The old Silver Bullet Gondola was almost completely replaced over two phases in 2017 and 2019.View up the lower half of the line.Leaving the bottom terminal building.Riding out of Steamboat Village.View down.Upper half of the lift.Inside the top terminal building.Parking rails.Turnaround in the top station.There is one white cabin for wedding guests.Some of the top terminal structure was reused from the prior gondola.View down from the summit.Breakover towers.A new tower.Flat section at the middle of the line.Large combination assemblies.The lift passes nearly over the Christie Peak Express.A CWA Omega IV LWI cabin.View up near Christie Peak.Lower part of the lift line.Tall tower in the village area.Cabins leaving the base area.Tower 2.All of the towers were replaced in the second phase of the rebuild.Looking up at T2.Another view up the line.Cabins only load and unload in straight sections.View into a cabin with leather seats.Departing the top terminal.Departure side up top.The top breakover.Riding down.View of Thunderhead.The lower big breakover.View down towards the village.Village section.Looking up at tower 4.Cabins in the bottom terminal.Return station.Towers 25 and 26.A cabin going over big support assemblies.View down from Thunderhead.View above Christie Peak.The number of cabins was increased to 137 with the rebuild.Lift line overview.The gondola was shortened slightly in 2021 with a new bottom terminal location further uphill.Turnaround area.There is a large maze area.Extremely long Uni-G return terminal.New tower 1.New towers 2 and 3.Lower station overview.New base location.Cabin unloading area.View from the village.
I have no idea, but an idea I think could be nice would be replacing Thunderhead with a six-pack and then moving the existing equipment over to the Sunshine area and creating a Sunshine II lift southeast of Sunshine Express like they have in their master plan. Their lengths are roughly the same, although Thunderhead has a greater vertical. Alternatively, I would not be surprised by a South Peak quad replacement. I do not think it is long enough to warrant a detachable, but the master plan calls for it and it is pretty similar to Elkhead (which went detachable).
I’m so glad the Gondola has level walk-in! The Silver Bullet was cool, but the “Blue Bullet” is even better because of this. (I love the new blue cabin color!)
The wedding cabin is really slick looking too; I wondered what they’d do since they had the one on the old gondola.
Was that the new CWA cabin that was purple? I wondered why there was one new CWA cabin on the line and figured it was for ADA reasons. It would be curious if the wedding cabin is a VIP cabin which only seats four.
The wedding cabin on the old gondola was the same model as the others except it was white and it had “Just married!” decals on it. The windows weren’t tinted like the new wedding cabin is.
what is the Sliver things on towers 25-26 for? it seems to me that they are reflective and could melt the snow around them if the sun is shining at the right spot.
My co-teacher this week was the project manager on this relocation/rebuild. I know he doesn’t just leave documents lying around- where did you find this?
Last year and in yeas previous, they would often remove the cabins off of the line at night at the top terminal parking, but this year they have not removed them yet when I’ve checked the web cam before going to bed. Strange. One would think they would want to protect the new cabins as much as they could.
Well they are off now. Makes me wonder if they will remove the rope in order to relocate the bottom terminal, or if they will tie it off at one of the lower towers, cut it and splice it there, for the new length. https://www.steamboat.com/the-mountain/live-cams/thunderhead
I’ve participated in several terminal relocations, and every time we’ve tied off the rope at a tower above the new terminal location and simply shortened the rope when it was respliced. It’s much easier than removing the rope since there’s really no reason to.
Steamboat is trying to get away from the Silver Bullet name, due to its association with beer/alcohol. Somebody decided that was not a good look for a family-friendly resort.
Interestingly Steamboat doesn’t seem to be taking the cabins off of the line at night this season like they did in the past, especially when heavy snow was expected at night. I wonder why? The top parking terminal is massive and nice.
Lift Blog 
What is going to be steamboat’s next big project? I’m guessing either replacement of thunderhead or bashor bowl gondola or both.
