Um I think that carpenter triple either went to be Viking,red cloud or crown point
Carpenter express is actually still a yan! Just has new terminals I think.
Carpenter Express may be Garaventa CTEC when built in 1996, but it reused the towers the old high-speed quad had, so Carpenter Express is Garaventa CTEC/Lift Engineering (Yan). The only thing of yan is the towers with most of the tower heads.
Hi, Peter. I’ve been compiling a Google Earth version of your database, and I’ve come across four lifts at Deer Valley that seem to have statistical errors:
Silver Lake Express: Incorrect vertical. This may be the result of the fact that you are counting both the rise and fall over Bald Eagle Mountain, instead of having them cancel out.
Lady Morgan Express: The lift is far shorter than the value you have written.
Viking: Again, the lift is shorter than the entered value.
Snowflake: You have the old length and vertical entered, from before the bottom station was moved uphill.
If Silver Lake’s vertical is measured from its bottom terminal to its top terminal, then Deer Valley estimates it at 900 ft. If it is from the bottom terminal to its highest point over Bald Eagle Mountain, then Deer Valley estimates it to be 1200 ft.
Homestake was out of commission with a gearbox failure for a while during spring 2018. Rather than an expensive fix, chance for an upgrade for a bottleneck spot. It’s in a sweet spot like the old Ruby and Deer Crest where the fixed chair is long enough to be annoying at a place like DV but the HSQ is short.
Also, Bob Wheaton, the old CEO of DV who now works at Alterra HQ, is on the board of the Olympic Park and may have found a way to kill two birds with one stone. Alterra probably got a nice tax writeoff for it.
Obviously an old discussion, but Homestake definitely was a bottleneck in the afternoons when it was fixed grip. I disagree that most people take Silver Lake down at the end of the day, in fact it seemed there were few, most preferred to take Homestake and then ski.
Something interesting I noticed while mountain biking up there today.
1. Silver Lake is getting Deasonbuilt bike carriers. I briefly watched while they installed one or two. These are the kind where it attaches to the chair bail.
2. Homestake HSQ has center-pole Deasonbuilt bike carriers on it. Looks like maybe DV has plans to run that lift in the summer now?
Silver Lake getting bike carriers makes tons of sense, especially since there is almost no parking up at Silver Lake this year, due to the construction. DV is trying to encourage people to park at Snow Park, and getting rid of the annoying hooks will help with that.
I have no idea what their plans are with Homestake, other than prevent bikers from having to do the short climb up to the mountain summit.
I managed to find the official summer trail map. This year they will not be running Ruby, so DV will still only be spinning three lifts this summer. My guess is this is supposed to create another portal out of Silver Lake, and encourage more utilization of the front side mountain. I think this is a great thing.
Doesn’t make sense for any of them to be a 6 since the busy peaks of Bald Mountain already has 3 quads and Flagstaff has 4 quads dumping out at the same place. The other outliers aren’t busy enough to warrant a 6.
Silver Lake has a bunch of hours on it for a 1999-build, having been run in the summer and from 8:30 to 4:45 for most of its life. The least-used lift Mayflower would be a good place for it to be relocated as part of the the Mayflower expansion someday.
None of the top terminal locations are very remote, which is probably why they were able to do it. The lone bottom drive is Viking, and I suspect that is becuase the top is right next to the Stein Eriksen Lodge, and they might have have wanted to limit noise there. The geography with several mountain peaks with different lifts converging at the same spot probably would have made it cheaper to run power to one place back in the 1980s to catch every lift’s top terminal instead of running to each of the different bottom terminal locations.
For what it’s worth, Park City (not the Canyons side) is almost 100% top-drive bottom-tension too, exception being Jupiter which has a remote top and Eaglet which has its drive adjacent to top-drive Eagle. The Canyons side probably tried to stretch every last nickel out of construction costs to finish their expansion in the early 2000s and has many more new-build bottom-drive lifts (Saddleback, Peak 5, 9990, the old High Meadow, Dreamscape).
A friend of mine has a place at Deer Crest and he recently told me about some of the comments homeowners made earlier this year around Christmas at a meeting. Keep in mind that Deer Valley takes input from Deer Crest fairly seriously even though many homeowners only use their residences 10 days a year.
