Lift Construction

Deer Valley Readies Ten New Lifts

Peter Landsman36 Comments

Each morning, roughly 200 workers converge on Deer Valley’s east flank, putting finishing touches on the largest ski expansion in US history. It’s hard to believe Alterra Mountain Company and Extell Development Company unveiled their partnership to bring the Mayflower project under Deer Valley’s brand less than two years ago. By December, a three mile gondola, two six packs and seven quad chairs will be ready for skiers, completing the majority of the Expanded Excellence vision. After a limited preview last season, Deer Valley’s footprint will more than double this winter to 4,300 acres and 31 lifts. The expansion spans 2,850 feet of vertical relief, with the gondola alone rocketing 2,570 feet skyward in 14.5 minutes.

Deer Valley Senior Director of Mountain Operations Garrett Lang and Alterra Senior Manager of Construction Pete McKinnon graciously took time to show me around this week. I’ve never seen so many lifts at every stage of construction from concrete to rope pulling. Beyond lifts, some 1,250 fixed snow guns, a ridgetop snowmaking pond, several pumphouses and a maintenance facility are also nearing completion. It feels like Deer Valley’s building a city’s worth of infrastructure on the side of a mountain. Of course every fan gun, every lift tower and every terminal sport Deer Valley green.

The only way to complete such an ambitious project in three construction seasons was to divide and conquer. While Doppelmayr supplied all the lifts, they’re only assembling some of them. Big-D Construction crafted numerous foundations while already on site working on buildings. Highlander Ski Lift Services & Construction tackled roughly half the chairlift installations from start to finish. Doppelmayr brought in lift construction experts from all over, including Canada and Europe.

Most readers know Deer Valley launched the six place Keetley Express and two nearby quad chairs last season. While Keetley’s gorgeous, she represents a small portion of the overall project. Within that initial footprint, Layton Construction continues work this summer to complete a parking building for Keetley’s 102 bubble chairs. Right next to the top of Keetley sits the top of Galena Express, one of two detachable quads finished and commissioned last spring. The second is Pioche Express, connecting the bottom of Aurora to the northernmost summit in the 2,274 acre expansion.

The smallest lift under construction is Neptune Express, set to load below Pioche Village and top out next to Pioche Express. This is one of the two machines Highlander’s installing this summer on top of several last year. The Highlander team was completing the top drive terminal this week with the bottom to follow.

The flagship East Village Express gondola will run all the way to Park Peak. A behemoth of a mid-station sits on Big Dutch Peak, where the lift’s two sections connect at an angle. Each segment features its own direct drive and a Fatzer Performa-DT haul rope with cabins able to switch between lines. All three stations and most of the 40 towers were installed earlier this summer. Fatzer subsidiary Rigging Specialties worked to pull ropes this week with the lower line already on most towers. The upper rope, being installed now, will pass over several extremely tall towers and travel downhill at several points along the line.

142 Omega V cabins are set to begin arriving from Switzerland next week. Similar to Steamboat’s Wild Blue Gondola, they’ll feature individual logoed seats. At Deer Valley, they’ll be heated. Big-D Construction is piecing together the gondola’s parking facility, located underneath the future Park Peak lodge. Lodge services won’t be ready for this winter but the first floor parking system should be. It will be fully automated and the plan is to park cabins nightly. The Park Peak complex is designed for a possible third gondola segment down to Silver Lake Village.

For now the D-Line Pinyon Express will connect historic Deer Valley to new terrain. It’ll load between Bald and Flagstaff mountains, lifting six guests at a time to Park Peak with optional bubble. Pinyon will closely mimic Keetley Express, though with longer terminals for in-station parking. Nine of eleven towers and the top station are complete with the bottom station going up now.

The last two pieces of the chairlift network are what the development team call 6A and 6B, originally planned as one lift with an intermediate station. Now dubbed Vulcan Express and Revelator Express, these steep UNI-G quads will service some of the best fall line skiing in Utah. Revelator will cross underneath the gondola and reach the high point of the expansion – 9,370 feet. Revelator’s bottom terminal is in with concrete almost complete and towers to follow in early September. “We’re almost out of the concrete business,” McKinnon noted.

