This lift has bubble chairs in the winter and bike carriers in the summer.Tower 14.View back down the line.Arriving at the top terminal.Top drive station with a short chair parking rail.This lift crosses under the Whistler Village Gondola.Lower lift line in the village zone.Side view of the bottom terminal.Lift overview.Lower station and tower 1.T1.View riding up the line.WVG crossover.Vail Resorts eliminated bubbles from this lift and all former bubble lifts at Whistler Blackcomb.View back down the unskiable lift line.Upper station with short maintenance rail.Doppelmayr Worldbook entry.
The bubbles were removed from the chairs in around 2011 and haven’t been back on since. They were in pretty rough shape since Fitz doesn’t have a maintenance facility like Wizard (RIP) used to which they could care for the chairs/ bubbles in. They were likely saved to use as replacements for any of Wizard’s bubbles, but not as a capacity upgrade.
The EJ bubble chairs seem to be a dying breed. Either the bubbles themselves or the entire lifts are getting removed.
Some lifts that had the bubbles removed where then lifts initially stayed in service or are still in service today are Sundown @ Steamboat, Storm Peak @ Steamboat, Vista Bahn @ Vail, and Fitzsimmons @ WB.
Soleil at Tremblant had bubbles in it’s original location where the south side gondola is now. When it was moved, the bubbles didn’t make it back on.
All the high speed quads at The Yellowstone Club, plus the Meadows Pulse Quad had them on every other chair (every chair on Meadows), but now have the current-generation 4E98 bubble chairs.
The only three north American lifts I know off the top of my head of that still have EJ bubble chairs with the bubbles intact are in Canada. They are Express du Sud at Mont Sainte Anne in Quebec, Lift H at Stoneham in Quebec, and Sunburst Express at Sun Peaks in British Columbia.
So cool that Sun Peaks is committed to keeping the bubbles on Sunburst. Oddly enough a similarly named lift on the other side of the continent is the Sunburst 6 at Okemo which also has bubbles. Hopefully the two lifts at the RCR resorts in Quebec keep their bubbles. Mont Sainte Anne was in the process of polishing them when I was there last February. Those two lifts however are very old and I would expect to see them replaced soon.
Doesn’t seem like they run this lift more than a backup in the morning, I’m willing to bet most of its operating hours come from mountain biking in the summer.
They named it after the adjacent Fitzsimmons Creek that runs through the valley between Whistler and Blackcomb.
It’s also at least partially named after the Fitzsimmons Chair, which was the first in a chain of three triple chairlifts that you used prior to 1994 to transition from Whistler to Blackcomb, the other two being Cruiser and Stoker. Fitzsimmons was replaced by stage I of the Excalibur Gondola; Cruiser was replaced by stage II of the Excalibur Gondola; and Stoker was replaced by the Excelerator Express.
Not that this is a fandom site, but you’ve probably heard the name Fitz-Simmons as referring to the “ship” (as you Americans call it) between Leo Fitz and Jenna Simmons from the TV show Agents of Shield.
Dunno why Whistler would want to name the lift “Fitzsimmons”, though. I think they should upgrade it into a 10-person gondola along with Garbanzo to relieve capacity on the Whistler Gondola.
Again, it (and the triple that was replaced by Excalibur Stage I in 1994) were named for the creek that runs along the valley between the mountains.
” I think they should upgrade it into a 10-person gondola along with Garbanzo to relieve capacity on the Whistler Gondola.” Uh, no. I think it would be best for those two to stay chairlifts. Especially Garbanzo, which is actually used for lapping terrain in the stage II part of the gondola and actually has some terrain that isn’t accessible from the Whistler Gondola. I don’t think the Whistler side of the resort should become a mountain where the only pods of below tree-line skiing where you don’t have to remove your equipment after every run are Big Red and Emerald 6.
The skiing pod is mostly flat and low elevation, not at all worth lapping unless you’re a beginner, and even then there are options up higher with better snow. So an upgrade would mostly be for the bike park.