-All lifts should be high-speed with heated bubbles (Red Cloud and Mayflower were specifically mentioned as annoyances)
-Ruby and Quincy are too crowded
-The gondola is too crowded in the morning, it should be opened earlier for Deer Crest only so they can go elsewhere before the crowds arrive
-The private trail network should open earlier in the season
-Deer Valley is too crowded
-“No snowboarders” was mentioned more than anything else
The homeowners are ridiculous!! Do they have any idea how many billions it will cost to replace every lift with bubbles and heated seats??! I ski BS and don’t really care for the bubbles! And why would you need bubbles? It doesn’t even get that cold in DV. If they want that level of ridiculousness they can go to Yellowstone Club.
The one about the gondola is even more ridiculous. I know they are homeowners there but opening the lift early for them??!
I agree with some of those policies but not all, first not all lift should be detachable (Viking, burns, judge, red cloud, mayflower) granted they are all aging but they don’t need to replace yet. Mayflower should be left alone because there is no crowds ever the area is a nice steep black and blue runs best area in the whole mountain. No snowboarder I agree with to be honest.
With the lift replacements they are doing right now, I personally think that Viking and Judge would be replaced with an hsq, but the top terminal would go to the top of Sterling. I guess with this they could keep Viking, but they also could relocate Judge to a new alignment, maybe replacing Burns? They could also put Judge at the top of Snowflake, so it could go up to the top of Mountaineer or the Little Stick / Deer Hollow / Gnat’s eye junction.
A lift from the top of Snowflake or Burns to Little Baldy Peak could be useful. Deer Valley could use it as another mini-beginner pod and it would obviously encourage a higher utilization of the Jordanelle area.
As for a Judge/Viking replacement, I agree it will likely be replaced with a detachable lift at some point given Deer Valley’s history of installing detachable lifts regardless of their length. Viking’s alignment is more likely to be used, and they could honestly just remove Judge without replacement. Since Quincy allows access to Silver Lake Lodge anyway, a backup lift would not be necessary. I also doubt either lift would then be reused elsewhere on the mountain due to Deer Valley’s detachable preference, and honestly, I could see Burns/Snowflake being replaced with a detachable lift to anchor the beginner area like First Time Express at neighboring Park City.
Granted, I haven’t worked at Deer Valley since college (1997), but I don’t see them replacing Viking or Judge with a HSQ. They’re so short, maybe a fixed grip quad to update aging lifts. But Viking will not be removed, they use that lift to drop you at the door of Stein’s and that’s the beginner chair to teach lessons for guests at Silver Lake. If anything gets replaced in that pod, it would be Red Cloud. The employees I’ve talked to don’t think another HSQ will be put next to Sterling… they want to avoid the traffic problems they created on Flagstaff with 4 HSQ dumping into one small mountain. Flagstaff is a cluster on busy days.
It is lift-related because its development will likely determine the alignment and/or feasibility of a Main Street-Deer Valley gondola. If the development calls for a gondola, it will likely be built in the next 5 years and run from Main Street to Snow Park to Silver Lake, replacing the existing Silver Lake with its second stage. If the plan does not call for a gondola, it would then go from Main Street to Silver Lake with an angle station and its timeline would be questionable. There is also the question of whether or not Park City develops a gondola network for transit. It would not be for a number of years and likely tied to funding for a potential Olympic Bid. Plus, the success or failure of a potential gondola in LCC would likely factor in as well.
Viking got new Skytrac upgrades a couple years ago and one of its five towers replaced, suggesting it’ll be around for a while yet. No reason to replace either of those and it’s good to have them both because Quincy is a bottleneck.
Burns is much likelier to see an HSQ replacement, as it just turned 40 and PCMR has two bunny hill HSQs next door.
Ive heard on some skilifts.org forum carpenter express was sold to lake Louise (the yan hsq) but I think I have seen it in the mechanics yard but I could be wrong. Also has anyone else had been having trouble with skilifts.org I’ve been getting a bandwidth limit on it, anyone know why?
The lift shack of Yan Carpenter Express is still in Deer Valley’s boneyard. If it sold to Lake Louise, it would seem odd to not send them the lift shack.
