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Subway in the Sky

Peter Landsman7 Comments

There is a ropeway revolution going on in the Bolivian city of La Paz.  Last month, Doppelmayr won the largest lift construction contract in history to expand the region’s urban gondola network.  The government of Bolivia will pay $450 million for six new 10-passenger gondolas.  To put it in perspective, Doppelmayr’s total revenue last year was $915 million.  The company says 80% its business still comes from building lifts at ski resorts but that seems poised to change with La Paz as an urban ropeway success story.

La Paz's Yellow Line. Photo credit: Doppelmayr
La Paz’s Yellow Line. Photo credit: Doppelmayr

La Paz already has three Doppelmayr gondolas that opened last year.  They have already carried more than 16 million people.  Each line operates 17 hours per day and a ride costs less than fifty cents US.  There are 11 Uni-G terminals where passengers load and unload.  The only major incident happened when a eucalyptus tree fell on the yellow line back in February, causing a deropement and rope evacuation.

Map showing Phase I and Phase II gondola lines.
Map showing Phase I and Phase II gondola lines.

Phase II of the system will add 6 lines and 23 terminals between 2017 and 2019.  Once completed, the network will include 19 miles of gondolas spread across 9 haul ropes.  There will be a total of 34 stations and a ridiculous 1,350 CWA 10-passenger Omega cabins.

There are plenty of examples of urban ropeways scattered around the world, but no other city has gone all in on gondolas like La Paz.  It will be interesting to see if any American cities follow their example.

The New Park City Mountain Resort

Peter Landsman4 Comments

PCMR                        CanyonsMasterLogo1_RGB

Yesterday was the last day anyone will ever ski at a place called Canyons Resort.  For those who have been living under a rock, most of the land that both resorts sit on has been owned by Talisker Corporation for decades.  Most of that time Canyons was operated by American Skiing Company and Park City by Powdr Corporation.  In 2013, Vail Resorts came to Utah, signing a long-term deal with Talisker to operate Canyons.  Two years earlier, Powdr Corp. had forgotten to renew their lease to the Talisker land that PCMR sits on.  Talisker evicted them and after a lengthy legal battle, Powdr Corporation sold Park City Mountain Resort to Vail last September.

Now under a single operator, the two resorts are about to become one.  Construction is beginning now on an interconnect gondola that will connect the Flat Iron lift at Canyons with the base of the Silverlode lift at Park City.  The Doppelmayr gondola will have an angle station on the ridge that separates the two resorts, from which guests can ski off either side.  The gondola will be approximately 7,000 feet long with 27 towers and 60 eight passenger CWA cabins.  The Canyons station will be at about 8,400 feet next to White Pine Lake in The Colony.  The angle station will be just below 9,000 feet on Pine Cone Ridge with the Park City station a thousand feet lower at Snow Hut Lodge.  Vail is also building a six pack, detachable quad and new lodge on the Park City side this summer.

James Niehues paints the new PCMR trail map.
James Niehues paints the new PCMR trail map.

The combined lift stats for the new PCMR are impressive.  A single ticket will include 37 aerial lifts including 4 gondolas, 6 six-packs,  9 high speed quads and 18 fixed grip chairs.  Nearly 85 percent of the resort’s lifts will be GaraventaCTEC or Doppelmayr.  Only 5 Yans will remain in addition to the Red Pine Gondola, one of Utah’s only Poma-built lifts.  Combined uphill capacity will be 78,410 skiers per hour. (For comparison Vail’s is just under 55,000.)   The total lift length is 29.5 miles with 35,607 feet of vertical rise.  There will be 78 loading/unloading stations and 625 lift towers.  I tried but failed to calculate an exact number of chairs/gondola cabins but it will be somewhere on the order of 3,000.

It will be interesting to see how thoroughly Vail can merge two large resorts in one summer.  I haven’t heard yet whether they plan to keep Park City’s white and red branding or start fresh.  Canyons still has lifts painted in their old green color scheme from the ASC days as well as new orange branding.  I have to believe it will take a few years to paint every lift and change every trail sign.  Regardless, Park City will be a 7,300 acre monster ski resort next year.  No word yet on what Big Sky plans to do with its Biggest Skiing in America™ trademark.

News Roundup: Reset and Go!

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  • Sugarloaf shuts down 2nd Borvig quad lift.
  • Sugar Mountain, NC to build a base-to-summit Doppelmayr six-pack.
  • Leitner-Poma might have to pay $222k back to the State of Colorado.  This summer doesn’t look to be too busy for them either.
  • Vail Resorts goes to Australia.
  • Lift operator sued after boy hanged from backpack tangled in a chair.
  • The State of Pennsylvania is “not normally in the business of ski-lift construction.”
  • Another child falls from a chair, this time in eastern Canada.  Seems like there have been a lot of similar incidents this winter particularly with children.