I have to imagine they have some spare chairs from the original Emerald 4 that didn’t transfer with that lift’s reinstallation as Catskinner that could be used to boost Fitzsimmons’ capacity.
The crossing of the gondola’s going to be very interesting.
I think they might have to temporarily close the lower part of the gondola for the duration of construction (and send everyone up the Blackcomb Gondola to Peak 2 Peak to get to Roundhouse).
Last time I was there for sightseeing during summer, they would only let us go up on the Blackcomb gondola anyhow… we came back down on Whistler gondola. I agree that option wont be available next summer, but it probably wont affect their operations much, the day we were there was plenty of lift capacity, there will just be longer lineups for the Peak2peak most likely (they might have to limit back and forth trips across).
Is this upgrade to improve the out of base capacity in the morning during the winter, or more for the bike park operations during the summer? I would not have guessed this lift to be high on Vail’s list for a D-Line replacement.
I would be surprised to see this lift scrapped. Whistler alone has multiple places for this lift to be useful (T-Bar Replacement, Olympic Replacement, Magic Replacement), let alone the entire Vail Resorts portfolio. Yet again they did scrap Red Chair last summer, which was just two years older than this lift.
Big Red and Emerald 1.0 were twin lifts. Why Emerald was reused and Big Red was scrapped, I do not know, but a lot can change for old machines in the span of just a couple of years that influence these decisions. Fitz is younger and never needed an overhaul to remove its Yan components, but it likely has more hours due to its summertime usage, so we shall see what happens to it.
The real question is where to reuse any detachable quad. I mentioned the proposed Franz/T-Bar replacement from Whistler’s master plan because that is really the only replacement idea I can think of unless they want a detachable beginner lift for Olympic.
@skitheeast, After 2018 when Catskinner was moved, Doppelmayr would no longer support moving a lift with the P8 controls, unless they were replaced as part of the move. This means a total electrical upgrade, like every electrical component in the lift including the drive. This is to meet code and their current design standard. Catskinner was only moved because they took a liberal interpretation of the Z98. Fitz is one of the original PSS300 lifts and still supported, so it could be moved, but again, its a small lift. You can’t just put it on a big alignment. It would work at Olympic or Magic. Not really anywhere else, unless a location was invented for it.
Sorry, my bad, typed reply before researching. Franz is smaller than I thought, and Fitz is designed for more capacity than is currently being used. It would probably fit there at the current 1800pph capacity.
Looks like Franz’s is about 3800′ in length and Fitzsimmons is around 5800, so Fitzsimmons could easily replace Franz’s in its current alignment. Another option would be to replace Franz’s and the T-Bars with this lift. Based on Google Earth measurements, the distance from the base of Franz’s to the top of the T-Bars is approx 5600′, so this lift would be an ideal fit in terms of length.
Realized Emerald->Catskinner was also a Yan retrofit after I posted this, oops. Replacing Magic would also be a good use for the outgoing lift, maybe with a bit of time and a lift from Base 2 to the bottom of Catskinner, Blackcomb could have top to bottom chairlift access again
Hopefully if they dont find a reuse for this lift, that they offer it for sale to other resorts before scrapping it. There are a lot of other ski areas full of really old lifts that would make this chair seem like new.
Whistler has sold off old lifts to other resorts pre-Vail. Fact is I think they have too many uses for it within their own resorts, even within Whistler itself to really bother with that.
No Red chair in the plan. Fitz may start end of March, but not confirmed. Sightseeing UP Blackcomb Gondola, DOWN VG or BG. VG up is bike park access. Creekside Gondi open for bile park with new trails.
Looks like the WB foundation will be auctioning off the chairs from Fitzsimmons this summer. I’m assuming that means it’s getting scrapped, which is unfortunate.
