Bottom station during summer operations.Tower 6 and Beaver Creek Village.10-passenger gondolas alternate with six-passenger chairs.Breakover towers just before the summit.Chair unloading area.Top terminal with maintenance facility on the left.Doppelmayr Uni-G drive terminal.View down the line from the top.Top terminal departure side.View down the line on the light side.Bottom terminal departure side.Extra-long Uni-G station.Winter view of the upper lift line.CWA Omega 10 cabins.View towards Beaver Creek Village.Combo tower 4.Lower part of the lift seen from Strawberry Park.
Haven’t been back to Beaver Creek since Lift #6 (Centennial) was upgraded but in the past it was the only lift that would operate during the summer at Beaver Creek. Lift #6 is the main lift in Beaver Creek regardless if it is Summer or Winter. You can always expect the biggest crowds there. Not sure what they did the summer that 6 was upgraded. It will be interesting to see how Strawberry Park (12) is upgraded/replaced. I could see more summer activities there using that lift. It may have already been used for summer access and I have just forgotten it.
The summer where Centennial was replaced, they ran Strawberry Park (Lift 12) in for the summer season. I know they claimed there was no lift served mountain biking, but I don’t know if they’d still allow people to haul a bike like you would a ski bike, and use the roads. Definitely no single tracks that summer though.
I don’t think they will upgrade Strawberry Park (12) as it isn’t usually too busy. I would think that the next lift they will update will be Cinch Express (8) and upgrade it so it has more capacity, as the lines can be overwhelmingly long there.
Strawberry Park has an older design and will likely see heavily increased amounts of riders with the new McCoy park. It also has the oldest lift towers as it still has its some of towers from when it was a lower speed lift. With the new Red Buffalo lift Cinch only sees large demand at the early morning and lunch hours.
All of Strawberry Park’s towers are recycled from the old triple (which is now Elkhorn). Most of Cinch’s towers are from the Stump Park lift, save for towers 1 and 24.
Red Buffalo took the edge off Cinch needing an upgrade – I don’t see any large needs at Beaver Creek anytime soon and Cinch is from the late 90s. The next one to watch there is the Arrow Bahn, which is probably the last CLD-260 that gets replaced at Vail and Beaver Creek of the four remaining (Game Creek first, then Orient, then Born Free, then Arrowhead is my prediction). Among the other Vail Resorts properties in Colorado, Beaver Creek has the most up to date lift system by quite a bit and is the least crowded by far. Breck is mobbed all the time and still has a handful of Riblet doubles in key locations.
I think your analysis is right on. I don’t ski the Beav that often but when I’m over there I am always impressed by how well their lift layouts work. From the maintenance side, chair 17 is old but perfectly serviceable. It doesn’t see a huge amount of traffic and aside from a needing healthy dose of CRC 3-36 in the bottom rails to quiet them down, seems to run just fine. Today was the first time I’ve been there since they upgraded chair 5, but it definitely helps round-trip traffic on 8.
As far as replacements go, I can see chair 17 running for another 5-10 years. It is easily the best CLD-260 I’ve ever been on, and it runs incredibly smooth for its age. What I think might happen is Beaver Creek replaces Bachelor Gulch with a 6 place, as it can get mobbed, especially during the morning, as it’s the only way out for everybody staying at the Ritz (except for a long and not-very-pleasant road that is sometimes closed in low snow years), not to mention it services one of the most popular intermediate terrain pods on the mountain. Then, if BC was concerned about 17s age, they could move the newly removed Bachelor Gulch and use it to replace it.
Is this lift typically run at less than full speed? For most of the day today that was certainly the case. Lots of snow last night so it wasn’t a sleepy Monday either.
True, but after skiing a few days here this week I observed that this was the only high-speed lift consistently running under design speed.
Perhaps beginners or other skiers are struggling with the conveyor loading system (or making groups of 6) and management determined that the lift loads more efficiently at a slower speed.
