Lift Construction

First Look at Big Sky’s Powder Seeker Six and Challenger 2.0

Peter Landsman15 Comments
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Powder Seeker will be the Rockies’ first six-passenger chairlift with bubbles and heated seats when it debuts this winter.

Lone Peak is a happening place this November as crews from Doppelmayr USA and Big Sky Resort work to finish not one, but two of America’s largest new lifts this year.  I’ve been following these projects since April, when the aging Lone Peak triple and Challenger double chairlifts were torn down to make way for new versions that will greet lucky guests when the snow flies.  Mike Unruh, Director of Mountain Operations at Big Sky, kindly gave me a sneak peak of the shiny new lifts today.

Powder Seeker

A six-pack dubbed Powder Seeker is the new the crown jewel of Big Sky’s 26-lift fleet, with blue bubbles, heated seats and headrests.  Servicing the above treeline terrain in the Bowl, Powder Seeker is just over 2,600′ long with 14 towers and an 823′ vertical rise.  With a 6.1 meter line gauge and 45 mm haul rope, it should be able to spin through all but the harshest Montana winds.  In addition to a chair parking rail that will eventually be enclosed, the Uni-G-M stations feature tire banks that can raise hydraulically to park chairs.  Thirty-one carriers will go on the line initially; Big Sky also bought two spares and can add more as as needed.

The lower station features Chairkit gates, 90-degree loading, an AC prime mover, Doppelmayr-Lohmann gearbox and two Cummins diesel backups.  The seat heating system can be seen in the pictures above with yellow charging rails and black contacts attached to the DT grips.  Another cool feature is a headset in the motor room connected to the lift’s phone system so that mechanics will be able to hear communications, like a helicopter pilot can.

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Arizona’s First Six-Pack Takes Shape at Arizona Snowbowl

Peter Landsman1 Comment
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The new Grand Canyon Express at Arizona Snowbowl is more than a mile long with over 1,500 feet of elevation gain.

Just over a year ago, Arizona Snowbowl near Flagstaff hadn’t seen a new lift in 30 years. Now under the ownership of James Coleman, the resort is undergoing a renaissance with two new lifts in the last two years, new snowmaking coverage and expanded terrain.  Last fall, Skytrac installed a new quad chair on the lower mountain named Humphrey’s Peak, a nod to Arizona’s highest mountain.  This winter, Snowbowl will add the largest new chairlift in the country called the Grand Canyon Express.  Built by Leitner-Poma, the six-pack is nearly complete and staff couldn’t be more excited about their mountain’s first detachable lift serving popular intermediate terrain with a six minute ride.

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The first six-place lift in the state is large by any measure, not just gauge but also length (5,801 feet) with an impressive vertical of 1,546 feet.  The line will have 61 chairs initially, moving up to 1,800 skiers per hour at 1,000 feet per minute.  Arizona Snowbowl will be able to add 54 more chairs to reach 3,400 pph in the future.  The new lift serves all of the terrain formerly accessible from the Sunset triple chair, which may eventually be removed.  The Grand Canyon Express also accesses 90 percent of the acreage off Agassiz, Snowbowl’s workhorse lift that takes 13 minutes to ride.

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At Sundance, Doppelmayr Races to Replace Arrowhead Lift in 95 Days

Peter Landsman9 Comments

Robert Redford’s Sundance Resort faced a challenge last fall.  How could it find enough time to replace an aging lift that brings skiers to the mountain’s summit but also provides access to a hugely popular zip tour?  With ski resorts increasingly becoming hubs for summer recreation, this is becoming a more frequent problem.  Building a lift typically takes at least four months although there are exceptions.  In 2015, Snow King Mountain replaced the heavily-used in both summer and winter Rafferty lift with a Doppelmayr quad in record time – under three months – between closing day of ski season and Independence Day weekend.  This fall, Doppelmayr is making a similar push at Sundance to complete the new Arrowhead Quad.

Sundance’s other triple chair, Flathead, is actually ten years older than Arrowhead, which begs the question of why the latter will be modernized first.  Built by Lift Engineering in 1985, the old Arrowhead could only download 240 guests per hour which no longer worked for summer operations.  Furthermore, Yan used aluminum sheaves (with hubcaps!) on many of its later-model lifts which became prone to cracking.  You’ll notice many Yan lifts of Arrowhead’s vintage sport upgraded line gear from Doppelmayr or Poma.  Rather than upgrading piecemeal, Sundance announced last December it would replace the entire lift with a brand new quad chair.  “With the amount of use Arrowhead Lift sees year-round, this upgrade is exciting to the skiing, snowboarding, ZipTour and summer programs that our guests love so much at Sundance,” director of mountain operations Czar Johnson said in a release announcing the project.

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Construction Continues on Two New Lifts at Powder Mountain

Peter Landsman3 Comments
The new lifts will be behind the current ski area, not visible on Powder Mountain's current trail map.
Two new lifts will debut this winter on the backside of Powder Mountain Ski Area near the new Powder Mountain Village.