Utah Lost Ski Area ProjectAugust 23, 2021 / 12:27 pm
The boneyard is in plain sight near the bottom of Ontario run/hiking trail. The Yan lift shack can be seen easily from that trail. No need to go in the boneyard if you can see it just fine from afar.
One of the old Yan lift shacks (maybe from the old Carpenter bottom terminal) is now being used as a ticket office at the base of Silver Strike. You can also see some of the boneyard from Judge lift
I work at Deer Valley in Lift Operations. Anyone confused about the new layout of the new detachable quad, here is some insight!: The new quad will travel from the top of the current burns lift to the fork of Little Stick and Deer Hollow. The main purpose is to get beginners out of the base area, but without putting the pressure on Carpenter which then sends most over to Quincy on Flagstaff. The entire Deer Hollow / Little Stick fork and Little Stick run will be modified to help traffic, and accommodate the new lift terminal.
As for the removal of the Burns Double, all three of the Sunkid Conveyors will be moved across the run to where current Burns exists, and Snowflake CTEC Double will be extended down to the very bottom of Wide West. This will make Snowflake and the Sunkid Conveyors the only source of the wide west, and the direct access to the detachable at the top of Wide West. It makes sense when you think about it, trying to move more beginner traffic off of Carpenter, off of Flagstaff, and utilize Little Baldy.
For the new Burns, where will it start, down at the bottom where it starts now with a midstation or not a direct replacement? And Snowflake will be in the current alignment but back to where it used to start? If that’s not the plan, then that’s a 50% capacity downgrade on Wide West, which doesn’t seem right. That would mean the new HSQ would be extremely short (about half the length of Homestake) and require a fixed grip double chair ride to get there, reducing out-of-base capacity instead of adding to it.
The midstation would be about a 140-degree turn by my Google Maps estimate to make it up to Deer Hollow / Little Stick if that’s the plan
Hey Tyler, the new lift will indeed start at the top of the Wide West, directly where the ski school meeting area is currently. Snowflake is being extended down to the corner of Snow Park Lodge. So correct, the only access to Wide West directly will be Snowflake or the Sunkid Conveyor Lifts. It is a 50% capacity decrease, but it won’t be the last lift upgrade on the Wide West. As for the detachable, yes it will be incredibly short and steep. It will also be very slow and geared toward the beginner crowd. I know for a fact that the lift line does not have an angle station. It is an interesting concept, but it makes sense once seen.
Utah Lost Ski Area ProjectMarch 16, 2022 / 11:26 am
If the Sunkid conveyers are moved to replace Burns, then it would technically be a capacity increase. Sure, it won’t be a chairlift replacement, but it’s certainly not a capacity decrease.
I’m still confused by the alignment and length of this new lift. I understand the bottom terminal, but why not just run it all the way to the top of Little Baldy where Mountaineer and the Gondola terminate? Does anyone know why they didn’t do that?
Not exactly sure, but I have some ideas: 1. Because it is a beginner lift, they wanted to keep it super short so that first-timers don’t get overwhelmed. 2. Part of the project was adding the new lower Gnat’s Eye trail solely for the beginners lapping Burns. This could mean that it wasn’t extended to the summit because they feared that doing that would overcrowd the two trails off the top. 3. There might not have been space at the summit for another detachable terminal. I had thought there was enough space, but then again, it’s been a year since I’ve been, so I might not be remembering correctly.
There’s definitely space at the top of that peak, I don’t think that’s an issue. The only other thing I could think of was that if they extended it to the summit, it would’ve crossed over into Wasatch County, and I’m not sure (but assuming) it complicates the permitting process having a lift in two different counties? Although Sterling Express crosses the county line also.
The conveyors are already there next to Snowflake though, so it’s still a capacity decrease. It’s an interesting change if what Aiden is saying is correct. I don’t really like the idea of more beginners on the top of deer hollow and the little stick cat track. If they’re regrading it then it could be ok, but I don’t think the cat track can be widened much more than it is, and there will be a lot more criss cross traffic where they meet. On busy days on wide West I’ve seen pretty good size lines on both Burns and Snowflake so we’ll see if there’s enough remaining capacity. And those are the true beginners, the ones that shouldn’t be anywhere but wide west yet.
