Author: Peter Landsman

Finishing Up in the Snow at Solitude

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Finishing up at the drive terminal.
Drive terminal for Solitude’s Summit Express on 11/8/15.

Since I last posted about Solitude’s Summit Express project in September, workers from Solitude and Highlander Lift Services have made a ton of progress, completing 19 towers and the top terminal.  Comm-line is being installed and the haul rope is on a spool at the bottom terminal location.  I say location because the lift doesn’t actually have a bottom terminal yet.  Walking up to the summit today, it’s obvious why the top got priority.  Not only is it the drive, the top is also located on a ridge at over 10,000 feet.  These guys are lucking out with the weather to be building terminals in November with just inches of snow on the ground instead of feet.  The bottom terminal will be at 8,690′ in a more accessible spot and should go up quickly. The biggest components for it are already up there and the operator house is installed.

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The bottom terminal has a ways to go!
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Towers 3-8. The lift line has lots of ups, downs and double fall lines.

The Summit Express is a Doppelmayr detachable quad replacing a double chair which was one of the first twenty lifts CTEC built back in 1982.  The replacement high speed quad’s lift line is completely new and very steep with a bunch of challenging tower locations.  At one point, the lift line crests a ridge and jogs sharply down before continuing up again.  This lift reminds me of Peruvian at Snowbird (which is only a few miles away) with some very steep sections alternating with flat ones.

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What $50 Million Looks Like at Park City

Peter Landsman3 Comments

Tomorrow will mark 11 months since Vail Resorts announced their massive $50 million project to connect Park City Mountain Resort with Canyons to create the largest ski resort in the country.  A significant chunk of that investment went to Doppelmayr USA to build two new detachable lifts and relocate another.  All three projects are nearly finished before there’s even much natural snow on the ground.  In addition to the three new lifts, Park City built a huge new restaurant called Miner’s Camp, added significant snowmaking and did a lot of painting & re-branding.

The Quicksilver Gondola is a month away from uniting Canyons with Park City.

When I visited today the new King Con six-pack was spinning and the Motherlode Express was also finished with chairs on the line.  Crews were pulling com-line at the Quicksilver Gondola and finishing up the angle station.  Check out pictures of all three projects below.  Park City is making snow on both sides of the mountain under sunny skies this weekend and all three new lifts are scheduled to open by the holidays.

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News Roundup: New Owners

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  • See how Sigma Composite builds gondola cabins in the French Alps.  The company also just delivered the first of two trains for Leitner-Poma’s automated people mover at Miami International Airport.
  • Aspen Skiing Co. submits a formal proposal with the Forest Service to replace Lift 1A on Aspen Mountain with a high speed quad, gondola or combination lift as early as next summer.  Meanwhile, this summer’s lift upgrade at Snowmass nears completion.
  • Another Doppelmayr Eco-drive quad going up.
  • Scott Shanaman, who founded Aerial NDT, becomes the proud new owner of Lost Valley near Lewiston, Maine.  The resort (if you can call it that) has two classic Hall double chairs and a T-Bar that hasn’t run in quite some time.  Congratulations, Scott and family!
  • Powdr Corp.’s Las Vegas Ski & Snowboard Resort changes its name (back) to Lee Canyon.
  • Pacific Group Resorts, Inc. buys Mt. Washington Alpine Resort on Vancouver Island, becoming the company’s fourth (and largest) mountain resort.  The Utah-based group bought Ragged Mountain in 2007, Wisp Resort in 2012, and Wintergreen earlier this year.  How’s that for some geographic diversity?
  • Some pics of a sharp-looking bubble six-pack being built by Leitner Ropeways in the Czech Republic.

374 Lifts That Aren’t Where They Used to Be

Peter Landsman18 Comments

In any given year, about a third of ski areas’ “new lifts” are actually lifts removed from other locations that are finding a new home.  There are entire websites dedicated to the buying and selling of second-hand ski lifts.  By my count, at least 374 lifts in the US and Canada have been re-engineered and re-installed at new places, either at the same ski resort or clear across the country.

Jackson Hole's Sweetwater lift, originally built by Yan in 1983, is in its second state and third location. Along the way it picked up some Poma chairs and Doppelmayr controls.
Jackson Hole’s Sweetwater lift, originally built by Yan in 1983, is in its second state and third location.  Along the way it picked up some Poma chairs and Doppelmayr controls.

The ski area that has sent the most lifts to other places is, not surprisingly, Whistler-Blackcomb. Ten of its former chairlifts live on at ski areas across the US and Canada.  Some resorts operate fleets of lifts pieced together entirely from other places.  Big Sky Resort operates nine used lifts, many of them hand me downs from other Boyne Resorts.  Removed lifts that don’t get snapped up by other ski areas often end up at amusement parks and zoos.

The Raptor shuffle. A single Garaventa CTEC fixed-grip quad was installed three different times at The Canyons in just five seasons.
A single Garaventa CTEC fixed-grip quad was installed three different times at The Canyons over just five years in what I call the Raptor shuffle.

A handful of lifts have been moved multiple times.  The Dreamscape lift at Park City (formerly Canyons) is in its third location on the same mountain.  Originally installed by Garaventa CTEC in 1996 as the Saddleback quad, it was replaced the very next season by a detachable quad.  The fixed-grip quad became Raptor, which served the runs between Super Condor Express and Golden Eagle for three seasons, after which it was removed (and still not replaced.)  That same summer, Raptor went to the opposite side of the mountain to anchor a major expansion called Dreamscape.  I would not be surprised to see Vail Resorts replace Dreamscape this coming summer, giving the still-not-that-old quad chair a chance at a fourth life.