Seriously? This lift would be considered new by Quebec standards, and seems like an incredible waste to scrap it, when a large portion of Canadian resorts would benefit from upgrading and having a mid 90s state of the art Doppelmayr detachable lift like this
A comment above regarding Doppelmayr requiring complete electrical upgrades during a move really makes relocation less economical sadly. Hopefully the towers can be sold off to upgrade another lift somewhere else. My guess is WB will keep the drive terminal components and possibly the haul rope depending on age to keep the other aging Doppy quads running until they get 6’d or 8’d in the future.
if this is in fact true it must mean that Doppelmayer lifts either arent as durable as the competition or this is a Vail thing. Because I can say for sure that literally just this last lift construction season Boyne relocated a Doppelmayer lift 3 years older than this. I truly think either Doppelmayer lifts dont last as long in the coastal environments or Vail just literally never reuses lifts and I really think its the latter. If anyone can list at least ONE lift that Vail has recently sold or relocated in the last 3 years I will concede that I am wrong. I highly doubt that Vail runs all their lifts enough to the point where they are unusable.
Mostly just questioning this because I can say with 100% certainty there there are TONS of resorts in North America that would kill for a 23 year old HSQ. Unless the lifts at Whistler wear out twice as fast there is no chance that this lift is in poor condition.
The salt from being near the ocean may do something, but you have to remember this lift likely has double the hours of a comparable 23 year old detachable quad. It is used all year for both skiing and biking, whereas most lifts just do the former.
Vail has relocated detachable lifts before. They moved King Con to Motherlode at Park City in 2015, much of Montezuma was moved to Beaver Creek to become Red Buffalo in 2017, and they moved Emerald to Catskinner right here at Whistler in 2018. Boyne has committed to not buying any more new detachable quads, so they have more incentive to relocate existing lifts, but Vail seems to do it as well when it makes sense.
Jules, it’s not that Doppelmayr lifts don’t last as long in coastal environments. If that were the case other manufacturers would have shortened lifespans out there as well. Rob spelled it out in an earlier comment; Doppelmayr will not relocate one of their lifts with older, out-of-date control systems. This means that in order to move an older lift, the relocating area would have a large added cost because of a full rewire. Many places aren’t willing to add that to the price tag.
Ah that makes more sense. It seems like it definitely depends on the age of the lift and the environment, from the sounds of it, it seems like the actual usage of the lift is the bigger factor here. To me it just seems sorta scummy from Doppelmayer as a way to force smaller resorts to buy new lifts instead of getting used lifts. It generally is a big disappointment because I can think of hundreds of resorts that would be drastically improved with high speed lifts but cant afford a brand new lift.
Doppelmayr isn’t being ‘scummy’. Current code requirements are the driving factor here- the Z98 in Canada as well as the CEN over in Europe. I’d have to look at the B77 for here in the states to see if there are similar stricter requirements.
I am just trying to wrap my head around things that just dont make sense to me. It seems like most other lifts are significantly easier to relocate than Doppelmayers, and why most of the lift relocations I hear about dont come from Vail.
Jules – Rob points out below that WB is keeping a lot of spare parts for this chair for other uses at WB. Moving a lift wholesale is much more involved, financially and physically. It is torn down piecemeal, and then transported downhill, then across country, then resurrected at much cost after substantial expensive upgrades. Tons of time and monetary investment. Not the $6 to 20 mil that a new lift would cost, but much dollario. Compare that to dern-near free parts–labour only–for WB, none of which are cheap coming new from Wolfurt or St Jerome or SLC, all of which are just a truck ride or so from the Maintenance Barn, and pretty soon a small loss or breaking even makes the most sense. I’m sure Rob would rather have these newish jaws that are already in hand than blowing budget on new ones that he (or whoever does the ordering) has to spend time getting and unpacking and all of that, which also aren’t measurably more reliable. To quote the ever-eloquent Bucky Katt from back in the day, a bird in the hand is worth two, um, bushes. Selling the lift to someone else, when the value of holding on for the current owner is sizable, is altruistic, yes, but not really beneficial to somebody like Vail. I’m not even bagging on VR, it’s just simple calculations. On the small resort side, the calculations you make and the ones they make are going to be different. A lot of money for a 23 year old lift for many places is a lot of money, full stop, and the imagined result isn’t even a part of the equation. My home joint of Bogus has two lifts like Fitzsimmons here, and a trail pod that could theoretically benefit from upgrading from a 70s Riblet to a 90s Uni, but the change just doesn’t measure up to the expense if it was ever considered in the first place. More traffic without more reliability, with the expected and frustrating 1 year break-in period, that sorta deal. On the whole, parting out at home makes the most sense. Anyway, apologies if this feels like piling on. Nothing personal intended. Your perspective is valid and your points are well taken.
