Arrowhead was originally its own ski area before Bachelor Gulch opened.Depression tower 1.View up the very long lift line.Another look up the line.Chain-driven return station.Doppelmayr CLD-260 terminal up top.When it opened, this was the only lift at an independent Arrowhead Mountain that was later connected with Beaver Creek.Riding up the line.View back down the line.Tower 15.Upper part of the lift line.Unload area and maintenance rail.
When the lift was first installed it only had 84 chairs so 1200 would be correct for the initial capacity, with the addition of Bachelor Gulch in the late 90s the capacity was upgraded by adding the required chairs.
I think this lift should be replaced with a gondola and extended up to the top of Bachelor’s Gulch. It would make getting in and out of Arrowhead much easier as skiers would be able to ski to the main base from Arrowhead in one lift instead of two.
This lift has an actual trail pod off of it. It would make more sense to keep it as a chairlift rather than make people take off their equipment after each run.
Arrowhead isn’t exactly the starting point that the main Beaver Creek Village is.
It’s more likely that this lift undergoes a similar renovation to Pine Marten, wherein the terminals and grips get replaced while everything else is retained. Or, a chondola like with the Centennial Express lift.
Oh god no. Way too much awesome terrain off of this lift for a gondola. If people want to get to the village without skiing, they can simply stay in the village, or take the shuttle bus. It is overdue for replacement, but they should replace it with a 6 pack, not a gondola. It is an easy ski from the top down to the Upper BC Express lift.
This lift was having some strange “surging” behavior when we rode it several times today. We were discussing how old it is and wondered when it would have to be replaced or upgraded. Probably soon…
As far as gondola vs chair, at least for now gondolas are a poor choice in my opinion. COVID likely dampened enthusiasm for stuffing multiple strangers into a box for a while. We always avoid them because there are often A) People talking loudly on the phone B) Drunk people or C) Rowdy kids. No thanks. We actually avoid resorts that require gondola rides.
Arrowhead is really low elevation so it’s not that cold and the chair works just fine!
Vail has yet to do terminal replacement. The closest they have come is Red Buffalo and even then they replaced a majority of components on the towers including tubes not to mention that it was upgrade from a fixed double. (Oh, and this lift is two years older as well.) Highly doubt Vail would simple do a terminal replacement here.
Arrowhead keeps getting more popular by the year, especially true after everyone found out about free parking. This terrain can easily call for a 6 pack which is 99.9% likely to be. Most likely along the lines of Avanti at Vail with the tubes being reused but a full replacement is more then possible.
I can see a low capacity chondola here (maybe a 6/8?). After all, people who don’t like the gondola can ride the chair, and people who don’t like the chair can ride the gondola. It’s hard to find people who dislike chondolas, as proven by the popularity of Centennial.
What is the benefit of having a chondola? Centennial makes sense, as non-skiing family members can have a very overpriced lunch at the top. Why would non-skiers be riding to the top of Arrowhead though?
I think Arrowhead is technically Vail’s first acquisition. I say “technically” because Pete Seibert (one of Vail’s founders) was heavily involved from the very beginning. According to their website, the first run was cut in 1972 — just a decade after Vail opened, and 8 years before Beaver Creek would open. The lift-served “resort” only lasted about 5 years as an independent mountain, from 1988 to 1993.
This lift services a very solid pod of terrain with a consistent intermediate pitch.
Beaver Creek’s terrain is weirdly bar-belled: there are a lot of great low-angle greens (Red Buffalo, Mccoy Park) and a lot of black diamond terrain (Rose Bowl, the Talons, Centennial Face). But the mountain is sort of under-indexed on intermediate runs. Crowd favorites like Gold Dust, Red Tail, and Larkspur see relatively high skier density (and yellow jackets). Bachelor Gulch has some consistent blues, and as a result, can likewise get a bit crowded.