Id rather like to see Carpenter or Quincy getting replaced with 6packs rather than Burns lift getting a replacement. Maybe that’s just me trying to hold onto another piece of history that will soon be forgotten. When they were thinking of putting in a mid station and then running it up to the top of little or big stick runs I was on board with it. it would give as a third way out of the base which is much needed. but with the lift running in the same route and not really serving anything really important id like to see the lift replacement go to Carpenter or Quincy.
On another note too. this has always bothered me but why don’t they run Carpenter rather than Silverlake in the summer. it would give a better option to lap the front of the mountain in the summer for mountain biking and especially with Homesteak running in the summer too. It would really not even effect the hikers to walk a couple of steps to Homesteak to ride down. Also off topic but they should add more trails to the front of the mountain if they want people to start mountain biking the face.
I think a lot of it is because of the limited parking at Silver Lake. Especially the last few years once that new hotel went up and there was no longer the surface lot at Silver Lake anymore.
Haven’t they been running Homestake in the summer now with bike carriers? Or was that only 2019? I haven’t been up there in the summer since.
By silver lake I meant the high speed quad. Homesteak runs as normal during the summer. I just wish they would switch the bike carriers to carpenter express from silver lake express. Being that if you want to lap the front side aka snow park you would not haft to take two lifts or climb to lap it.
By the way, I think that the Burns Express is still under construction. Burns Express actually runs at 1000 feet/minute. According to Doppelmayr’s official site, it is 958 feet long.
One thing I never knew was just HOW much development was done here between 1994 and 1995. I was just looking at some old ski maps and the difference is astounding. CTEC must have had their best sales year ever then.
It never got too much use. It was removed the year that the montage started construction and the Lady Morgan expansion. Before even that the lift never saw that much use (it only ever served one run and that was under the lift). As at this time this whole area was mainly just for intermediate and expert. This lift ended about halfway up Ore cart run (where the cat track ends for a transfer back from Lady Morgan). so in the end it would have clogged up the area more than what should have been. If you were to ask me it should have been installed in the X-files area or the upper part on Empire.
probably because empire served every trail that little chief served and more, and being fixed grip the ride time of the little chief was only slightly shorter than the ride time of empire, so there was no reason to ride it.
Lift Blog 
Um I think that carpenter triple either went to be Viking,red cloud or crown point
Carpenter express is actually still a yan! Just has new terminals I think.
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Carpenter Express may be Garaventa CTEC when built in 1996, but it reused the towers the old high-speed quad had, so Carpenter Express is Garaventa CTEC/Lift Engineering (Yan). The only thing of yan is the towers with most of the tower heads.
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Does anyone know were Clipper was?
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Clipper was located where Silver Lake Express is now.
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You put it on Silver Lake, not Silver Strike. To help you, Silver Lake Express actually has 133 chairs
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Hi, Peter. I’ve been compiling a Google Earth version of your database, and I’ve come across four lifts at Deer Valley that seem to have statistical errors:
Silver Lake Express: Incorrect vertical. This may be the result of the fact that you are counting both the rise and fall over Bald Eagle Mountain, instead of having them cancel out.
Lady Morgan Express: The lift is far shorter than the value you have written.
Viking: Again, the lift is shorter than the entered value.
Snowflake: You have the old length and vertical entered, from before the bottom station was moved uphill.
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Garaventa CTEC’s installation history has Silver Lake at 1,398. I agree they added the two rises rather than listing the net number. Do you have that?
Lady Morgan came directly from Doppelmayr. I agree it is shorter. Have a number?
Yan’s installation data lists Viking as 150 feet long, which is obviously wrong. Again, have a better number?
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I do. These numbers come from Google Earth, so I’d say that there’s a 50′ margin of error on all of them.
Silver Lake (vertical): 908′
Lady Morgan (length): 2786′
Viking (length): 603′
Snowflake (length): 773′
(vertical): 113′
I’m in the process of mapping out every lift, so as I find more discrepancies, I’ll let you know.
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If Silver Lake’s vertical is measured from its bottom terminal to its top terminal, then Deer Valley estimates it at 900 ft. If it is from the bottom terminal to its highest point over Bald Eagle Mountain, then Deer Valley estimates it to be 1200 ft.
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Were did homestake go to?