I guess it depends I am looking for different perspectives. I was wondering mostly why Boyne puts all this money in refurbishing old lifts while Vail does not seem to do so. I guess Vail has a different business model. We will see who ends up better off in the long run.
We are keeping the rope. I think it is going to another resort. The grip jaws are all new and going to peak chair. The rest is spare parts for our other lifts.
Parted out for spares and scrapped. Given the tight construction schedule, we don’t have a month or two to carefully disassemble it for reinstallation elsewhere.
I was at WB today. They had an excavator tearing that thing down. By 2 the bottom station was gone, and they were starting to shred the towers. It’s honestly sad to see such a young lift be scrapped. On another note, getting out of Whistler this morning was a nightmare. Only the gondolas were running.
Won’t upgrading this to an 8 pack just crowd Garbanzo, especially in the mornings? I have never been to WB, but to me this seems like a solely bike park focused upgrade, as the only other lift this would service is Olympic. Even if Olympic were to get upgraded, this seems like to much capacity for winter operations, even though it will be useful in the summer.
I would like to present you with an ode to Fitzsimmons Express chairlift, one I have been riding regularly since I was a young. Here is a 10 hour ASMR sound track of The Fitzsimmons Drive Terminal operating at normal speed. Some will undoubtably not find this interesting, but for the real dorks among us, here you are.
She is a noisy beast, but her rattles and clunks put me right to sleep! Recorded winter of 2023, the final season before her removal.
Thanks in advance I did use one of the liftblog photos for the video. All photo credit goes to liftblog, and this page is linked in the description!
well when you think about the amount of hours it had on it for year round ops, some could make the argument that they got 30 years of use out of it under normal circumstances? Either way she served WB and those who worked on her well. Kudos to the lift team.
Lift Blog 
Does anyone know why they no longer put the bubbles on in winter? were they moved to the wizard for increased capacity or something?
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The bubbles were removed from the chairs in around 2011 and haven’t been back on since. They were in pretty rough shape since Fitz doesn’t have a maintenance facility like Wizard (RIP) used to which they could care for the chairs/ bubbles in. They were likely saved to use as replacements for any of Wizard’s bubbles, but not as a capacity upgrade.
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The EJ bubble chairs seem to be a dying breed. Either the bubbles themselves or the entire lifts are getting removed.
Some lifts that had the bubbles removed where then lifts initially stayed in service or are still in service today are Sundown @ Steamboat, Storm Peak @ Steamboat, Vista Bahn @ Vail, and Fitzsimmons @ WB.
Soleil at Tremblant had bubbles in it’s original location where the south side gondola is now. When it was moved, the bubbles didn’t make it back on.
All the high speed quads at The Yellowstone Club, plus the Meadows Pulse Quad had them on every other chair (every chair on Meadows), but now have the current-generation 4E98 bubble chairs.
The only three north American lifts I know off the top of my head of that still have EJ bubble chairs with the bubbles intact are in Canada. They are Express du Sud at Mont Sainte Anne in Quebec, Lift H at Stoneham in Quebec, and Sunburst Express at Sun Peaks in British Columbia.
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Only the lodge lift at YC got new E98 Bubbles. the rest still have the old style.
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Sunburst got a bunch of old Wizard bubble parts as spares.
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Does Sun Peaks’ parent company still own 25 percent of Whistler Blackcomb?
