This lift was added in 2021 to supplement the Independence SuperChair on Peak 7.View from the summit and Pioneer Crossing.The lift line is quite long but without a lot of vertical.Leitner chair.Middle part of the lift line.View down.Tower 12.View up the line towards Peak 7.Lift line.Tower 9.The lower station.This is the return terminal.Loading area.Another view of the lower station and tower 1.Tower 8.View riding up the line.Looking back down.Arriving at the top terminal.Unloading area.Side view of the top.This lift ends a bit higher than sister lift Independence.Another view of the top.Freedom and Independence.View east near the summit.One of the towers with combination assemblies.
This was a long overdue lift and honestly should’ve been built at the same time as the Peak 6 expansion. It plugs a pretty big gap in the lift system. See, when Peak 6 was built, Breck made a point of cutting a crossover trail from Pioneer over to Lincoln Meadows to enable direct access to Zendo from Peak 8’s lifts without going through the Peak 7 base area. Yet they didn’t do anything to ensure you could do the same thing going south. Meaning once you were done doing laps on the Kensho SuperChair, you had to endure the line at the Independence SuperChair. And not only that, the lower part of Monte Cristo was essentially a funnel since it was having to handle not just Peak 7’s lap traffic but everyone leaving Peak 6. It could get pretty icy, especially on the last hill.
So this was obviously the practical choice: a chairlift starting below the merge point of Lincoln Meadows and Monte Cristo running up to the top of Pioneer Crossing. Now you can bypass the Independence SuperChair entirely going south as well as when going north (very handy when transiting, or if you’re doing lunch at Pioneer Crossing). But it also functions as a decent lapping lift since you can lap all the trails on the north side of Peak 7 without going through the funnel at the bottom. (Lapping Swan City, Pioneer, and Fort Mary B still requires using the Independence SuperChair)
The other option to leave Peak 6 is to ride the ridge south towards Peak 7 and then drop down to the top of Indy. That’s definitely not an option for everyone though, since you need to hike the bootpack from the lift up to the actual summit and the couple of runs down to Indy are definitely steep. I preferred that to waiting in line at Indy but the new lift seems like it helps with that.
So this video shows there is a way to get from Peak 6 to Peak 8 without hitting either of the Peak 7 chairlifts. It is pretty out of the way, though, which is probably why the vast majority of people settle for using Lost Horizon to exit Peak 6 (much like Zendo is the primary way of entering Peak 6 rather than the Wanderlust catwalk).
That’s pretty much how I went, yeah. I found part of the route in the summer, actually, while hiking from our shop over the top and then taking the bus back once I downloaded CSC.
Great new lift. Just was out there over the past week and rode it on the days I was on Peak 6 & 7. Makes lapping Peak 7 runs so much more enjoyable, has I never had to venture down to the base and get in the mess at the Independence lift. Honestly, I think with the average type of skiers at Breck, I would not to surprised is HSQ actually more people than the six-packs which tend to have much more mis-loads, and confusing at the loading / unloading points, or just not filling every chair to 6 people. Glad they went with a quad here.
What I also observed too is that it people now lap Freedom waiting for Peak 6 to open in the mornings after Patrol completes their control work. People would lap the trails by Freedom until Zendo opened-up, usually around 10am.
From the pictures on this gallery, I get the impression not many people approach the lift from the Wirepatch side, so there’s no maze set up on the downhill side (which makes sense since most of the traffic for the lift is approaching from the north).
The mountain safety people. At Vail resorts they take your passes instead of ski patrol taking them and they also yell at you even if you are going slow.
Vail resorts (and some others) hire power tripping mall-cops to run around and pull people’s passes for skiing 10 miles per hour. They’re the people who wanted to be actual ski patrol/red jackets but weren’t cut out for it.
The yellow jackets tend to camp out on beginner trails, designated slow zones, and in areas that act as chokepoints. And the section of Monte Cristo below Wirepatch is one of these chokepoints since all north Peak 7 lap traffic and Peak 6 traffic funnels into it. This is a chokepoint that became more apparent after Peak 6 opened seeing as at the time, Breck only created a means of bypassing Peak 7 base when going north from Peak 8 (the Peak 6 Parkway), but not going south.
Generally, on the Peak 7 chokepoint, they camp out on the last steep hill, and I can’t really blame them for being stationed there to police the flow of traffic, considering that it is a blindspot (you can’t see over the hill until you’re starting down it, so as a result the signs here say “CAUTION! People below!”), and it can get either really crusty or even develop moguls depending on the snowfall.
With the Freedom SuperChair, this chokepoint can now be bypassed.
Are integrated depression sheaves on the bottom terminal still an option for Leitner-Poma detachables? I can’t think of any lifts with LPA terminals that have them.
I don’t think they are. Hell, when Sweet was realigned last year, the integrated sheaves on its Omega terminal were replaced with a conventional tower.