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I think its going to Utah Olympic park for new terrain.
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Why replace Homestake? It’s not much longer than the other fixed grips. And there is no use really for it cause most people take Sliver Lake down.
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Homestake was out of commission with a gearbox failure for a while during spring 2018. Rather than an expensive fix, chance for an upgrade for a bottleneck spot. It’s in a sweet spot like the old Ruby and Deer Crest where the fixed chair is long enough to be annoying at a place like DV but the HSQ is short.
Also, Bob Wheaton, the old CEO of DV who now works at Alterra HQ, is on the board of the Olympic Park and may have found a way to kill two birds with one stone. Alterra probably got a nice tax writeoff for it.
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Obviously an old discussion, but Homestake definitely was a bottleneck in the afternoons when it was fixed grip. I disagree that most people take Silver Lake down at the end of the day, in fact it seemed there were few, most preferred to take Homestake and then ski.
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Something interesting I noticed while mountain biking up there today.
1. Silver Lake is getting Deasonbuilt bike carriers. I briefly watched while they installed one or two. These are the kind where it attaches to the chair bail.
2. Homestake HSQ has center-pole Deasonbuilt bike carriers on it. Looks like maybe DV has plans to run that lift in the summer now?
Silver Lake getting bike carriers makes tons of sense, especially since there is almost no parking up at Silver Lake this year, due to the construction. DV is trying to encourage people to park at Snow Park, and getting rid of the annoying hooks will help with that.
I have no idea what their plans are with Homestake, other than prevent bikers from having to do the short climb up to the mountain summit.
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I managed to find the official summer trail map. This year they will not be running Ruby, so DV will still only be spinning three lifts this summer. My guess is this is supposed to create another portal out of Silver Lake, and encourage more utilization of the front side mountain. I think this is a great thing.
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What happened to the ruby quad when it was replaced with a G-CTEC HSQ? It was only a few years old.
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Majestic at Brighton.
https://liftblog.com/majestic-brighton-ut/
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Do any of the high speed quads warrant enough traffic for a six pack?
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Doesn’t make sense for any of them to be a 6 since the busy peaks of Bald Mountain already has 3 quads and Flagstaff has 4 quads dumping out at the same place. The other outliers aren’t busy enough to warrant a 6.
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Not to mention many of the high speed quads have redundancies.
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Anyone got a master plan for Mayflower?
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Mayflower Mountain Resort published this earlier this year:
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this would replace silver lake
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That gondola idea has been around for a few years in slightly different alignments (https://snowbrains.com/deer-valley-plans-gondola-link-park-citys-main-street/), and I really hope it eventually gets built one day.
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Silver Lake would definitely make more sense as a gondola. Reuse the current lift to upgrade Mayflower or something.
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Silver Lake has a bunch of hours on it for a 1999-build, having been run in the summer and from 8:30 to 4:45 for most of its life. The least-used lift Mayflower would be a good place for it to be relocated as part of the the Mayflower expansion someday.
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Man, deer valley must love top drive bottom tension lol
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iirc it’s the most efficient when it comes to energy consumption, which is why it’s not too common to see bottom drive/top tension.
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None of the top terminal locations are very remote, which is probably why they were able to do it. The lone bottom drive is Viking, and I suspect that is becuase the top is right next to the Stein Eriksen Lodge, and they might have have wanted to limit noise there. The geography with several mountain peaks with different lifts converging at the same spot probably would have made it cheaper to run power to one place back in the 1980s to catch every lift’s top terminal instead of running to each of the different bottom terminal locations.
For what it’s worth, Park City (not the Canyons side) is almost 100% top-drive bottom-tension too, exception being Jupiter which has a remote top and Eaglet which has its drive adjacent to top-drive Eagle. The Canyons side probably tried to stretch every last nickel out of construction costs to finish their expansion in the early 2000s and has many more new-build bottom-drive lifts (Saddleback, Peak 5, 9990, the old High Meadow, Dreamscape).
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Ninety-Nine 90 has a remote top terminal, same as Jupiter, which would explain it being a bottom drive.
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A friend of mine has a place at Deer Crest and he recently told me about some of the comments homeowners made earlier this year around Christmas at a meeting. Keep in mind that Deer Valley takes input from Deer Crest fairly seriously even though many homeowners only use their residences 10 days a year.