But Arrowhead seems to fly under the radar. In my opinion, Cresta is a candidate for the best blue cruiser at the whole resort … just some really great rolling terrain for a solid 1,700 vertical feet and 1.7 miles of skiing. Arrowhead’s biggest downfall is the elevation, but in mid-season, it’s not a big deal.
Kidding aside, Arrowhead is as much of a hidden gem as you can get at an area as well known as Beaver Creek. Cresta and Golden Bear are some of the best intermediate trails in the state, and the whole area is typically groomed very well. Free parking is pretty sweet too!
As far as lifts go, 17 is due for a replacement simply due to its age. I could see a lower capacity six pack here, or a like-for-like high speed quad replacement. Reusing tower tubes and concrete could lower the cost a bit of a new machine. I heard from a local in town that the 17 replacement has to be at least partially paid for by Arrowhead homeowners. I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but if so it would be a bigger hurdle to get that lift replaced. I would imagine that Chair 12 (gondola/chondola for downloading from McCoy Park) and Chair 16 (increasing crowds in Bachelor Gulch over recent years) and are also high on the priority list for Beaver Creek.
Lone Pine Canyon is the only run I can think of that was abandoned. Technically you can still ski it if you wanted to, it would just require about half a block hike to get back inbounds. The runout was paved to make way for more houses. The runout to Cresta is flat enough, I can’t imagine what the bottom of Lone Pine was like. There were a few trails that were renamed. No Anchovies and Little Brave were both renamed Smooth Moos, and later renamed again back to Little Brave, top to bottom. Real McCoy became Tomahawk. Back To The Bahn became Wapiti. Geronimo became Thunderbird. Quiver became Flint. Thunderbird and Buck Shot were eventually removed from the trail map and trail signage, but they still exist inbounds and are still skiable, they are just considered part of neighboring runs these days.
BC needs to replace this soon, as it looks really old, judging by the pictures. I could see BC replacing this with an 8 similar to Fitzsimmons Express at Whistler Blackcomb and extending it to the top of Bachelor Gulch, as the free parking in this area is becoming increasingly popular and the lines are growing.
I’m not sure that’s really necessary, sure this lift is old but it’s still in great shape. I can easily see BC 5+ years out of this lift. I could see Vail putting in a 6-pack here, but almost definitely not an 8. First off the current lift almost never has a line, and even if they do expand the base area Centennial will always be more popular (and that’s only a 6/10 chondola). That being said, I dont think Arrowhead will ever be a very big base because its lower elevation means its always one of the last pods open on the mountain, as BC would rather focus their snowmaking on other, more popular areas (most notably Centennial). Given all of that, I don’t think Vail would cough up the money for a D-Line in a fairly unnecessary place, they’d be more likely to spend big in other, more immediately necessary places. You have to remember that Fitzsimmons was originally meant to be Silverlode at Park City, which is a much bigger pinchpoint, consistently had horrendous lines, and was already a 6-pack, none of which apply to Arrow Bahn.
Fair point. If Vail Resorts were to buy an 8-pack for Colorado, it would likely go to Avanti Express or some other lift. I will admit that that was a little ambitious, but in my defense, I’ve never skied BC so I wouldn’t know what the lines are like.
Largely non-existent. At 9am on a Powder Saturday you may wait all of three minutes to load. Otherwise, more than half the chairs are typically empty.
This base is, I believe, owned and managed by the Arrowhead community/club, and the public parking is very limited and maxes out most weekend mornings by like, 8:45 am.
I’d personally much rather see a capacity upgrade to Bachelor Gulch, which is the rare Beaver Creek lift that actually forms lines quite often.
Lift Blog 
Why the 1200 Capacity? Arrowhead would seem to be a popular base area…
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That’s a 2,800 pph uphill capacity.
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When the lift was first installed it only had 84 chairs so 1200 would be correct for the initial capacity, with the addition of Bachelor Gulch in the late 90s the capacity was upgraded by adding the required chairs.
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Which makes sense since Arrowhead was originally a private area that was annexed into Beaver Creek through the Bachelor Gulch pod.