Highlander is working on 6A/Vulcan, the lower lift that will provide egress from a large bowl that makes up the southern boundary for now. From the Vulcan Express unload, skiers will head right toward the East Village or left to continue up Park Peak via Revelator.

Last but not least are three SunKid conveyors to be situated in the East Village. These form the beginning of a ski school progression from carpet to beginner chairlift to Keetley Express or the gondola. Every lift in the expansion will service at least one green route, including a 4.85 mile snake named Green Monster.

Deer Valley notes 1,200 day skier parking spots will be ready this season in the East Village, up from 500 last winter. A permanent skier services building won’t be but guests can ride a tram to temporary facilities by the gondola (the ride will be shorter than last winter’s to Keetley.) For destination visitors, the Grand Hyatt Deer Valley is already open with a Four Seasons and Canopy by Hilton under construction.

The Hail Peak Maintenance Facility includes a 10,000 gallon per minute pumphouse and space for vehicle maintenance with three cat bays. A 10 million gallon storage pond is being excavated near Park Peak, fed from the Jordanelle Reservoir below. The snowmaking system will include central air lines, meaning no onboard compressors needed for 150 TechnoAlpin fan guns. The vast majority of the system’s 1,100 HKD stick guns will be fully automated.

This season won’t mark the end for Alterra and Extell’s construction teams. Deer Valley recently announced an additional UNI-G detachable quad to open for 2026-27 on Hail Peak, serving seven runs and providing direct lift access from the day skier parking lot. Even once that lift is completed, guests needing rentals or lessons can opt for a tram ride through a new tunnel to the village. There will be escalators.

Park Peak terrain seen during the 2024-25 season.

Several additional lifts remain in the master plan with no set timelines for construction. Possible future projects include a quad on the backside of Bald Mountain, a longer Crown Point lift starting below Keetley Point and a lapable six pack on Big Dutch Peak. Beyond lies South Peak, an expert’s paradise with two possible chairlift alignments. Resort leaders are taking a wait and see approach, watching how skiers flow the next few seasons. With nearly 100 new trails this winter, it’s going to be awhile before Deer Valley needs more terrain.

Thanks to Lift Blog reader and pilot Auston C. for flying me over the expansion and to the Deer Valley team for hosting me.

Inside Skytrac’s New Home Base

Peter Landsman14 Comments

In between Utah lift visits last week, I ventured to Tooele, a sleepy town west of Salt Lake to see America’s newest lift factory. Skytrac Lifts opened its 25-acre campus last summer, which will supply chairlifts and surface lifts to customers throughout the US. During my visit, the Skytrac team was finishing getting settled while gearing up to build at least nine new lifts this summer.

Skytrac has grown substantially since building its first drive terminal at Monarch Mountain, Colorado in 2010. With the late Jan Leonard as one of the founders, the company quickly found a niche providing ski areas high quality yet uncomplicated fixed grip chairlifts. As of this winter, Skytrac has built 82 lifts in three countries along with numerous retrofits, modifications and relocations.

Leitner-Poma of America acquired Skytrac in 2016. The two companies remain distinct brands under Italian conglomerate High Technology Industries (HTI). Skytrac and Leitner-Poma often bid separately on the same projects and retain unique product lines. While both subsidiaries make fixed grip chairlifts, Skytrac recently took over the surface lift (T-Bar and Platter) side of the business while Leitner-Poma focuses on larger chairlifts and gondolas. For a surface lift, Skytrac manufactures operator houses, towers and control systems but imports carriers and terminals from Leitner’s specialized facility in Slovakia. Skytrac’s original products, the Monarch fixed grip chairlift and Hilltrac inclined elevator, are produced almost entirely in Tooele.