-All lifts should be high-speed with heated bubbles (Red Cloud and Mayflower were specifically mentioned as annoyances)
-Ruby and Quincy are too crowded
-The gondola is too crowded in the morning, it should be opened earlier for Deer Crest only so they can go elsewhere before the crowds arrive
-The private trail network should open earlier in the season
-Deer Valley is too crowded
-“No snowboarders” was mentioned more than anything else
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The homeowners are ridiculous!! Do they have any idea how many billions it will cost to replace every lift with bubbles and heated seats??! I ski BS and don’t really care for the bubbles! And why would you need bubbles? It doesn’t even get that cold in DV. If they want that level of ridiculousness they can go to Yellowstone Club.
The one about the gondola is even more ridiculous. I know they are homeowners there but opening the lift early for them??!
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I agree with some of those policies but not all, first not all lift should be detachable (Viking, burns, judge, red cloud, mayflower) granted they are all aging but they don’t need to replace yet. Mayflower should be left alone because there is no crowds ever the area is a nice steep black and blue runs best area in the whole mountain. No snowboarder I agree with to be honest.
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I know this isn’t very lift related, but what is everyone’s opinion on the no snowboarders thing , just wondering
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With the lift replacements they are doing right now, I personally think that Viking and Judge would be replaced with an hsq, but the top terminal would go to the top of Sterling. I guess with this they could keep Viking, but they also could relocate Judge to a new alignment, maybe replacing Burns? They could also put Judge at the top of Snowflake, so it could go up to the top of Mountaineer or the Little Stick / Deer Hollow / Gnat’s eye junction.
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The hsq could also go from the base of Quincy to the Trump / Ontario / Homeward Bound junction.
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A lift from the top of Snowflake or Burns to Little Baldy Peak could be useful. Deer Valley could use it as another mini-beginner pod and it would obviously encourage a higher utilization of the Jordanelle area.
As for a Judge/Viking replacement, I agree it will likely be replaced with a detachable lift at some point given Deer Valley’s history of installing detachable lifts regardless of their length. Viking’s alignment is more likely to be used, and they could honestly just remove Judge without replacement. Since Quincy allows access to Silver Lake Lodge anyway, a backup lift would not be necessary. I also doubt either lift would then be reused elsewhere on the mountain due to Deer Valley’s detachable preference, and honestly, I could see Burns/Snowflake being replaced with a detachable lift to anchor the beginner area like First Time Express at neighboring Park City.
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Granted, I haven’t worked at Deer Valley since college (1997), but I don’t see them replacing Viking or Judge with a HSQ. They’re so short, maybe a fixed grip quad to update aging lifts. But Viking will not be removed, they use that lift to drop you at the door of Stein’s and that’s the beginner chair to teach lessons for guests at Silver Lake. If anything gets replaced in that pod, it would be Red Cloud. The employees I’ve talked to don’t think another HSQ will be put next to Sterling… they want to avoid the traffic problems they created on Flagstaff with 4 HSQ dumping into one small mountain. Flagstaff is a cluster on busy days.
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Update on the Snow Park development at Deer Park:
https://www.parkrecord.com/news/park-city/deer-valley-says-initial-talks-held-about-a-major-project-at-snow-park/
It is lift-related because its development will likely determine the alignment and/or feasibility of a Main Street-Deer Valley gondola. If the development calls for a gondola, it will likely be built in the next 5 years and run from Main Street to Snow Park to Silver Lake, replacing the existing Silver Lake with its second stage. If the plan does not call for a gondola, it would then go from Main Street to Silver Lake with an angle station and its timeline would be questionable. There is also the question of whether or not Park City develops a gondola network for transit. It would not be for a number of years and likely tied to funding for a potential Olympic Bid. Plus, the success or failure of a potential gondola in LCC would likely factor in as well.
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Viking got new Skytrac upgrades a couple years ago and one of its five towers replaced, suggesting it’ll be around for a while yet. No reason to replace either of those and it’s good to have them both because Quincy is a bottleneck.
Burns is much likelier to see an HSQ replacement, as it just turned 40 and PCMR has two bunny hill HSQs next door.