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I think this lift should be replaced with a gondola and extended up to the top of Bachelor’s Gulch. It would make getting in and out of Arrowhead much easier as skiers would be able to ski to the main base from Arrowhead in one lift instead of two.
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This lift has an actual trail pod off of it. It would make more sense to keep it as a chairlift rather than make people take off their equipment after each run.
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While that is true, it is a very long lift regardless and the upscale nature associated with gondolas fit in with Beaver Creek’s image.
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Arrowhead isn’t exactly the starting point that the main Beaver Creek Village is.
It’s more likely that this lift undergoes a similar renovation to Pine Marten, wherein the terminals and grips get replaced while everything else is retained. Or, a chondola like with the Centennial Express lift.
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Oh god no. Way too much awesome terrain off of this lift for a gondola. If people want to get to the village without skiing, they can simply stay in the village, or take the shuttle bus. It is overdue for replacement, but they should replace it with a 6 pack, not a gondola. It is an easy ski from the top down to the Upper BC Express lift.
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The Beav is just Vail’s answer to aspen.
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This lift was having some strange “surging” behavior when we rode it several times today. We were discussing how old it is and wondered when it would have to be replaced or upgraded. Probably soon…
As far as gondola vs chair, at least for now gondolas are a poor choice in my opinion. COVID likely dampened enthusiasm for stuffing multiple strangers into a box for a while. We always avoid them because there are often A) People talking loudly on the phone B) Drunk people or C) Rowdy kids. No thanks. We actually avoid resorts that require gondola rides.
Arrowhead is really low elevation so it’s not that cold and the chair works just fine!
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Either a terminal replacement or a six pack is the way Arrow Bahn will go in the future.
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Vail has yet to do terminal replacement. The closest they have come is Red Buffalo and even then they replaced a majority of components on the towers including tubes not to mention that it was upgrade from a fixed double. (Oh, and this lift is two years older as well.) Highly doubt Vail would simple do a terminal replacement here.
Arrowhead keeps getting more popular by the year, especially true after everyone found out about free parking. This terrain can easily call for a 6 pack which is 99.9% likely to be. Most likely along the lines of Avanti at Vail with the tubes being reused but a full replacement is more then possible.
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Then your probably too much of a jerry to ride aspen fool
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@Micha Pena wow, we got a badass over here. I bet riding assspen is wicked dope to you #nerd
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That’s savage 😂
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I can see a low capacity chondola here (maybe a 6/8?). After all, people who don’t like the gondola can ride the chair, and people who don’t like the chair can ride the gondola. It’s hard to find people who dislike chondolas, as proven by the popularity of Centennial.
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What is the benefit of having a chondola? Centennial makes sense, as non-skiing family members can have a very overpriced lunch at the top. Why would non-skiers be riding to the top of Arrowhead though?
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For the views?
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What’s the longest lift at Beaver Creek? I don’t mean elevation or time. Just pure length.
Family and I have a bet!
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Upper Beaver Creek Mountain Express.
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I’m not surprised. It definitely feels like it takes forever.
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I think Arrowhead is technically Vail’s first acquisition. I say “technically” because Pete Seibert (one of Vail’s founders) was heavily involved from the very beginning. According to their website, the first run was cut in 1972 — just a decade after Vail opened, and 8 years before Beaver Creek would open. The lift-served “resort” only lasted about 5 years as an independent mountain, from 1988 to 1993.
This lift services a very solid pod of terrain with a consistent intermediate pitch.
Beaver Creek’s terrain is weirdly bar-belled: there are a lot of great low-angle greens (Red Buffalo, Mccoy Park) and a lot of black diamond terrain (Rose Bowl, the Talons, Centennial Face). But the mountain is sort of under-indexed on intermediate runs. Crowd favorites like Gold Dust, Red Tail, and Larkspur see relatively high skier density (and yellow jackets). Bachelor Gulch has some consistent blues, and as a result, can likewise get a bit crowded.