Lift Blog 
This lift does a good job of distributing crowds
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This was a long overdue lift and honestly should’ve been built at the same time as the Peak 6 expansion. It plugs a pretty big gap in the lift system. See, when Peak 6 was built, Breck made a point of cutting a crossover trail from Pioneer over to Lincoln Meadows to enable direct access to Zendo from Peak 8’s lifts without going through the Peak 7 base area. Yet they didn’t do anything to ensure you could do the same thing going south. Meaning once you were done doing laps on the Kensho SuperChair, you had to endure the line at the Independence SuperChair. And not only that, the lower part of Monte Cristo was essentially a funnel since it was having to handle not just Peak 7’s lap traffic but everyone leaving Peak 6. It could get pretty icy, especially on the last hill.
So this was obviously the practical choice: a chairlift starting below the merge point of Lincoln Meadows and Monte Cristo running up to the top of Pioneer Crossing. Now you can bypass the Independence SuperChair entirely going south as well as when going north (very handy when transiting, or if you’re doing lunch at Pioneer Crossing). But it also functions as a decent lapping lift since you can lap all the trails on the north side of Peak 7 without going through the funnel at the bottom. (Lapping Swan City, Pioneer, and Fort Mary B still requires using the Independence SuperChair)
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The other option to leave Peak 6 is to ride the ridge south towards Peak 7 and then drop down to the top of Indy. That’s definitely not an option for everyone though, since you need to hike the bootpack from the lift up to the actual summit and the couple of runs down to Indy are definitely steep. I preferred that to waiting in line at Indy but the new lift seems like it helps with that.
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So this video shows there is a way to get from Peak 6 to Peak 8 without hitting either of the Peak 7 chairlifts. It is pretty out of the way, though, which is probably why the vast majority of people settle for using Lost Horizon to exit Peak 6 (much like Zendo is the primary way of entering Peak 6 rather than the Wanderlust catwalk).
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That’s pretty much how I went, yeah. I found part of the route in the summer, actually, while hiking from our shop over the top and then taking the bus back once I downloaded CSC.
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This lift has a total of 20 towers and 119 chairs.
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was independence open when you took these photos?
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Yes.
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Great new lift. Just was out there over the past week and rode it on the days I was on Peak 6 & 7. Makes lapping Peak 7 runs so much more enjoyable, has I never had to venture down to the base and get in the mess at the Independence lift. Honestly, I think with the average type of skiers at Breck, I would not to surprised is HSQ actually more people than the six-packs which tend to have much more mis-loads, and confusing at the loading / unloading points, or just not filling every chair to 6 people. Glad they went with a quad here.
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Being able to avoid the funnel (and the yellow jackets) is definitely a great perk of using this lift as a lapping lift.
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What I also observed too is that it people now lap Freedom waiting for Peak 6 to open in the mornings after Patrol completes their control work. People would lap the trails by Freedom until Zendo opened-up, usually around 10am.
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From the pictures on this gallery, I get the impression not many people approach the lift from the Wirepatch side, so there’s no maze set up on the downhill side (which makes sense since most of the traffic for the lift is approaching from the north).
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What exactly do you mean by yellow jackets?
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The mountain safety people. At Vail resorts they take your passes instead of ski patrol taking them and they also yell at you even if you are going slow.
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Vail resorts (and some others) hire power tripping mall-cops to run around and pull people’s passes for skiing 10 miles per hour. They’re the people who wanted to be actual ski patrol/red jackets but weren’t cut out for it.
This video shows them in action:
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The yellow jackets tend to camp out on beginner trails, designated slow zones, and in areas that act as chokepoints. And the section of Monte Cristo below Wirepatch is one of these chokepoints since all north Peak 7 lap traffic and Peak 6 traffic funnels into it. This is a chokepoint that became more apparent after Peak 6 opened seeing as at the time, Breck only created a means of bypassing Peak 7 base when going north from Peak 8 (the Peak 6 Parkway), but not going south.
Generally, on the Peak 7 chokepoint, they camp out on the last steep hill, and I can’t really blame them for being stationed there to police the flow of traffic, considering that it is a blindspot (you can’t see over the hill until you’re starting down it, so as a result the signs here say “CAUTION! People below!”), and it can get either really crusty or even develop moguls depending on the snowfall.
With the Freedom SuperChair, this chokepoint can now be bypassed.
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Interesting, snowbasin and jackson hole ski area has something similar. The getting yelled at for going 10 miles a hour is very much true.
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Video of the lift:
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Are integrated depression sheaves on the bottom terminal still an option for Leitner-Poma detachables? I can’t think of any lifts with LPA terminals that have them.
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I don’t think they are. Hell, when Sweet was realigned last year, the integrated sheaves on its Omega terminal were replaced with a conventional tower.
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2024 video:
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