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Ive heard on some skilifts.org forum carpenter express was sold to lake Louise (the yan hsq) but I think I have seen it in the mechanics yard but I could be wrong. Also has anyone else had been having trouble with skilifts.org I’ve been getting a bandwidth limit on it, anyone know why?
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The lift shack of Yan Carpenter Express is still in Deer Valley’s boneyard. If it sold to Lake Louise, it would seem odd to not send them the lift shack.
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Lake Louise builds their own lift shacks in-house. No need for a pre-fabled Yan shack.
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Just curious were is this deer valley boneyard
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I’m not sure but most ski areas don’t like people going in their boneyards.
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The boneyard is in plain sight near the bottom of Ontario run/hiking trail. The Yan lift shack can be seen easily from that trail. No need to go in the boneyard if you can see it just fine from afar.
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One of the old Yan lift shacks (maybe from the old Carpenter bottom terminal) is now being used as a ticket office at the base of Silver Strike. You can also see some of the boneyard from Judge lift
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Viking is clearly not 1,500 feet long. I get closer to 590-600 base on Google Earth.
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I work at Deer Valley in Lift Operations. Anyone confused about the new layout of the new detachable quad, here is some insight!: The new quad will travel from the top of the current burns lift to the fork of Little Stick and Deer Hollow. The main purpose is to get beginners out of the base area, but without putting the pressure on Carpenter which then sends most over to Quincy on Flagstaff. The entire Deer Hollow / Little Stick fork and Little Stick run will be modified to help traffic, and accommodate the new lift terminal.
As for the removal of the Burns Double, all three of the Sunkid Conveyors will be moved across the run to where current Burns exists, and Snowflake CTEC Double will be extended down to the very bottom of Wide West. This will make Snowflake and the Sunkid Conveyors the only source of the wide west, and the direct access to the detachable at the top of Wide West. It makes sense when you think about it, trying to move more beginner traffic off of Carpenter, off of Flagstaff, and utilize Little Baldy.
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For the new Burns, where will it start, down at the bottom where it starts now with a midstation or not a direct replacement? And Snowflake will be in the current alignment but back to where it used to start? If that’s not the plan, then that’s a 50% capacity downgrade on Wide West, which doesn’t seem right. That would mean the new HSQ would be extremely short (about half the length of Homestake) and require a fixed grip double chair ride to get there, reducing out-of-base capacity instead of adding to it.
The midstation would be about a 140-degree turn by my Google Maps estimate to make it up to Deer Hollow / Little Stick if that’s the plan
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Hey Tyler, the new lift will indeed start at the top of the Wide West, directly where the ski school meeting area is currently. Snowflake is being extended down to the corner of Snow Park Lodge. So correct, the only access to Wide West directly will be Snowflake or the Sunkid Conveyor Lifts. It is a 50% capacity decrease, but it won’t be the last lift upgrade on the Wide West. As for the detachable, yes it will be incredibly short and steep. It will also be very slow and geared toward the beginner crowd. I know for a fact that the lift line does not have an angle station. It is an interesting concept, but it makes sense once seen.
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I measured that out to be about 800 feet, if I’m not mistaken that would probably be the shortest high speed in the world.
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If the Sunkid conveyers are moved to replace Burns, then it would technically be a capacity increase. Sure, it won’t be a chairlift replacement, but it’s certainly not a capacity decrease.
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Yes, I have to assume we will make the conveyors reach the top. If that is the case, then you are right, could almost be a capacity increase.
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I’m still confused by the alignment and length of this new lift. I understand the bottom terminal, but why not just run it all the way to the top of Little Baldy where Mountaineer and the Gondola terminate? Does anyone know why they didn’t do that?
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Not exactly sure, but I have some ideas: 1. Because it is a beginner lift, they wanted to keep it super short so that first-timers don’t get overwhelmed. 2. Part of the project was adding the new lower Gnat’s Eye trail solely for the beginners lapping Burns. This could mean that it wasn’t extended to the summit because they feared that doing that would overcrowd the two trails off the top. 3. There might not have been space at the summit for another detachable terminal. I had thought there was enough space, but then again, it’s been a year since I’ve been, so I might not be remembering correctly.