Lift Blog 
Are the chairs in use in the summer?
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Yes, both the chairs and cabins operate during the summer. Lots of bikes and hikers both.
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Haven’t been back to Beaver Creek since Lift #6 (Centennial) was upgraded but in the past it was the only lift that would operate during the summer at Beaver Creek. Lift #6 is the main lift in Beaver Creek regardless if it is Summer or Winter. You can always expect the biggest crowds there. Not sure what they did the summer that 6 was upgraded. It will be interesting to see how Strawberry Park (12) is upgraded/replaced. I could see more summer activities there using that lift. It may have already been used for summer access and I have just forgotten it.
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This past summer they just ran Centennial lift 6
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The summer where Centennial was replaced, they ran Strawberry Park (Lift 12) in for the summer season. I know they claimed there was no lift served mountain biking, but I don’t know if they’d still allow people to haul a bike like you would a ski bike, and use the roads. Definitely no single tracks that summer though.
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I don’t think they will upgrade Strawberry Park (12) as it isn’t usually too busy. I would think that the next lift they will update will be Cinch Express (8) and upgrade it so it has more capacity, as the lines can be overwhelmingly long there.
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Strawberry Park has an older design and will likely see heavily increased amounts of riders with the new McCoy park. It also has the oldest lift towers as it still has its some of towers from when it was a lower speed lift. With the new Red Buffalo lift Cinch only sees large demand at the early morning and lunch hours.
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All of Strawberry Park’s towers are recycled from the old triple (which is now Elkhorn). Most of Cinch’s towers are from the Stump Park lift, save for towers 1 and 24.
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Red Buffalo took the edge off Cinch needing an upgrade – I don’t see any large needs at Beaver Creek anytime soon and Cinch is from the late 90s. The next one to watch there is the Arrow Bahn, which is probably the last CLD-260 that gets replaced at Vail and Beaver Creek of the four remaining (Game Creek first, then Orient, then Born Free, then Arrowhead is my prediction). Among the other Vail Resorts properties in Colorado, Beaver Creek has the most up to date lift system by quite a bit and is the least crowded by far. Breck is mobbed all the time and still has a handful of Riblet doubles in key locations.
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I think your analysis is right on. I don’t ski the Beav that often but when I’m over there I am always impressed by how well their lift layouts work. From the maintenance side, chair 17 is old but perfectly serviceable. It doesn’t see a huge amount of traffic and aside from a needing healthy dose of CRC 3-36 in the bottom rails to quiet them down, seems to run just fine. Today was the first time I’ve been there since they upgraded chair 5, but it definitely helps round-trip traffic on 8.
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As far as replacements go, I can see chair 17 running for another 5-10 years. It is easily the best CLD-260 I’ve ever been on, and it runs incredibly smooth for its age. What I think might happen is Beaver Creek replaces Bachelor Gulch with a 6 place, as it can get mobbed, especially during the morning, as it’s the only way out for everybody staying at the Ritz (except for a long and not-very-pleasant road that is sometimes closed in low snow years), not to mention it services one of the most popular intermediate terrain pods on the mountain. Then, if BC was concerned about 17s age, they could move the newly removed Bachelor Gulch and use it to replace it.
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Since the spreadsheet doesn’t include the chair stats for this, the lift has 125 chairs and 25 cabins.
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I know this has nothing to do with the lift itself but I love the wood for unloading in the top terminal.
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Is this the world’s longest chondola?
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Is this lift typically run at less than full speed? For most of the day today that was certainly the case. Lots of snow last night so it wasn’t a sleepy Monday either.
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Many lifts are not run at their max speed to save on wear.
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True, but after skiing a few days here this week I observed that this was the only high-speed lift consistently running under design speed.
Perhaps beginners or other skiers are struggling with the conveyor loading system (or making groups of 6) and management determined that the lift loads more efficiently at a slower speed.
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