HTI’s 130,000 square foot building replaced a smaller site Skytrac leased site near the Salt Lake City airport. Tooele lies roughly 30 minutes west with ample land and two nearby technical colleges. With Skytrac occupying 90,000 square feet, the $27 million facility can produce nearly an entire chairlift under one roof. Everything from chairs and towers to bullwheels and control systems are made here. Electrical, engineering and sales departments work right alongside the production hall. Skytrac lifts are truly made in America with typically only the haul rope and gearbox imported from abroad.

The new facility is even larger than LPOA’s Grand Junction plant with ample room for growth. Bobby Langlands, Skytrac’s Sales Engineer and my tour guide, said the factory could probably pump out 20-plus lifts a year, up from the eight to ten they generally do now. In addition to production, there’s a cavernous parts warehouse, which will expand to include stock for the growing number of Leitner-Poma lifts in the Intermountain region. HTI sister companies Prinoth and Demaclenko also have space for parts and service in Tooele.

One of the coolest things when touring a lift factory is seeing parts tagged with names of mountains they’re headed to. Lift manufacturers generally produce components in order of contract signing and I saw pieces destined for Pats Peak, Ski Butternut, Monarch and Snowmass. Skytrac produces the most common components in advance based on a forecast. As an example, the company is producing 120 tower crossarms this spring and will do a second production run later if orders warrant. One thing that makes a Skytrac lift relatively affordable is the number of parts that are common among every lift. The chair bail, for example, is the same regardless of whether a customer orders a double, triple or quad.

Recently Skytrac has been busy engineering and fabricating restraint bars for older lifts that did not previously have them.

Skytrac utilizes several robotic welding machines in Tooele along with automated plasma cutters. Hard working people do the rest of the work by hand. The new facility includes a state-of-the art sandblasting and paint booths for finishing operator houses and motor room enclosures. Galvanizing is completed offsite by contractors.

In addition to Skytrac, Leitner-Poma, Demaclenko and Prinoth, a fifth HTI company is also involved with the Tooele project. Wind energy manufacturer Leitwind supplied a 250 kilowatt wind turbine capable of powering the entire plant. Italians were on site last week testing the turbine to prepare to hook up to Rocky Mountain Power’s regional grid.

Skytrac built nine complete lifts in 2024 and plans to do at least that many again this year. During my visit, the construction team was outside preparing to fan out across the country as Skytrac nears its 100th new lift.

Expanded Excellence Takes Shape at Deer Valley

Peter Landsman8 Comments

Hundreds of workers are racing to finish the initial phase of Deer Valley’s Expanded Excellence addition, scheduled to open in December. Garrett Lang, Deer Valley’s Director of Mountain Operations and Mike Walker, Senior Construction Manager, kindly gave me a personal tour of the megaproject yesterday.

Top drive terminal for the Keetley Express, set to open this winter.

This winter will be a 316 acre preview of what will be a much larger expansion totaling 2,900 acres over two years. Winter 2024-25 will launch the mountain’s first six pack – a bubble – and two quad chairs rising from the new East Village. Additional lifts are in varying states of completion, including a monster 10 passenger gondola set to open in 2025-26. Simultaneously, a Grand Hyatt hotel, 500 new day skier parking spaces, miles of snowmaking pipe, electrical infrastructure and temporary skier services are also coming together.

Those driving by on U.S. Route 40 probably won’t grasp the full scale of the expansion, which encompasses 2,850 vertical feet and 110 new trails by 2025-26. Several new lifts will be among the longest at Deer Valley. While 500 paved parking spots will open this season, 700 more are being reserved for lift construction laydown. Workers from both Doppelmayr and Highlander Ski Lift Services & Construction are piecing together the lifts, which are being manufactured in Austria, Canada and the United States.

Rocky Mountain Power built an entire new substation to service the vast snowmaking system and burgeoning village. A brand new mid-mountain maintenance facility will support lift, snowmaking and vehicle maintenance needs. Employee housing is also included in the project.

Grand Hyatt Deer Valley, the first of several hotels set to anchor the East Village.