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So cool that Sun Peaks is committed to keeping the bubbles on Sunburst. Oddly enough a similarly named lift on the other side of the continent is the Sunburst 6 at Okemo which also has bubbles. Hopefully the two lifts at the RCR resorts in Quebec keep their bubbles. Mont Sainte Anne was in the process of polishing them when I was there last February. Those two lifts however are very old and I would expect to see them replaced soon.
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I rode Seventh Heaven and at first it was so old I thought it was a old poma terminal. But really it was a 80’s style doppelmayr detachable terminal.
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7th Heaven is the oldest detachable at Whistler Blackcomb
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Doesn’t seem like they run this lift more than a backup in the morning, I’m willing to bet most of its operating hours come from mountain biking in the summer.
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Anyone know why they named this Fitzsimmons Express? Sounds like a ship name.
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The creek that runs through the valley that Peak 2 Peak crosses over is called Fitzsimmons Creek. I’m pretty sure it’s named after that.
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They named it after the adjacent Fitzsimmons Creek that runs through the valley between Whistler and Blackcomb.
It’s also at least partially named after the Fitzsimmons Chair, which was the first in a chain of three triple chairlifts that you used prior to 1994 to transition from Whistler to Blackcomb, the other two being Cruiser and Stoker. Fitzsimmons was replaced by stage I of the Excalibur Gondola; Cruiser was replaced by stage II of the Excalibur Gondola; and Stoker was replaced by the Excelerator Express.
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The mountain range of which WhistlerBlackcomb is located on is called “the Fitzsimmons Range” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitzsimmons_Range#:~:text=The%20Fitzsimmons%20Range%20is%20a,and%20Fitzsimmons%20Creek%20(NE).
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Fitzsimmons Creek is the waterway which runs between whistler and blackcomb
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Not that this is a fandom site, but you’ve probably heard the name Fitz-Simmons as referring to the “ship” (as you Americans call it) between Leo Fitz and Jenna Simmons from the TV show Agents of Shield.
Dunno why Whistler would want to name the lift “Fitzsimmons”, though. I think they should upgrade it into a 10-person gondola along with Garbanzo to relieve capacity on the Whistler Gondola.
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Again, it (and the triple that was replaced by Excalibur Stage I in 1994) were named for the creek that runs along the valley between the mountains.
” I think they should upgrade it into a 10-person gondola along with Garbanzo to relieve capacity on the Whistler Gondola.” Uh, no. I think it would be best for those two to stay chairlifts. Especially Garbanzo, which is actually used for lapping terrain in the stage II part of the gondola and actually has some terrain that isn’t accessible from the Whistler Gondola. I don’t think the Whistler side of the resort should become a mountain where the only pods of below tree-line skiing where you don’t have to remove your equipment after every run are Big Red and Emerald 6.
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At least upgrade Fitzsimmons to a six pack. That’s really all I would do.
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I agree with AbiW’s proposal for Fitzsimmons and Garbanzo. Peter, what do you think?
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They don’t need to replace either of them. They just need to run Fitzsimmons all-day long and daily.
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The Fitzsimmons needs an upgrade for the summer not the winter. It is maxed out for the bike park.
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The skiing pod is mostly flat and low elevation, not at all worth lapping unless you’re a beginner, and even then there are options up higher with better snow. So an upgrade would mostly be for the bike park.
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And as extra out of base capacity to supplement the gondola.
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Those are two things that would be easily doable by 1) adding more chairs and 2) running the lift all day.
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I have to imagine they have some spare chairs from the original Emerald 4 that didn’t transfer with that lift’s reinstallation as Catskinner that could be used to boost Fitzsimmons’ capacity.
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not a fan of heights and was wondering if this lift is not going to make me faint when i saw it
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Looks like this will be the location of Vail Resorts first 8 pack
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The crossing of the gondola’s going to be very interesting.
I think they might have to temporarily close the lower part of the gondola for the duration of construction (and send everyone up the Blackcomb Gondola to Peak 2 Peak to get to Roundhouse).