But Arrowhead seems to fly under the radar. In my opinion, Cresta is a candidate for the best blue cruiser at the whole resort … just some really great rolling terrain for a solid 1,700 vertical feet and 1.7 miles of skiing. Arrowhead’s biggest downfall is the elevation, but in mid-season, it’s not a big deal.
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Shhh… you’re not supposed to tell anyone! :)
Kidding aside, Arrowhead is as much of a hidden gem as you can get at an area as well known as Beaver Creek. Cresta and Golden Bear are some of the best intermediate trails in the state, and the whole area is typically groomed very well. Free parking is pretty sweet too!
As far as lifts go, 17 is due for a replacement simply due to its age. I could see a lower capacity six pack here, or a like-for-like high speed quad replacement. Reusing tower tubes and concrete could lower the cost a bit of a new machine. I heard from a local in town that the 17 replacement has to be at least partially paid for by Arrowhead homeowners. I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but if so it would be a bigger hurdle to get that lift replaced. I would imagine that Chair 12 (gondola/chondola for downloading from McCoy Park) and Chair 16 (increasing crowds in Bachelor Gulch over recent years) and are also high on the priority list for Beaver Creek.
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Unfortunately a couple of trails were lost after BC took over this area, namely Lone Pine Canyon
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Lone Pine Canyon is the only run I can think of that was abandoned. Technically you can still ski it if you wanted to, it would just require about half a block hike to get back inbounds. The runout was paved to make way for more houses. The runout to Cresta is flat enough, I can’t imagine what the bottom of Lone Pine was like. There were a few trails that were renamed. No Anchovies and Little Brave were both renamed Smooth Moos, and later renamed again back to Little Brave, top to bottom. Real McCoy became Tomahawk. Back To The Bahn became Wapiti. Geronimo became Thunderbird. Quiver became Flint. Thunderbird and Buck Shot were eventually removed from the trail map and trail signage, but they still exist inbounds and are still skiable, they are just considered part of neighboring runs these days.
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BC needs to replace this soon, as it looks really old, judging by the pictures. I could see BC replacing this with an 8 similar to Fitzsimmons Express at Whistler Blackcomb and extending it to the top of Bachelor Gulch, as the free parking in this area is becoming increasingly popular and the lines are growing.
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I’m not sure that’s really necessary, sure this lift is old but it’s still in great shape. I can easily see BC 5+ years out of this lift. I could see Vail putting in a 6-pack here, but almost definitely not an 8. First off the current lift almost never has a line, and even if they do expand the base area Centennial will always be more popular (and that’s only a 6/10 chondola). That being said, I dont think Arrowhead will ever be a very big base because its lower elevation means its always one of the last pods open on the mountain, as BC would rather focus their snowmaking on other, more popular areas (most notably Centennial). Given all of that, I don’t think Vail would cough up the money for a D-Line in a fairly unnecessary place, they’d be more likely to spend big in other, more immediately necessary places. You have to remember that Fitzsimmons was originally meant to be Silverlode at Park City, which is a much bigger pinchpoint, consistently had horrendous lines, and was already a 6-pack, none of which apply to Arrow Bahn.
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Fair point. If Vail Resorts were to buy an 8-pack for Colorado, it would likely go to Avanti Express or some other lift. I will admit that that was a little ambitious, but in my defense, I’ve never skied BC so I wouldn’t know what the lines are like.
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Largely non-existent. At 9am on a Powder Saturday you may wait all of three minutes to load. Otherwise, more than half the chairs are typically empty.
This base is, I believe, owned and managed by the Arrowhead community/club, and the public parking is very limited and maxes out most weekend mornings by like, 8:45 am.
I’d personally much rather see a capacity upgrade to Bachelor Gulch, which is the rare Beaver Creek lift that actually forms lines quite often.
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I don’t see why an 8-pack would be necessary. Vail is more likely to go for a 3600 PPH 6-pack.
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