The main attraction this season will be Keetley Express, a D-Line sixer loading steps from the Hyatt. Keetley is the name of the town once buzzing nearby but overtaken by the Jordanelle Reservoir in the 1990s. Like all Deer Valley lifts, Keetley Express will sport a thoroughly green livery with white accents. The flagship will feature gray bubbles and European-made seats. From the top of Keetley Express, skiers will gain access to Deer Valley’s existing footprint via either Mayflower or Sultan Express.

Map showing this winter’s preview lineup, center in yellow.

Directly adjacent to Keetley is Hoodoo Express, a UNI-G high speed quad (the word Hoodoo means a column or pinnacle of weathered rock; all the expansion’s trail and lift names were chosen from a pool of 500 historic mining claims in the vicinity.) Hoodoo will parallel Keetley but stop after only a handful of towers, creating an ideal beginner area above the East Village. Because of its proximity to Keetley Express, the bottom terminal will be modeled to look like a D-Line.

Galena Express lift line and completed foundations.

Finally a quad named Aurora will load in a drainage near the East Village and return skiers to the Hyatt zone. Aurora is the only fixed grip lift in the entire expansion and will feature a loading conveyor. Three carpet lifts are also planned for beginners.

Several other lifts are well on their way to reality. Near the top of Keetley Express, foundations are also complete for Galena Express, a UNI-G high speed quad set to open next winter. The East Village Gondola, made up of seperable upper and lower segments, is coming along with foundations being formed. Two major lifts have yet to start construction: the upper mountain Pinyon Express bubble and the giant Revelator Express six pack on Park Peak. These two systems will service a vast network of high elevation trails miles above the East Village. The final two lifts set to open next year are Neptune Express and Pioche Express, detachable quads primarily serving lower elevation real estate.

2025-26 footprint.

The East Village and planned terrain expansion are just part of Deer Valley’s ambitious roadmap. Later phases may include lifts on both South Peak and Hail Peak. Simultaneously, Alterra Mountain Company aims to redevelop the Snow Park base, including the replacement of Silver Lake Express with a gondola and Carpenter Express with a six seat detachable. A third new gondola is being eyed to connect Silver Lake Village to Park Peak, where the gondola from East Village lands. Both gondolas landing on Park Peak will share an underground cabin parking and maintenance facility. Deer Valley also plans to begin replacing aging existing lifts such as Northside Express and Wasatch Express in the coming years.

One of hundreds of new HKD stick guns, supplemented with TechnoAlpin fan guns.

Although no specific grand opening date has been announced, we are likely only around 90 days out from what’s sure to be a celebration and huge milestone for Deer Valley.

Big Sky Readies America’s Next Great Tram

Peter Landsman36 Comments

Garaventa and Big Sky Resort are in the home stretch of a herculean effort to bring modern lift service to Lone Peak, the first new tram built at a North American ski area since 2008. Switzerland-based Garaventa is the same outfit that brought skiers the new Jackson Hole tram 15 years ago, the Snowbird tram in 1971 and the Palisades Tahoe tram before that.

The original Lone Peak Tram, which catapulted Big Sky to the upper echelon of extreme skiing in 1995, will carry its final souls a few weeks from now. The only passengers left to hoist are construction workers and a few lucky spectators touring the progress. With one rope and 15 passenger “beer can” cabins, the tram is more jig-back gondola than a true aerial tram. It was built by Doppelmayr, the Austrian heavyweight which absorbed Garaventa six years after skiers began conquering Lone Peak. Garaventa remains a specialized subsidiary of the Doppelmayr Group focused on aerial trams, funiculars and the Swiss market.

The old tram needed to go. The bottom terminal was built atop a rock glacier and, while designed for it, flowed at least 25 feet downhill over the past 28 years. The lower dock no longer sits level such that water pools in triangles at corners. Erroneous faults occur routinely as the tram completes its final missions to 11,166 feet (it’s not a safety issue, each fault is investigated before the lift is restarted).

