Lift Construction

Grand Targhee Begins Construction of Blackfoot Quad

Peter Landsman2 Comments
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Blackfoot looks to be getting Doppelmayr’s Tristar drive station.

Last time I stopped by Grand Targhee, I could still ski down Chief Joseph Bowl as the Blackfoot double was being deconstructed to make way for a new Doppelmayr quad chair.   Three months later, workers have finished removing the last of the old Riblet and prepped both station locations for modern terminals.  The new Blackfoot will move up to 1,800 skiers per hour 1,200 vertical feet in seven minutes.  When completed, Grand Targhee will operate four Doppelmayr and CTEC quad lifts, all built after 1996, with a third high speed quad coming soon.

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Re-bar for towers staged near the bottom of Blackfoot.

The new Blackfoot will start a little higher up and further north, though it’s tough to tell where the old base stood with how much dirt has been moved.  The new top station is just about in the same spot as the previous one.  Lots of rock is getting pushed to make a large unload area in place of the steep wooden ramp at top of Blackfoot since 1974.  This week Doppelmayr is tying re-bar for towers and both terminals.  The project is still in its beginning stages but will ramp up over as concrete gets poured and steel arrives this fall.

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Tower 1 ready to be poured adjacent to the drive station.

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Sweetwater Gondola August Update from Jackson Hole

Peter Landsman2 Comments

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When riders on the tram ask about the construction going on at JHMR this summer, they rarely believe an entire gondola can be built in one summer.  “That’s going to be done this winter?!,” they say.  The answer of course is yes, and after a few months of work you can start to see why.  Since Doppelmayr flew the new gondola’s towers in late July, work has shifted to the mid and top terminals.  Over four days last week, a crane set the steel beams and tunnels for the Solitude mid-station.  This station is huge and will eventually serve a beginner complex with magic carpets, a rental center, cafeteria and more.  It will also be the site of the gondola’s cabin storage and maintenance facility, to be built next summer.

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Doppelmayr crews put together the erector set at Solitude.
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The mid-station is big in both height and length!

Not much has changed at the bottom station, where steel was set in early July.  The top/drive terminal is now the center of the action, where the last concrete for the masts will be poured this week.

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In Pictures: Sweetwater Gondola Towers Fly

Peter Landsman1 Comment

Teams from Doppelmayr and Timberline Helicopters put on a show yesterday in Teton Village as they flew 21 towers for JHMR’s new Sweetwater Gondola. The new gondola rises out of the base area with a mid-station at Solitude and tops out next to Casper Restaurant. With each tower flown in 4-6 sections, Brian and his co-pilot completed somewhere around a hundred laps up the hill over six hours using a UH-60 Black Hawk.  There’s still a lot of work to go before November 24th but Sweetwater is starting to look like a lift!

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Cherry Peak Will Complete Summit Lift for 2016-17

Peter LandsmanLeave a comment
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Cherry Peak’s third triple chair will reach 7,050 feet in elevation, significantly higher than the Vista lift to the right.

Utah’s 14 ski resorts have built more than 45 new lifts since Salt Lake City hosted the 2002 Winter Olympics, barely behind Colorado over the same period, which has twice as many mountains.  Ski Utah is a huge success story in an era which has seen dozens of resort closings nationwide. Cherry Peak Resort became the state’s newest winter destination last December, bringing affordable skiing to the Cache Valley and the nearby college town of Logan.  Cherry Peak is the first all-new ski facility in America since the 2004 opening of Tamarack Resort in Idaho.  Next winter, the mountain will debut a third chairlift, increasing lift-served vertical rise to 1,265 feet.

TrailMap

Cherry Peak has a unique business model for the Rockies, operating Monday-Saturday with a noon opening on weekdays and skiing until 10:00 pm.  Owner John Chadwick has a lot to be proud of since starting construction on the project from scratch in 2013, completing a road network, two lifts, night lighting, snowmaking, a beautiful lodge, tube park and more. Last season saw plentiful snow and more than three months of operation with two triple chairlifts and a magic carpet.

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Sweetwater Gondola July Update from Jackson Hole

Peter Landsman1 Comment
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The new Sweetwater Gondola return terminal seen from the tram on July 13th.

A lot has fallen into place since my last update on the new Sweetwater Gondola going in at Jackson Hole, the only new gondola at a North American ski resort for 2016.  All three terminal sites required significant excavation and utility relocation which is largely complete.  A crane set all of the big steel at the bottom terminal last Thursday and Friday.  The station is nowhere near as big as the Bridger Gondola’s, which was designed for a rope speed of 1,200 fpm nearly 20 years ago (Sweetwater has a design speed of 800 fpm.)  It is significantly longer and taller than the Teewinot quad next door, however. Sweetwater’s custom bottom terminal skin will arrive from Austria later this summer.

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Return terminal and operator house in progress.
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Line gauge bullwheel seen from below.

All 21 towers arrived in sections from Salt Lake City in early July and will be flown in place at the end of the month next Wednesday.  The lifting frames are the “American style” rather than the Euro-style ones Doppelmayr uses on some large gondolas.  All the tower foundations are finished and ready for fly day.

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Construction Underway on New Lifts at Big Sky

Peter Landsman9 Comments
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Challenger looks to be getting a Doppelmayr Tristar drive terminal.

Next winter is going to be huge at Big Sky with a bubble six-pack detachable opening in The Bowl and a new triple chair replacing the legendary Challenger double.  Doppelmayr is off to a solid start with terminal and tower footings going in for both lifts.  Big Sky is known for its crazy steeps and rocky terrain which makes both projects challenging.

Challenger Triple

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New footing for Challenger tower #2.

From what I can tell approximately half the old Challenger tower bases from 1988 will be re-used on the new lift.  Dyer All Terrain Excavation was working on the upper section of Challenger with a spider hoe today.  The only way to the top of Challenger is scrambling on foot or riding the Headwaters chair from the Moonlight side.

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One of the footings that will be re-used.

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Sweetwater Gondola June Update

Peter Landsman3 Comments

Construction on Jackson Hole’s second gondola is ramping up as the last of the snow melts.  The new Sweetwater Gondola will run from the base of the Teewinot high speed quad to the Casper Restaurant with a mid-station unload, boosting out-of-base capacity and providing an improved experience for beginner skiers.  As the photos below show, the project is off to a solid start with awesome weather in the last few weeks after a very wet spring.

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Tower and terminal components have begun arriving in Teton Village.
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The mid-station will be located about dead center of this photo.  The old Sweetwater lift is headed to Pine Creek Ski Area near Cokeville, Wyoming.
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The Doppelmayr crew used a spider excavator to dig holes for many of the 21 new towers.

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Out with the Old at Grand Targhee & Jackson Hole

Peter Landsman4 Comments
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Grand Targhee wasted no time removing Blackfoot, starting even before they closed for skiing.

New lifts are coming to both sides of the Tetons this summer and that means three old lifts are coming down.  At Grand Targhee, the Blackfoot double is being replaced with a Doppelmayr fixed-grip quad.  All 20 towers have been removed along with the top terminal.  Blackfoot had wooden ramps at both ends that will be burned down once all the steel is out of the way.

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From the tree cutting that’s been done, it looks like the new lift will start to the skier’s left of the old one.
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Still no word on where these chairs are headed.

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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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