Three years into its ownership of Utah’s second largest ski resort, Summit Powder Mountain is making a statement by adding two Skytrac quad chairs to serve new intermediate terrain in Lefty’s drainage and Mary’s Bowl.  The new lifts are called Village and Mary’s and will access runs to the south of the existing boundary beginning this winter.  Powder Mountain already sprawls an impressive 7,000 acres but has just five lifts, four of them fixed-grips.  Expanded uphill options will be welcome news to skiers although these latest additions are mostly about access to Powder Mountain Village and 150 new home sites.  I reached out to Powder Mountain for more details about these lift projects and so far they have not gotten back to me.  Luckily public records from Weber County provide some info and pictures tell a thousand words.

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This map of the new Village and Mary’s ski lifts as well as two new runs on the south side of Powder Mountain also shows the top of the Sunrise Platter and Hidden Lake Express in the top left.

Village Quad

Skiing off to the south from the Hidden Lake Express this winter you’ll find the bottom of the new Village lift part way down Lefty’s drainage.  The Village quad and its new sister lift will be the first just the third and fourth top drive lifts for Skytrac.  Rising 582 vertical feet, Village will sport 16 towers and a capacity of 1,500 pph to start.  The chairlift unloads on the ridge between Lefty’s and Mary’s at the heart of the forthoming village.  Construction began on the late side for a lift to 9,000 feet in the Wasatch but all concrete work is finished and steel is arriving.

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Sweetwater Gondola Project Enters Home Stretch at Jackson Hole

Peter Landsman4 Comments
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Doppelmayr and subcontractors work to finish the massive Solitude Station, part of Jackson Hole’s new Sweetwater Gondola, September 30, 2016.

A winter weather advisory is in effect all week for Teton Village and the top of the Jackson Hole Tram is already buried under feet of snow.  Luckily the Sweetwater Gondola project lies mostly below the snow line, where the Doppelmayr crew is working on final assembly of America’s only new gondola for 2016.  All three terminals now have roofs and local resident Norm Duke presided over a splice of the 45mm haul rope Sept. 20th.  This week, the team is finishing the final, giant enclosure at Solitude Station.  The mid-station also got its maintenance/parking rail last week, which will eventually link to a storage barn on the south (downhill) side.  JHMR has always parked Bridger’s cabins inside on winter nights but Sweetwater’s will remain on the line this winter.

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48 Omega cabins arrived from Switzerland the week of Sept. 19th and are wrapped in protective covers while they wait for hangers and grips to be attached.  Cabins will be launched from the mid-station as there are no rails at the drive or return.

An eagle-eyed reader, Charles Von Stade, advised me the other day that Sweetwater’s rounded UNI-G enclosure at the return station is not the first in the world after all.  Doppelmayr designed a similar enclosure for the top station of a 2009 six-pack in Austria called Kettingbahn  that looks just as sweet as Sweetwater’s.

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The Sweetwater haul rope before being spliced and tensioned in mid-September.

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Fall Blackfoot Construction Update from Grand Targhee

Peter Landsman2 Comments
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Look closely and you will see the upper tower locations and top station mast for the new Blackfoot quad in this Oct. 2, 2016 photo.

Work on Grand Targhee’s fourth quad chair is in full swing this weekend with new stations and towers arriving for the all-new Blackfoot quad amid fall foliage and fresh snow.  The first shipment of steel from Doppelmayr included 13 towers and the support structure for the bottom station, which is in a new location uphill of the old Riblet. Still to come are the CTEC-style operator houses, bullwheels, motor room, haul rope and chairs. Concrete is in the ground and towers are nearly assembled for when the weather cooperates to fly them.  Although Grand Targhee is scheduled to open Nov. 18, Blackfoot usually doesn’t usually open until December.

The new Blackfoot will utilize a Tristar-model drive/tension station at the bottom with a fixed bullwheel on a concrete mast up top, the same setup as Challenger up the road at Big Sky.  We’ve now seen at least three different return station styles and four drive station models on this year’s new Doppelmayr fixed-grips, including the Alpen Star (Wilmot, Red River); Tristar (Big Sky, Caberfae, Targhee); and Eco (Mont Bellevue).  I find it interesting how many different station models Doppelmayr continues to offer when their competitors each have basically just two.

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The 2016-17 Grand Targhee trail map highlights the new Blackfoot chair on the north side of the mountain.

Stay tuned for more updates in the coming weeks from Arizona Snowbowl, Big Sky, Jackson, Powder Mountain and Sundance as the snow flies and this year’s crop of new lifts is completed.

Big Sky Flies Towers for America’s Most High-Tech Chairlift

Peter Landsman11 Comments

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A UH-60 “Black Hawk” from Timberline Helicopters carries a tower head for the new bowl chair at Big Sky Resort September 11, 2016.
With a helicopter flying towers this week and Austrian-built chairs arriving, skiers are just a few months away from riding America’s most technologically advanced chairlift in the bowl at Big Sky Resort.  Featuring blue bubbles, heated seats, headrests and innovative footrests, Big Sky will be the first public ski resort in North America to get Doppelmayr’s six-passenger CS10 chair (the private Hermitage Club in Vermont got them last year.)  The yet-to-be-named Lone Peak lift will initially feature 33 flying couches with footrests between riders’ legs to prevent children from falling.  These chairs are the latest and greatest from Doppelmayr and will be used on future lifts built over the next ten years as part of Big Sky 2025.