This summer’s greatest challenge was not the tram installation itself but rather setting twin tower cranes needed to build the 100 foot intermediate tower and top terminal. Each crane had to be flown in sections weighing up to 9,000 lbs. It took multiple Chinook helicopters weeks with pauses for bad weather and other setbacks. Once the cranes were live and Big Sky’s own employees trained to operate them, the installation team from Garaventa could get to work.

Big Sky and contractors completed micropiles, tiebacks and concrete work last summer, setting the stage for this summer’s steel erection and rope pulling marathon. As of today, three of the four track ropes are on their bollards. A fourth track rope pull is in progress with the haul rope on deck. For each track rope, a helicopter pulled a 10 mm pilot line up to the top terminal and back down. Then crews attached and pulled successively larger 18 mm, 22 mm and 32 mm ropes until finally the smooth 48 mm track rope was up the line. The process is slow and steady with up to 10 Swiss men on headsets and binoculars monitoring every inch of progress for 5-6 days per rope. The 37 mm haul rope will be pulled in similar fashion and spliced into a continuous loop like more traditional ski lifts. The tram will be driven from the bottom station with no counterweight required for tensioning. Redundancy is built in everywhere, from multiple transformers to dual motors, evacuation drives and generators. Frey AG Stans supplied the lift’s state-of-the-art control system, similar to one recently installed on Snowbird’s tram.

This winter, guests will pay per tram ride rather than a daily rate as they did in the final years of the old tram. Big Sky notes the average tram day pass purchaser only rode 1.8 times. The privilege cost $20 to $100 depending on demand and some were riding the tram multiple times solely to feel better about their investment. This added to long lines and detracted from the Lone Peak experience. New tram access will cost less – $10 to $40 per ride – charged automatically to a credit card with each scan at the bottom dock.

Big Sky Ski Patrol will monitor conditions hourly and decide how many skiers and snowboarders to let on the cars, which can hold up to 75 riders. Big Sky will also debut a sightseeing specific line designed to fill excess tram capacity with guests not utilizing limited ski terrain off the summit. Come 2025, foot passengers will be able to ride a new 10 passenger gondola from the Mountain Village right to the base of the new tram. This boarding location lies 700 vertical feet lower than the old tram station, eliminating the need to ride Powder Seeker for a tram lap. Most importantly, it’s below the rock glacier. The new tram will eventually open year round, though summer 2024 will be spent completing glass enclosures around each station.

Once rope pulling wraps up, the tram’s two cabins will be driven up from the village and attached to the haul rope. The CWA cabins will feature automatic doors, a glass floor panel and seating for 12. Acceptance testing is expected to take four to five weeks. Big Sky has been careful not to advertise a grand opening date, but the word December is being thrown around. That month will mark 15 years since the last new tram debuted in this part of the world and 50 years since Big Sky opened.

Photo Tour: Palisades Tahoe Base to Base Gondola

Peter Landsman38 Comments

More than just a new name and logo dot the landscape at Palisades Tahoe this season. Whether starting a ski day in Olympic Valley or at Alpine Meadows, it’s impossible to miss dozens of newly-standing towers for the upcoming Base to Base Gondola. Leitner-Poma accomplished an incredible amount of work last offseason, completing four sets of terminal foundations and 33 towers for the $65 million project. Two haul rope spools sit 2.2 miles apart ready for construction to resume this spring.

Alterra and Palisades have been amazingly restrained marketing what will be a truly iconic lift. As of yesterday, no signs indicate what’s going on and there’s nothing on the trail map to indicate Palisades will be a unified 6,000-acre behemoth in a matter of months. For now, a zig-zag line of tower tubes gives a pretty good indication of greatness on the horizon.

