands, another Boyne property) is a 5h 15min drive. On the other hand Detroit Michigan to Moonstone Ont. (MSLM) is 4h 45 min drive and London Ont is just three hours to MSLM by car.
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Moonstone is not on the radar of anyone in Michigan. Used to hear of people occasionally going over to Blue Mt from Detroit area but not much recently. (used to be more of a thing before passport requirements, and it was popular for 19/20 years who could drink over in Canada. However definetely never heard of Moonstone. People aren’t coming over here from Michigan.
The GTA (Greater Toronto Area) is exploding population-wise, and Moonstone is only a little more than an hour straight shot up the 400 from the suburbs/exurb areas of Toronto. This place has a huge draw for the growing Toronto market.
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While this is exciting, it also seems a bit ridiculous. A rough estimate of the current length of this lift on Google Earth is 1658 feet, and the new D-Line will probably be even shorter (the parallel Promenade Express is around 2343 feet so Google Earth might be a bit off, but the lift is still well under 2000 feet long). Assuming a length of 2000 feet and normal D-Line Speed of 1200fpm, the ride would only take 1 minute and 40 seconds. Considering the additional complications of loading 8 people onto a chair instead of 6, I’m not entirely convinced about the benefit of such an overkill lift.
That said as an Ontario skiier this is going to be great, it’ll also be the first Doppelmayr lift on the mountain.
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Crowds at MSLM have been massive for the last few years. MSLM has been great at catering to the new Canadian population and have nearly taken over the non-Blue Mountain crowd from Toronto. Nearby Horseshoe has been a ghost town this season… just compare the webcams. New greedy corporate ownership have raised Horseshoe’s lift tickets past the MSLM rates and within a few bucks of Blue. Its no wonder!
The focus has been expanding the under utilized Moonstone side to cover the excess crowds. On any given weekend this past year, you can expect to see almost every 6 person chair at the resort loaded to the max between 10am and 3pm.
The new lift will start at the bottom of Moonstone base lodge, finally removing the presently awkward lift layout of Promenade starting at the bottom but not reaching the top of Moonstone, and Adventure starting 1/3 way up the hill but reaching the peak, that currently requires a walk up or use of the Novice Carpet.
I expect Blue Mountain to follow suit and replace the Silver Bullet with an 8 person in the near future as well, just to keep up.
BTW there was a previous Doppelmayr installation at MSLM, the 4-CLD Louis Express. It was replaced with 6-CLD JH Express in 2019.
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I agree, both Moonstone and Blue have crazy crowds even with their already high capacity lift systems, so more capacity is definitely better. Just think it’s a bit overkill at Moonstone with such a short distance and potential issues with loading/unloading large 8-person chairs so frequently compared to the existing 6 place. But it’s very exciting to see these new D-Lines come to Ontario.
The Louis Express was a poma btw, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzaPtz9SRME
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Hello,
Yes your right it was a Poma. I got the Louis Express mixed up with Horseshoe’s old quad the Atomic Express which was a Doppelmayr.
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Blue Mountain will need to play catchup on snow making before they will be able to afford to put money into high speed eight passenger lifts. MLSM beat everyone to the punch in getting 100% open (or close to it) weeks before every other Ontario ski hill. Just read MSLM’s history page: “Our Mountain History” to see how they have turned up the dial on hill reinvestment over the past fifteen years.
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Lol… Blue isn’t in the business of providing a quality experience.
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Blue mountain is less than a km from a giant thermal mass called Georgian bay…….MSL sits 30kms inland which is more suitable for snowmaking temps.
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It will probably be a bit longer than Promenade, as Venture is higher, the slope slightly steeper and their station will be probably aligned at the bottom. I’ll measure the run next week :)
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Please do, I’m interested to see how long it actually is!
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Steve to save you some work the slope length is 653 meters ,vertical rise is 145 meters
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LOL! I did the run on Sunday and came up with 699 meter, but probably because I did not do a schuss!
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Wow, what a big couple of days for lift announcements. The crowds at some of the Midwest & Ontario resorts coupled with the overall lack of vertical results in some pretty impressive small lifts. If this lift is about the same length as the one it replaces, it will only be about ~1850 feet or so. Assuming it moves somewhere between 1000-1200 fpm, the heated seats will be good for 90-110 seconds.
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So, by L-shaped terminal, this terminal will basically be like Quicksilver Super6’s loading terminal but with a sharper turn, or the Mountaintop Express (which was built with a wider turnaround to accommodate 90 degree loading with a carpet that’s no longer used).
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Thanks Donald for posting photos of Quicksilver Super6 and the Mountaintop Express. What seems to be clear from your pics is that the L shaped pic rendering in the original Liftblog story, is just an artists rendering for clarity purposes so that we can all see the various parts and how they would interact with each other. The final MSLM Adventure8 Terminal, as built, may or may not have such a pronounced L shape to it. Will wait and see. Exciting, non the less.
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I believe it will be a full L like in the rendering. Look at the bottom of this one: https://www.remontees-mecaniques.net/bdd/reportage-tsd6b-legends-poma-7036.html
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The drive terminal of the Adventure 8 will be the full L shape, the rendering in the video is representative of the design of the drive terminal.
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Question for Andre Huter of MSLM since he is monitoring this thread and answering questions. First off thanks for the Adventure8 investment on behalf of Ontario skiers. Second thanks for answering our enthusiast questions online during a busy ski season. Question: Where will the Novice Carpet on the Moonstone side be moved to when the Adventure8 goes in? thanks.
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Andy the Novice Carpet will get relocated to the East side or skiers left side of the Easy Slope beside the existing boundary fence ,the top part of the carpet may get threaded through the trees since the fence boundary has a curve shape. There are future plans to upgrade the Easy Street and Outback trail pods, to make them more beginner friendly, so the Novice Carpet will most likely get moved again when that project gets executed.
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Thanks for the information Andre! MSLM is truly the best resort in Ontario that is constantly ahead of the curve of it all, even Blue, offering true innovation with a skiers/boarders first-priority attitude. Well done, and excited to see and ride the 8.
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Great article, Peter. I worked as a lift operator at MSLM way back in the winter of 2011/2012. Each year the Huter family invest heavily in improvements in their operations. In the pre-season of that particular season I think it was the new state of the art snowmaking equipment. A good place to work.
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Aug 29, 2023. The new Adventure 8 at MSLM looks gorgeous from the highway. Upper Terminal looks mostly, if not completely done. Most of the towers are up with the cross arms and sheaves in place. Towers 1 and 2 look like they are still in the Moonstone parking lot. And no this chair does not look too big for the slopes it will service, considering that the chairs on these slopes , after 1987, were a pair of Quad chairs. Nice job MSLM. Looking forward to riding the new Adventure 8.
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If I’m not mistaken Mt.St. Louis/ Moonstone was the first resort in Ontario to install a detachable quad, detachable 6 pack and now a state of the art 8 pack.
Bravo to the ownership and team at MLSM!.
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Oct 24, 2023. Drove by the new Adventure 8 at MSLM today. The rope is in place that will be used to pull the haul rope. Won’t be long before chairs are on.
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