This double chair once ran in a longer alignment but was shortened with the opening of a high speed quad in 1986.Lift line.Side view of the top terminal.View down the line with Wisconsin in the background.Upper lift line.Another view of the line.Lower station with a portal tower.Counterweight tensioning.Loading area.
Regarding the length and alignment, overhead mapping tools show that the length matches spot-on with the original SAM data. Also, a 1981 overhead photo (a bit grainy) from HistoricAerials.com and a 1976 trail map posted on skimap.org show the lift hasn’t been moved or shortened, but that it also had a twin lift that was removed when the original Spirit Express was installed. The “D2” lift was removed in 1986 when the original Spirit Express was installed and sold to a ski area out of state, while the “D1” lift became “Double Jaw”. This is per the University of Minnesota-Duluth research paper entitled “Spirit Mountain: The First Forty Years”.
Regarding the length and alignment, overhead mapping tools show that the length matches spot-on with the original SAM data. Also, a 1981 overhead photo (a bit grainy) from HistoricAerials.com and a 1976 trail map posted on skimap.org show the lift hasn’t been moved or shortened, but that it also had a twin lift that was removed when the original Spirit Express was installed. The “D2” lift was removed in 1986 when the original Spirit Express was installed and sold to a ski area out of state, while the “D1” lift became “Double Jaw”. This is per the University of Minnesota-Duluth research paper entitled “Spirit Mountain: The First Forty Years”.
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