Bottom terminal in Big Sky Mountain Village.Top terminal building.Looking down the line.Who needs a tension terminal when you can have a tension tower?Lattice tower.Upper lift line.The new bottom station (originally was in the mountain mall behind.)A catastrophic de-ropement in February 2008 was the end for Gondola One.Looking down the line.Looking up the line with Lone Peak in the background.Drive terminal controls.Top terminal unload.
The counterweight for the top station bullwheel was routed back downhill and into to the last tower rather than going behind or under the terminal building. Yan also experimented with putting counterweights in non-traditional locations especially in locations with limited space.
The former Argentine Lift at Keystone is a good example of this. While it isn’t routed up the line, the force is redirected 180 degrees to the front of the terminal, then at an angle, and the counterweight is positioned at the edge of the woods, about 300 feet away from the bottom terminal. The Checkerboard lift at Keystone has a similar arrangement, as do the Alpine and former High Point lifts at Copper Mountain, however the High Point lift was upgraded to hydraulic tensioning when it was removed and relocated to Washington. https://liftblog.com/argentine-keystone-co/
On old Chairlift.org photos of the gondola, I noticed something unusual. One of the photos has two tower tubes (that are not the depression towers) on the gondola. Did this gondola ever have tube towers, because I thought it had lattice towers?
I think this is a picture of Gondola 2. The 10th photo shows Gondola 1 and also looking straight up at Lone Peak. Notice in the picture above that the gondola is on an alignment more to the left of Lone Peak, on the exact alignment of Gondola 2. This lift having tube towers, instead of the lattice towers on Gondola 1 also makes me think that this is a picture of Gondola 2.
No, the first couple towers on Gondola one were replaced with tube towers when the bottom terminal moved out of the mountain mall. This photo is of that lower part of the line just above mr Ed. Gondola 2 also never had clamshells but grey cabins with doors.
How is that possible when the Park city gondola was removed in 1997 and this was installed in 1973? Did the Park city gondola get new cabins and the old ones replace the ones that were on gondola 1? Also this gondola is a Pima and that gondola was a PHB and they had different cabin designs so it doesn’t make much sense unless the Park city gondola had this cabin design.
Park City got replacements in 1981 to replace the 2nd round of cabins from Hall. These CWA cabins were sold to Big Sky in 1997 to replace the original egg clamshell cabins.
Does anyone know what caused the de-ropment of Gondola One? It is very difficult to even find mentions of this accident anywhere but in this photo caption. Big Sky’s 2025 Explorer Gondola plan essentially replaces this lift and Explorer in a single alignment, but I find it interesting how they didn’t try to replace it soon after the accident.
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how does the tension tower work???
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The counterweight for the top station bullwheel was routed back downhill and into to the last tower rather than going behind or under the terminal building. Yan also experimented with putting counterweights in non-traditional locations especially in locations with limited space.
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Stadeli was also widely known for rouing the tension cable circuiriously into a corner of a termina/
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The former Argentine Lift at Keystone is a good example of this. While it isn’t routed up the line, the force is redirected 180 degrees to the front of the terminal, then at an angle, and the counterweight is positioned at the edge of the woods, about 300 feet away from the bottom terminal. The Checkerboard lift at Keystone has a similar arrangement, as do the Alpine and former High Point lifts at Copper Mountain, however the High Point lift was upgraded to hydraulic tensioning when it was removed and relocated to Washington. https://liftblog.com/argentine-keystone-co/
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Will there ever be another gondola again?
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Yep! They are planning on replacing the Explorer double with a 2-stage base-to-bowl gondola around 2020-ish
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Does anyone know if there are any pictures of Gondola two before it was replaced by Swiftcurrent?
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What lift did they replace the gondola with?
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None. yet…
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Oh. It ran next to swift current.
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On old Chairlift.org photos of the gondola, I noticed something unusual. One of the photos has two tower tubes (that are not the depression towers) on the gondola. Did this gondola ever have tube towers, because I thought it had lattice towers?
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I think this is a picture of Gondola 2. The 10th photo shows Gondola 1 and also looking straight up at Lone Peak. Notice in the picture above that the gondola is on an alignment more to the left of Lone Peak, on the exact alignment of Gondola 2. This lift having tube towers, instead of the lattice towers on Gondola 1 also makes me think that this is a picture of Gondola 2.
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No, the first couple towers on Gondola one were replaced with tube towers when the bottom terminal moved out of the mountain mall. This photo is of that lower part of the line just above mr Ed. Gondola 2 also never had clamshells but grey cabins with doors.
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the gondola cabins are from park city
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How is that possible when the Park city gondola was removed in 1997 and this was installed in 1973? Did the Park city gondola get new cabins and the old ones replace the ones that were on gondola 1? Also this gondola is a Pima and that gondola was a PHB and they had different cabin designs so it doesn’t make much sense unless the Park city gondola had this cabin design.
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Park City got replacements in 1981 to replace the 2nd round of cabins from Hall. These CWA cabins were sold to Big Sky in 1997 to replace the original egg clamshell cabins.
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How many cabins ended up on Gondola One when it was retired?
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Does anyone know what caused the de-ropment of Gondola One? It is very difficult to even find mentions of this accident anywhere but in this photo caption. Big Sky’s 2025 Explorer Gondola plan essentially replaces this lift and Explorer in a single alignment, but I find it interesting how they didn’t try to replace it soon after the accident.
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Here’s an article which gives some vague detail:
“the gondola breakdown last month was due to the failure of a metal piece, which caused an empty car headed downhill to derail.”
https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/ski-areas-confident-about-ski-lift-safety/article_e8aa118e-a3c4-5f49-82bb-55efee50ce8e.html
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Did this Use Poma S-grips because I don’t see TB-41 grips like on most older Poma detachables?
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