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Last time I was there for sightseeing during summer, they would only let us go up on the Blackcomb gondola anyhow… we came back down on Whistler gondola. I agree that option wont be available next summer, but it probably wont affect their operations much, the day we were there was plenty of lift capacity, there will just be longer lineups for the Peak2peak most likely (they might have to limit back and forth trips across).
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Is this upgrade to improve the out of base capacity in the morning during the winter, or more for the bike park operations during the summer? I would not have guessed this lift to be high on Vail’s list for a D-Line replacement.
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Im pretty sure its for the bike park, i think they have chairs that carry 6 bikes and 6 riders at the same time for summertime operations.
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That line is now ski able vs a cliff drop!
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Are you sure? That seems to be a big drop, and the Fitz area is low elevation, often getting rain.
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Are they going to scrap this lift or relocate it?
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I would be surprised to see this lift scrapped. Whistler alone has multiple places for this lift to be useful (T-Bar Replacement, Olympic Replacement, Magic Replacement), let alone the entire Vail Resorts portfolio. Yet again they did scrap Red Chair last summer, which was just two years older than this lift.
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Maybe it was because Big Red was a Yan retrofit? I really hope they are able to do something with this instead of just scrapping it.
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“Maybe it was because Big Red was a Yan retrofit?” So was Emerald, and that lives on as Catskinner. But those are two completely different cases.
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Big Red and Emerald 1.0 were twin lifts. Why Emerald was reused and Big Red was scrapped, I do not know, but a lot can change for old machines in the span of just a couple of years that influence these decisions. Fitz is younger and never needed an overhaul to remove its Yan components, but it likely has more hours due to its summertime usage, so we shall see what happens to it.
The real question is where to reuse any detachable quad. I mentioned the proposed Franz/T-Bar replacement from Whistler’s master plan because that is really the only replacement idea I can think of unless they want a detachable beginner lift for Olympic.
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@skitheeast, After 2018 when Catskinner was moved, Doppelmayr would no longer support moving a lift with the P8 controls, unless they were replaced as part of the move. This means a total electrical upgrade, like every electrical component in the lift including the drive. This is to meet code and their current design standard. Catskinner was only moved because they took a liberal interpretation of the Z98. Fitz is one of the original PSS300 lifts and still supported, so it could be moved, but again, its a small lift. You can’t just put it on a big alignment. It would work at Olympic or Magic. Not really anywhere else, unless a location was invented for it.
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Southern Cross at Stevens Pass could be a good spot for Fitz in the same Vail region.
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Sorry, my bad, typed reply before researching. Franz is smaller than I thought, and Fitz is designed for more capacity than is currently being used. It would probably fit there at the current 1800pph capacity.
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Looks like Franz’s is about 3800′ in length and Fitzsimmons is around 5800, so Fitzsimmons could easily replace Franz’s in its current alignment. Another option would be to replace Franz’s and the T-Bars with this lift. Based on Google Earth measurements, the distance from the base of Franz’s to the top of the T-Bars is approx 5600′, so this lift would be an ideal fit in terms of length.
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Realized Emerald->Catskinner was also a Yan retrofit after I posted this, oops. Replacing Magic would also be a good use for the outgoing lift, maybe with a bit of time and a lift from Base 2 to the bottom of Catskinner, Blackcomb could have top to bottom chairlift access again
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Hopefully if they dont find a reuse for this lift, that they offer it for sale to other resorts before scrapping it. There are a lot of other ski areas full of really old lifts that would make this chair seem like new.
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Whistler has sold off old lifts to other resorts pre-Vail. Fact is I think they have too many uses for it within their own resorts, even within Whistler itself to really bother with that.
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the towers can not be reused they are embedded in the foundations they do not know how rusted they maybe
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Not sure where you’re getting that one, Fitz just uses bolts, you can see them in many of the pictures.
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sorry I was talking about the red chair
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Aussierob – do you know when they expect to start construction? And will the Red Chair run this summer to help with sightsee/bike park access?