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News Roundup: Pulling Rope

Peter Landsman1 Comment
  • Pomerelle’s new SkyTrac triple gets a name: E-Z Rider. Unfortunately 15 lifts already have the exact same name!  Where’s the creativity?
  • Speaking of questionable lift names, Summit Express towers are in at Solitude as are Sunshine Quad towers at Okemo.
  • Lutsen’s new gondola is a beauty.
  • The Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest approves replacements of two Riblet doubles at Stevens Pass.  Kehr’s chair will be a replaced by a fixed-grip triple and Brooks by a shorter fixed-grip quad.  Stevens saved the old Jupiter quad (a 1993 CTEC removed in 2013) presumably for one of these locations.  The Forest Service also approved construction of a new rope tow!
  • “On paper it works, in reality we’ll see,” says FIS race director Markus Waldner of the rush to finish the South Korean ski resort that will host FIS races this February and the 2018 Olympic Downhill.  Doppelmayr has reportedly sent extra workers in hopes of completing the lift system by January 10th.
  • Take a ride on the hottest chair in Canada.
  • You can buy a complete Borvig double chair right now with your credit card for only $65,000.  (For anyone curious it’s from Hidden Valley, NJ which is re-opening this winter with two new Partek lifts.)
  • Whistler-Blackcomb is not a fan of the proposed Garibaldi at Squamish resort along the Sea to Sky Highway and 30 minutes closer to Vancouver than Whistler.  Some background: the same developer invested $200 million to bail out Revelstoke Mountain Resort in 2008 and owns an NHL team.  The master plan for Garibaldi has 18 lifts including a gondola, two six packs and four high speed quads.  I put this proposal in the same category as Jumbo Glacier and Saddle Mountain.
  • Ski Cooper near Leadville, CO wants to build a new T-bar with a pod of 5 trails but not for 3-4 years.

Summer 2015: The Good and the Bad

Peter Landsman1 Comment

It’s almost November and by my count construction is wrapping up on 33 lifts across the US and Canada.  With the usual caveat that there could be a lift project I haven’t heard about, 2015 will be the fourth year in a row that the total number of new lifts has declined.  Nonetheless there are some encouraging trends – namely more of this summer’s lifts were (expensive) detachables and more were brand new rather than re-installations of used lifts.

Click on the map above to explore our interactive map of 2015's new lifts powered by Google Maps.
Click on the map above to explore our interactive map of 2015’s new lifts powered by Google Maps.

Looking geographically, there’s no question the dismal snow situation last winter killed the market for lifts in the Sierras and Cascades.  In a typical year, Washington, Oregon and British Columbia account for five new lifts and this year they had zero.  The Rockies were a bright spot this summer, with at least one new lift being built in every Rocky Mountain state except Montana.  Colorado had a particularly strong year, building five new lifts including four detachables.  Utah had almost as good a year, thanks largely to Vail Resorts’ mega-project at Park City.  Colorado averages 4.4 new lifts a year and Utah 3.3 and both came out ahead of those numbers this summer.

The Midwest was about average for snowfall last winter but its ski areas built just one new lift and one used lift this year.  The one bright spot was Lutsen in Minnesota which spent $7 million with Doppelmayr to rebuild the Midwest’s only gondola.  Looking further east, Vermont was a success story, getting three brand new lifts from both Leitner-Poma and Doppelmayr.  Despite averaging more than five new lifts a year, nowhere else in the Northeast invested in a new lift despite a stellar winter in 2014-15.

Canada had a tough year with only three lifts going in at Sunshine Village, Boler Mountain and Mont Cascades.  In a normal construction season the country’s resorts build 7-8 new lifts. My take is newer resorts in Western Canada – places like Sun Peaks, Revelstoke and Kicking Horse – were hit particularly hard by the Great Recession and still haven’t recovered.2015 by manufacturer

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News Roundup: London’s Gondola

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  • The non-profit organization that bought Soldier Mountain in Idaho from Bruce Willis wants out after three years.  Now the entire ski area is for sale for just $149,000 (that’s the amount the organization owes its bank.)  Included are two Stadeli double chairs built in 1970 and 1974.  I’ve also heard Soldier has at least one lift from nearby Sun Valley in storage for expansion.  The ski area’s master plan includes four new lifts that we may never see.
  • Doppelmayr and Skidata think they have perfected gondola loading with the “easy boarding gate.”  The system uses multiple ‘pods’ with turnstiles to enter.  Flat screen monitors display how many spaces remain in each pod and guests self-select where to go. As gondola cabins enter the loading area, full pods are assigned to cabins with LED lights directing riders.  I’m sure it works but why would a ski area want to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to do what a $9 an hour lift operator can do?
  • 22 towers fly at the Hermitage Club, soon to be home to the only 6-person Doppelmayr bubble lift in North America.  Ironically the same helicopter flew towers from the Hermitage Club’s old triple the very next day at West Mountain in New York.
  • Lots of new pictures of Sipapu’s new quad chair and an update on their blog.
  • Drone footage of Crystal Mountain, Michigan’s “Backyard” expansion with eight new runs served by a used CTEC triple chair.
  • Leitner-Poma takes the Facebook plunge.  Their counterparts in Europe also have a pretty cool page!
  • Peak Resorts, the fourth largest operator of lifts in North America, secures a $15 million line of credit for “resort development and acquisitions.”  Might we see a new lift at one of their 13 resorts next summer?
Lift towers and terminals have arrived for Solitude's Summit Express. Towers were flown up the hill last Saturday.
Lift tower and terminal components for Solitude’s Summit Express as seen last week.  Towers were flown up the hill on Saturday.