Bottom terminal with Yan-Doppelmayr conversion.Lower station.Top terminal.Another view of the top.Bottom terminal and lift line.Riding in the summer.Looking back towards the Roundhouse.Arriving at the summit.The entire lift seen from the Roundhouse.Lower station with small parking rail.Top station next to sister ship Lookout.Terminal without underskin.The lower station next to the Roundhouse Gondola summit.Un-retrofitted Yan drive motor.This lift received Doppelmayr EJ chairs for the 2023-24 season.
No, these hangers are custom-built. The lifts that did a full carrier swap also had custom hangers to fit into the converted terminals. There should be no need to excavate anything.
According to Ecosign’s Sun Valley master development plan, this lift will be replaced with an extension of the Roundhouse Gondola, going to the summit. Hopefully when they extend the Roundhouse Gondola, additional capacity will be added, as the current gondola only moves 1,800 people per hour despite the useful location of it.
Then there will be another gondola connecting the River Run base to the base of Dollar Mountain, which is something I very much look forward to.
This is a fantastic idea. A gondola connection to Lookout would be useful for non-skier utilization and the existing Christmas layout is awkward, as only the upper portion of the bowl can be lapped without needing to go down to Broadway. Sun Valley’s GM mentioned Christmas as the next replacement post-Challenger/Greyhawk and I really hope they realign the lift to start down by Seattle Ridge, opening up the existing alignment for a future Roundhouse Stage II.
I haven’t even thought of that, that’s a great idea, making Christmas go down further towards Seattle Ridge! Would make a lot more terrain lappable as you said!
My home mountain for the last 5 winters and live in Ketchum. You’d think wind would be an issue up there but it’s really not. It’s pretty rare for mountain operations to be impacted by weather, other than late starts after heavy snow and Mayday being closed for avalanche mitigation after a big storm. I think there was a day or two last winter where the only lifts open were gondola and below (flying squirrel, frenchman’s, RR and the gondola were the only lifts spinning… I think).
What’s up with the large chains in the top terminal on the 3rd to last picture. Is the drive bullwheel in this terminal on a moveable carriage with its position set by the chains, but not used for active tensioning?
I’m pretty sure it has to be active tensioning and not manual. I wonder if instead of cable tensioning chain tensioning was used by Yan and they kept this with the upgrades that Doppie did?
I think you’re both correct, and this is a passive-tension carriage. Ryan- definitely. With the sheer scale of all the required retrofits it wouldn’t surprise me at all if they kept this instead of adopting Doppelmayr’s equipment as it meant one less thing to change. It appears that with the chains it can be repositioned as needed for rope stretch. I don’t see any mechanism in the photo for doing that, so maybe they have a size XL chain hoist that we can’t see in the shadow?
Yan also used this same chain as a safety in their active-tension systems.
The bottom terminal is definitely hydraulically tensioned and you can see the safety chains dangling under the terminal. I thought it was an interesting setup, it’s almost a double tension terminal setup, but not quite. The best way to describe it may be 1.5 terminal tension lol.
From Donald’s video it looks like there is a multi part pulley setup mounted on the column guessing the other half is on the carriage so with a right wire rope some rope clips and a dozer or cat the carriage can be moved.
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I wonder why this one and Frenchman’s kept their teardrop chairs instead of getting EJ chairs when Doppelmayr refurbished them.
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The Doppelmayr hangers are longer, changing chairs would have required excavation work.
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No, these hangers are custom-built. The lifts that did a full carrier swap also had custom hangers to fit into the converted terminals. There should be no need to excavate anything.
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LikeLiked by 1 person
According to Ecosign’s Sun Valley master development plan, this lift will be replaced with an extension of the Roundhouse Gondola, going to the summit. Hopefully when they extend the Roundhouse Gondola, additional capacity will be added, as the current gondola only moves 1,800 people per hour despite the useful location of it.
Then there will be another gondola connecting the River Run base to the base of Dollar Mountain, which is something I very much look forward to.
LikeLike
This is a fantastic idea. A gondola connection to Lookout would be useful for non-skier utilization and the existing Christmas layout is awkward, as only the upper portion of the bowl can be lapped without needing to go down to Broadway. Sun Valley’s GM mentioned Christmas as the next replacement post-Challenger/Greyhawk and I really hope they realign the lift to start down by Seattle Ridge, opening up the existing alignment for a future Roundhouse Stage II.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I haven’t even thought of that, that’s a great idea, making Christmas go down further towards Seattle Ridge! Would make a lot more terrain lappable as you said!
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How does this lift fair to wind? Much of the liftline looks very exposed.
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My home mountain for the last 5 winters and live in Ketchum. You’d think wind would be an issue up there but it’s really not. It’s pretty rare for mountain operations to be impacted by weather, other than late starts after heavy snow and Mayday being closed for avalanche mitigation after a big storm. I think there was a day or two last winter where the only lifts open were gondola and below (flying squirrel, frenchman’s, RR and the gondola were the only lifts spinning… I think).
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Looks like the teardrop chairs on this lift and Frenchman’s are being replaced with the chairs that were used on Greyhawk and Challenger.
https://www.mtexpress.com/news/sun_valley/sun-valley-resort-bald-mountain-updates-still-on-schedule/article_e71ecd7e-ee93-11ed-9f23-37ca9473fd06.html
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Video of the lift with EJ chairs.
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What’s up with the large chains in the top terminal on the 3rd to last picture. Is the drive bullwheel in this terminal on a moveable carriage with its position set by the chains, but not used for active tensioning?
LikeLike
I’m pretty sure it has to be active tensioning and not manual. I wonder if instead of cable tensioning chain tensioning was used by Yan and they kept this with the upgrades that Doppie did?
LikeLike
I think you’re both correct, and this is a passive-tension carriage. Ryan- definitely. With the sheer scale of all the required retrofits it wouldn’t surprise me at all if they kept this instead of adopting Doppelmayr’s equipment as it meant one less thing to change. It appears that with the chains it can be repositioned as needed for rope stretch. I don’t see any mechanism in the photo for doing that, so maybe they have a size XL chain hoist that we can’t see in the shadow?
Yan also used this same chain as a safety in their active-tension systems.
LikeLike
The bottom terminal is definitely hydraulically tensioned and you can see the safety chains dangling under the terminal. I thought it was an interesting setup, it’s almost a double tension terminal setup, but not quite. The best way to describe it may be 1.5 terminal tension lol.
LikeLike
From Donald’s video it looks like there is a multi part pulley setup mounted on the column guessing the other half is on the carriage so with a right wire rope some rope clips and a dozer or cat the carriage can be moved.
LikeLike