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No Red chair in the plan. Fitz may start end of March, but not confirmed. Sightseeing UP Blackcomb Gondola, DOWN VG or BG. VG up is bike park access. Creekside Gondi open for bile park with new trails.
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Any update on when the replacement will start?
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March 20.
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cool, thanks! how will spring and glacier skiing work around jersey cream?
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Creekside Gondi for bike park? What’s the plan for bike carriers, will we (please!!) get to see the first North America Bike Cab installation?
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Looks like the WB foundation will be auctioning off the chairs from Fitzsimmons this summer. I’m assuming that means it’s getting scrapped, which is unfortunate.
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Seriously? This lift would be considered new by Quebec standards, and seems like an incredible waste to scrap it, when a large portion of Canadian resorts would benefit from upgrading and having a mid 90s state of the art Doppelmayr detachable lift like this
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A comment above regarding Doppelmayr requiring complete electrical upgrades during a move really makes relocation less economical sadly. Hopefully the towers can be sold off to upgrade another lift somewhere else. My guess is WB will keep the drive terminal components and possibly the haul rope depending on age to keep the other aging Doppy quads running until they get 6’d or 8’d in the future.
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if this is in fact true it must mean that Doppelmayer lifts either arent as durable as the competition or this is a Vail thing. Because I can say for sure that literally just this last lift construction season Boyne relocated a Doppelmayer lift 3 years older than this. I truly think either Doppelmayer lifts dont last as long in the coastal environments or Vail just literally never reuses lifts and I really think its the latter. If anyone can list at least ONE lift that Vail has recently sold or relocated in the last 3 years I will concede that I am wrong. I highly doubt that Vail runs all their lifts enough to the point where they are unusable.
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Mostly just questioning this because I can say with 100% certainty there there are TONS of resorts in North America that would kill for a 23 year old HSQ. Unless the lifts at Whistler wear out twice as fast there is no chance that this lift is in poor condition.
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The salt from being near the ocean may do something, but you have to remember this lift likely has double the hours of a comparable 23 year old detachable quad. It is used all year for both skiing and biking, whereas most lifts just do the former.
Vail has relocated detachable lifts before. They moved King Con to Motherlode at Park City in 2015, much of Montezuma was moved to Beaver Creek to become Red Buffalo in 2017, and they moved Emerald to Catskinner right here at Whistler in 2018. Boyne has committed to not buying any more new detachable quads, so they have more incentive to relocate existing lifts, but Vail seems to do it as well when it makes sense.
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Jules, it’s not that Doppelmayr lifts don’t last as long in coastal environments. If that were the case other manufacturers would have shortened lifespans out there as well. Rob spelled it out in an earlier comment; Doppelmayr will not relocate one of their lifts with older, out-of-date control systems. This means that in order to move an older lift, the relocating area would have a large added cost because of a full rewire. Many places aren’t willing to add that to the price tag.
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Ah that makes more sense. It seems like it definitely depends on the age of the lift and the environment, from the sounds of it, it seems like the actual usage of the lift is the bigger factor here. To me it just seems sorta scummy from Doppelmayer as a way to force smaller resorts to buy new lifts instead of getting used lifts. It generally is a big disappointment because I can think of hundreds of resorts that would be drastically improved with high speed lifts but cant afford a brand new lift.
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Doppelmayr isn’t being ‘scummy’. Current code requirements are the driving factor here- the Z98 in Canada as well as the CEN over in Europe. I’d have to look at the B77 for here in the states to see if there are similar stricter requirements.
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I am just trying to wrap my head around things that just dont make sense to me. It seems like most other lifts are significantly easier to relocate than Doppelmayers, and why most of the lift relocations I hear about dont come from Vail.