The traffic-busting gondola will begin in the Village where the current Red Dog triple has loaded for the past 32 seasons. That lift is set to be removed this summer and swapped for a six passenger detachable in a new alignment. The gondola will ascend KT-22, crossing over Exhibition and the high speed quad affectionately known as The Mothership. The second of four B2B stations sits near the top of KT, where the shorter of two haul ropes will turn back around while cabins continue on. When conditions permit, skiers will be permitted to unload here, creating a whole new way to access much of KT-22’s storied terrain. Riders destined for Alpine Meadows will turn and descend into the middle section of the lift on a second, longer haul rope. The gondola roughly parallels another line of lift towers for a never-completed chairlift on land owned by Troy Caldwell. It seems to me Mr. Caldwell could win some hearts and minds by removing these obsolete eyesores now that a state-of-the-art gondola will traverse nearly the same alignment. But it’s his land and the fate of the private ski area dream remains to be seen.

A third station with a slight angle change will also sit on the White Wolf property. The public won’t be able to get out here but there’s a possibility Caldwell and future nearby homeowners might. For the rest of us, cabins will simply decelerate, turn and take off again for the final jaunt over the Alpine Meadows parking lots to the base of Leitner-Poma sister machine Treeline Cirque. All told, the 16 minute ride from base to base will include a 1,700 vertical foot rise and then thousand foot descent. With views of the Granite Chief Wilderness and Lake Tahoe, this gondola will be as much about the journey as the destination.

Skiing down the lift line it becomes clear this gondola will also be a fair weather activity. You can bet as storms roll across the Sierra the lift’s more than 100 cabins will be tucked safely inside a parking structure at Alpine Meadows. There’s just no way the Base to Base will spin in high winds. But when mother nature cooperates, Palisades Tahoe will ski seamlessly as the third largest resort in North America.

While much work remains, Alterra says the gondola will be ready to go in November for the start of the 2022-23 season.

Towers Take Flight for Big Sky’s Swift Current 6

Peter Landsman31 Comments

North America’s fastest six passenger chairlift is on track to open this Thanksgiving at Big Sky Resort. For the past three days, teams from Big Sky, Timberline Helicopters and Doppelmayr placed 23 towers and removed another set from the previous Swift Current quad. The new, conical towers are so burly it took nearly 200 heli trips to complete installation.

Swift Current ranks among North America’s largest new lifts this year and will complement Ramcharger 8, the trailblazing eight place bubble chair on neighboring Andesite Mountain. Swifty 2.0 features the same three ring Doppelmayr Direct Drive motor and 125 Big Sky Blue bubble chairs with heated seats. The previous Swift Current detachable quad will be placed in storage for re-installation somewhere within the Boyne Resorts portfolio.

The nearly complete bottom terminal sits just uphill of the old loading point, freeing up space the base area. The bottom is also no longer the drive station, increasing efficiency and reducing noise in the village. Together with Ramcharger, two D-Line lifts will lift up to 6,600 skiers per hour out of Big Sky’s Mountain Village.

Like at Ramcharger, an indoor parking facility is taking shape adjacent to Swifty’s top terminal, which will will feature 90 degree unloading and totally reimagined flow. Skiers and snowboarders coming from Shedhorn will enjoy a wider skiway around the top terminal instead of dodging unloaders from Swift Current. Snowmaking will reach the top of Swifty for the first time ever this season, a welcome addition to a high traffic spot subject to sun and wind. Come summer, 38 bike carriers will come out of the parking facility and carry four mountain bikes apiece.

Big Sky will now feature four distinct bubble chairlifts on Andesite Mountain, Lone Peak and Spirit Mountain. Along with the Swift Current project, the Lewis & Clark high speed quad is in the process of receiving new blue bubbles and a capacity increase to coincide with the planned Christmas opening of Montage Big Sky.

With seven new lifts in five years, there’s always something exciting going on at Big Sky. As Swift Current 6 nears completion, I can’t help but wonder what this mecca for modern lifts will build next.

First Disney Skyliner Cabins Revealed

Peter Landsman9 Comments

In addition to becoming one of the most-ridden gondola systems when it opens this fall, we now know the Disney Skyliner will also be among the most colorful.  After nearly two years of construction, cabins are finally out and about on all three new gondola lines spanning Walt Disney World Resort.