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33 chairs arrived from Austria last week and feature Big Sky blue bubbles, heated seats, headrests and more.
Brian Jorgenson from Timberline Helicopters began flying 12 lift towers on Sunday and will haul the rest later this week.  The same Black Hawk will also set 17 towers for the new Challenger lift, a Doppelmayr triple chair.  Wind stopped Brian from flying around lunchtime yesterday (and today it’s snowing) but both projects are on schedule thanks to the hard work of Big Sky’s mountain operations team, the Doppelmayr USA crew and their contractors.

The new bowl lift will dramatically improve upon the old Lone Peak Triple, cutting a 6.2 minute ride to just three minutes.  The triple chair opened in 1973 and was among two remaining lifts from the Chet Huntley era.  Challenger and Lone Peak are the first all-new lifts built at Big Sky since 2005 and hopefully the first of many upgrades and additions.  Capacity in the bowl will remain the same at first – 1,800 skiers per hour – with the ability to upgrade the six-pack to 3,200 pph in the future.  Thirty-three six-place chairs running 985 feet per minute will move the same number of skiers as the old lift did with 122 triple chairs!  The bowl lift is designed for 26 chairs to be added as needed for an eventual total of 59.

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Sweetwater Gondola September Update from Jackson Hole

Peter Landsman8 Comments

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Jackson Hole Mountain Resort opens for skiing 76 days from today and the new Sweetwater Gondola will open for business in mid-December.  Since my last update, the Doppelmayr crew finished the enclosure at the bottom terminal and erected the entire drive station up top.   Doppelmayr custom-designed the lower station skin in Austria for JHMR with a round end to mimic the shape of Teewinot and Bridger.  After some initial skepticism, the consensus around here is it looks awesome and we will have to see if Doppelmayr offers the design to anyone else going forward.  The UNI-G is Doppelmayr’s standard detachable terminal worldwide but the new, boxier D-Line will be offered as an option in North America beginning next year.

The drive platform was hauled up the hill in the back of a dump truck and includes an electric motor along with CAT auxiliary and evacuation drives.  Operator houses for the mid-station and summit arrived from Salt Lake last week along with the haul rope from France.  48 cabins from CWA will follow next week to meet their hangers and grips which are already here. Doppelmayr’s supply chain is fascinating – Sweetwater includes key components built in the USA, Canada, Austria, France, Germany and Switzerland.

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Elkhead Express Construction Update from Steamboat

Peter Landsman6 Comments

This week’s construction update comes from northern Colorado where Steamboat Resort is in the midst of replacing a fixed-grip quad with a UNI-G detachable.  The Elkhead Express will be Steamboat’s first Doppelmayr lift built since 1997 after three new Leitner-Pomas in a row. Nearby Vail went the other way this year, switching from Doppelmayr back to L-P.  Elkhead Express is the third lift in its location following a 1972 Heron-Poma double and later a Lift Engineering quad.  The not-that-old Yan has been carefully disassembled and will undoubtedly find a new home somewhere down the road.

The new Elkhead will only have around ten towers; the old lift had 13.  The Doppelmayr crew has finished concrete and set the big steel with a crane at both terminals.  Tower footings are ready to go but I couldn’t find any of the towers laying around yet.  The stations will be blue and white with red stripes and are sure to look sharp.  Compared with the UNI-G terminals going up in Jackson and Big Sky, Elkhead’s stations are noticeably smaller.  Like all of Steamboat’s detachables, Elkhead Express will have a deluxe indoor maintenance bay attached to the bottom terminal.  Steamboat’s eighth detachable lift will be ready to go by Thanksgiving.

Challenger & Lone Peak Six Updates from Big Sky

Peter Landsman10 Comments

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Challenger

The first of two new Doppelmayr lifts under construction at Big Sky Resort this summer is a fixed-grip triple chair with loading conveyor replacing Challenger.  A 1988 Superior Tramway double to the upper reaches of Lone Peak suffered gearbox damage last February (while I was on it) and never ran again.  The new lift will be 25 percent faster than the old, ascending 1,670 feet in 9.5 minutes.  Concrete for the new triple is finished except for the operator house footers up top. The triple chair will feature Doppelmayr’s Tristar bottom drive/bottom tension station with a simple return bullwheel up top. Interestingly, Boyne Resorts has ended up with four Tristar lifts after recent incidents at Sugarloaf (x2,) Big Sky and Sunday River.

About half of the tower footings were built from scratch while others were kept from the old lift that ran in the exact same alignment.  Challenger will have 18 towers versus 15 on the old double.  Both terminal locations have been completely re-graded with much more room for loading and unloading.  Tower tubes and crossarms are in the parking lot ready to fly any day now.

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