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Jules – Rob points out below that WB is keeping a lot of spare parts for this chair for other uses at WB. Moving a lift wholesale is much more involved, financially and physically. It is torn down piecemeal, and then transported downhill, then across country, then resurrected at much cost after substantial expensive upgrades. Tons of time and monetary investment. Not the $6 to 20 mil that a new lift would cost, but much dollario. Compare that to dern-near free parts–labour only–for WB, none of which are cheap coming new from Wolfurt or St Jerome or SLC, all of which are just a truck ride or so from the Maintenance Barn, and pretty soon a small loss or breaking even makes the most sense. I’m sure Rob would rather have these newish jaws that are already in hand than blowing budget on new ones that he (or whoever does the ordering) has to spend time getting and unpacking and all of that, which also aren’t measurably more reliable. To quote the ever-eloquent Bucky Katt from back in the day, a bird in the hand is worth two, um, bushes. Selling the lift to someone else, when the value of holding on for the current owner is sizable, is altruistic, yes, but not really beneficial to somebody like Vail. I’m not even bagging on VR, it’s just simple calculations. On the small resort side, the calculations you make and the ones they make are going to be different. A lot of money for a 23 year old lift for many places is a lot of money, full stop, and the imagined result isn’t even a part of the equation. My home joint of Bogus has two lifts like Fitzsimmons here, and a trail pod that could theoretically benefit from upgrading from a 70s Riblet to a 90s Uni, but the change just doesn’t measure up to the expense if it was ever considered in the first place. More traffic without more reliability, with the expected and frustrating 1 year break-in period, that sorta deal. On the whole, parting out at home makes the most sense. Anyway, apologies if this feels like piling on. Nothing personal intended. Your perspective is valid and your points are well taken.
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I guess it depends I am looking for different perspectives. I was wondering mostly why Boyne puts all this money in refurbishing old lifts while Vail does not seem to do so. I guess Vail has a different business model. We will see who ends up better off in the long run.
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We are keeping the rope. I think it is going to another resort. The grip jaws are all new and going to peak chair. The rest is spare parts for our other lifts.
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Did this lift get retired today? Are they starting construction tomorrow on the new one?
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Looks like it is still running. Anyone know if they are still waiting on permits or when they will start taking the old lift apart?
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when the season ends and the mechs have had a break.
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Last day was Monday. Chairs are off. Starting on removing the rope tomorrow.
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Is this the newest detachable lift in North America to be scrapped
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Parted out for spares and scrapped. Given the tight construction schedule, we don’t have a month or two to carefully disassemble it for reinstallation elsewhere.
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I was at WB today. They had an excavator tearing that thing down. By 2 the bottom station was gone, and they were starting to shred the towers. It’s honestly sad to see such a young lift be scrapped. On another note, getting out of Whistler this morning was a nightmare. Only the gondolas were running.
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No line up at all on Blackcomb Gondola today. Use it instead of WVG or Excalibur.
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Won’t upgrading this to an 8 pack just crowd Garbanzo, especially in the mornings? I have never been to WB, but to me this seems like a solely bike park focused upgrade, as the only other lift this would service is Olympic. Even if Olympic were to get upgraded, this seems like to much capacity for winter operations, even though it will be useful in the summer.
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Hey fellow lift lovers.
I would like to present you with an ode to Fitzsimmons Express chairlift, one I have been riding regularly since I was a young. Here is a 10 hour ASMR sound track of The Fitzsimmons Drive Terminal operating at normal speed. Some will undoubtably not find this interesting, but for the real dorks among us, here you are.
She is a noisy beast, but her rattles and clunks put me right to sleep! Recorded winter of 2023, the final season before her removal.
Thanks in advance I did use one of the liftblog photos for the video. All photo credit goes to liftblog, and this page is linked in the description!
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well when you think about the amount of hours it had on it for year round ops, some could make the argument that they got 30 years of use out of it under normal circumstances? Either way she served WB and those who worked on her well. Kudos to the lift team.
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I wished the Fitzsimmons Express did not have their bubbles removed.
By the way, the new Fitzsimmons 8 does not have bubbles, but has a loading carpet.
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IThe new lift looks great in Whistler Village
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