The cabins crisscross between the world’s seventh and ninth most-visited theme parks plus four resort hotels.  Last week, Disney and Doppelmayr removed protective covers from 55 cabins that will service Hollywood Studios, revealing a cornucopia of colors and characters.

There are eight core colors including multiple shades of blue and red.  Some cabins are monotone while others feature Disney icons from across nine decades.  Beauty and the Beast, Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Wars, Toy Story and Winnie the Pooh are just some of the storied franchises highlighted on gondolas.

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Disney Skyliner Proving Runs Underway

Peter Landsman9 Comments

The first of Walt Disney World’s three Skyliner lines is looking a lot like a gondola these days with cabins moving along at a brisk clip during test runs.  Line speed appears to be at least 5 m/s with cabin interval around 10 seconds, translating to a 3,600 per hour capacity.  We’ll have to wait and see what the final spacing and speeds are but it’s clear these gondolas are going to move a ton of people.

One of the many cabins now flying between Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort and Hollywood Studios was recently uncovered, providing some clues to how the system will look when completed.  The landing below the cabin doors is wider and squarer than normal for easy loading and unloading.  There are three windows that open out on the front of the cabin, one on the tower side and two at the rear.  Additional vents at the bottom ensure there will be plenty of air flow.  While gondola number 251 is a simple yellow with glazed windows, many other cabins will feature Disney character graphics.

The Epcot line, which stretches some 8,200 linear feet with two angle changes, is not far behind on its way to completion.

At the first angle station, landscaping is underway and stairs are being erected for worker access to the terminal.

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Gondola Cabins Arrive at Walt Disney World

Peter Landsman5 Comments

A rainbow shipment of CWA cabins is now stateside, earmarked for the skies above Central Florida.  Construction continues on the three line Disney Skyliner system, which is set to open this fall and sure to become a showcase for high capacity lift technology.

https://twitter.com/WDW_413/status/1087808139532095488

In addition to the row of cabins now staged at the Caribbean Beach hub, cabins have also been spotted in the Epcot, Hollywood Studios, Pop Century and Art of Animation stations.  While the gondolas are covered in protective wraps, you can see they come in a variety of colors with Disney character art on the windows.

There are interesting looking electrical boxes on the cabin roofs.  I’m curious to see what sort of infotainment the Skyliner carriers feature, if any.  It does not appear that power is derived from solar panels, as is the case with some other urban gondolas.

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Three New Quads Debut in Utah

Peter Landsman8 Comments

IMG_5644
The brand new Homestake Express seen on opening day at Deer Valley.

Utah ski resorts are proving this season that lifts need not be giant to positively impact guest experiences.  I got to visit the state’s three newest chairlifts this week, which are all short but sweet with beginner skiers in mind.

High Meadow Express – Park City Mountain

highmeadow

The High Meadow Express is the centerpiece of re-imagined teaching terrain above Park City’s Canyons Village.  With mellow loading and unloading speeds, a quick ride time and an improved alignment, the high speed quad marks a significant step up from the fixed quad it replaces.  High Meadow Park is now wide open with perfectly pitched beginner trails.  Expanded snowmaking rounds out the freshened up beginner zone.

Homestake Express – Deer Valley Resort

homestake

Homestake Express launched this morning at Alterra-owned Deer Valley, becoming the resort’s 13th detachable quad.  Ride time is now under two minutes between Silver Lake Lodge and Bald Eagle Mountain.  There are only eight towers now, down from 12, freeing up space on the busy Silver Link ski run.  The new Homestake also features slatted backrests for wind resistance.

Snowpine – Alta Ski Area

snowpine

In Little Cottonwood Canyon, the new Snowpine Quad carried its first skiers yesterday.  The Skytrac Monarch was manufactured just 30 miles away in Salt Lake.  While it only has two towers and a dozen chairs, the new lift serves dual functions.  It will provide ski-in, ski-out access to the new Snowpine Lodge, which opens January 30th.  Alta’s first fixed grip quad also provides a beginner-friendly alternative to the surface tow it replaces.  The return terminal is height adjustable for the big snow years.