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There’s definitely space at the top of that peak, I don’t think that’s an issue. The only other thing I could think of was that if they extended it to the summit, it would’ve crossed over into Wasatch County, and I’m not sure (but assuming) it complicates the permitting process having a lift in two different counties? Although Sterling Express crosses the county line also.
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The conveyors are already there next to Snowflake though, so it’s still a capacity decrease. It’s an interesting change if what Aiden is saying is correct. I don’t really like the idea of more beginners on the top of deer hollow and the little stick cat track. If they’re regrading it then it could be ok, but I don’t think the cat track can be widened much more than it is, and there will be a lot more criss cross traffic where they meet. On busy days on wide West I’ve seen pretty good size lines on both Burns and Snowflake so we’ll see if there’s enough remaining capacity. And those are the true beginners, the ones that shouldn’t be anywhere but wide west yet.
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Deer valley when it was snow park https://mountainscholar.org/bitstream/handle/11124/8811/R0005.jpg?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
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And then their were four
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Snow park photo the bottom of one of the lifts https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=1614850&page=8&q=Park+city&fd=title_t%2Cdate_t%2Ctype_t%2Csetname_s&year_start=1785&year_end=1995
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Id rather like to see Carpenter or Quincy getting replaced with 6packs rather than Burns lift getting a replacement. Maybe that’s just me trying to hold onto another piece of history that will soon be forgotten. When they were thinking of putting in a mid station and then running it up to the top of little or big stick runs I was on board with it. it would give as a third way out of the base which is much needed. but with the lift running in the same route and not really serving anything really important id like to see the lift replacement go to Carpenter or Quincy.
On another note too. this has always bothered me but why don’t they run Carpenter rather than Silverlake in the summer. it would give a better option to lap the front of the mountain in the summer for mountain biking and especially with Homesteak running in the summer too. It would really not even effect the hikers to walk a couple of steps to Homesteak to ride down. Also off topic but they should add more trails to the front of the mountain if they want people to start mountain biking the face.
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I think a lot of it is because of the limited parking at Silver Lake. Especially the last few years once that new hotel went up and there was no longer the surface lot at Silver Lake anymore.
Haven’t they been running Homestake in the summer now with bike carriers? Or was that only 2019? I haven’t been up there in the summer since.
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By silver lake I meant the high speed quad. Homesteak runs as normal during the summer. I just wish they would switch the bike carriers to carpenter express from silver lake express. Being that if you want to lap the front side aka snow park you would not haft to take two lifts or climb to lap it.
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By the way, I think that the Burns Express is still under construction. Burns Express actually runs at 1000 feet/minute. According to Doppelmayr’s official site, it is 958 feet long.
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Anyone been on the Funicular located at the St. Regis at Deer Valley? I didn’t know one existed. Apparently they had to rescue someone from it last night.
https://kutv.com/news/local/person-rescued-park-city-after-getting-stuck-inside-funicular-st-regis-hotel-deer-valley#
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Dont worry about getting pictures of burns express, i am going there this week and i will take pictures.
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One thing I never knew was just HOW much development was done here between 1994 and 1995. I was just looking at some old ski maps and the difference is astounding. CTEC must have had their best sales year ever then.
Click to access 1619102934.pdf
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nvm I just noticed their appears to be a big labeling error it would be 1997 to 1998
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what is up with the Little Chief lift that seems to have only been around for 6 years. It seems like a strange thing to only have for such a short time. http://www.skilifts.org/old/images/resort_images/ut-deervalley/littlecheif/littlecheif.htm
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It never got too much use. It was removed the year that the montage started construction and the Lady Morgan expansion. Before even that the lift never saw that much use (it only ever served one run and that was under the lift). As at this time this whole area was mainly just for intermediate and expert. This lift ended about halfway up Ore cart run (where the cat track ends for a transfer back from Lady Morgan). so in the end it would have clogged up the area more than what should have been. If you were to ask me it should have been installed in the X-files area or the upper part on Empire.
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I like the X-files the way they are. Wouldn’t a lift there absolutely ruin it?
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probably because empire served every trail that little chief served and more, and being fixed grip the ride time of the little chief was only slightly shorter than the ride time of empire, so there was no reason to ride it.
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SO MANY HSQs!!!
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