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I have no idea, but an idea I think could be nice would be replacing Thunderhead with a six-pack and then moving the existing equipment over to the Sunshine area and creating a Sunshine II lift southeast of Sunshine Express like they have in their master plan. Their lengths are roughly the same, although Thunderhead has a greater vertical. Alternatively, I would not be surprised by a South Peak quad replacement. I do not think it is long enough to warrant a detachable, but the master plan calls for it and it is pretty similar to Elkhead (which went detachable).
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I think that plan may have been scrapped, seeing as the Elkhead Express was built as a high speed quad, not a six pack.
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I’m so glad the Gondola has level walk-in! The Silver Bullet was cool, but the “Blue Bullet” is even better because of this. (I love the new blue cabin color!)
The wedding cabin is really slick looking too; I wondered what they’d do since they had the one on the old gondola.
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Was that the new CWA cabin that was purple? I wondered why there was one new CWA cabin on the line and figured it was for ADA reasons. It would be curious if the wedding cabin is a VIP cabin which only seats four.
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The wedding cabin on the old gondola was the same model as the others except it was white and it had “Just married!” decals on it. The windows weren’t tinted like the new wedding cabin is.
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Edit: There’s a picture of it on the “silver bullet gondola” page. (https://skiliftblog.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/img_0725.jpg?w=768&h=1024)
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What was wrong with the previous towers?
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My guess is that the lattice towers wouldn’t be able to handle the rigors of the higher capacity gondola cabins.
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They probably would have done fine, but the profile was brand-new and tower locations changed.
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does this use Uni G technology or D-line.
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Uni-G.
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Does it still have a cargo cabin?
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Solved my own question, it has what looks like 2 cargo cabins
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All the cabins are cargo cabins now. The old cargo cabins haven’t been used since the upgrade.
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what is the Sliver things on towers 25-26 for? it seems to me that they are reflective and could melt the snow around them if the sun is shining at the right spot.
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They are reflective. They’re to keep the towers from bending in the sun and causing misalignment. No, you can’t see the bend, but trust me it’s there.
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When they move the bottom terminal this summer, will it have a UNI-G cover on the terminal equipment? And will the terminal equipment be reused?
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Based on the sketches it looks like there will be a uni g terminal cover. Also yes they will be reusing terminal equipment since it’s brand new.
Here is plans for moving it.
https://www.scribd.com/document_downloads/direct/492489653?extension=pdf&ft=1612374024<=1612377634&show_pdf=true&user_id=539707177&uahk=mG15WRpsDkrPpOGc-wXnakz64aA
Hopefully link works.
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My co-teacher this week was the project manager on this relocation/rebuild. I know he doesn’t just leave documents lying around- where did you find this?
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In this steamboat pilot article
https://www.steamboatpilot.com/news/steamboat-resort-applies-for-permit-to-move-location-of-base-gondola-terminal/
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This link should work
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Last year and in yeas previous, they would often remove the cabins off of the line at night at the top terminal parking, but this year they have not removed them yet when I’ve checked the web cam before going to bed. Strange. One would think they would want to protect the new cabins as much as they could.
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Well they are off now. Makes me wonder if they will remove the rope in order to relocate the bottom terminal, or if they will tie it off at one of the lower towers, cut it and splice it there, for the new length. https://www.steamboat.com/the-mountain/live-cams/thunderhead
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They will definitely have to cut the rope but I’m not sure if they will completely remove it.
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I’ve participated in several terminal relocations, and every time we’ve tied off the rope at a tower above the new terminal location and simply shortened the rope when it was respliced. It’s much easier than removing the rope since there’s really no reason to.
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For those who are wondering here is the location of where the gondola bottom terminal is being moved to.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCuJ_3-wqRE You tube video from the 2019/2020 Gondola re-construction/bigger upgrade.
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Live cam of the demolition and construction of the lower gondola station/bottom terminal
https://www.steamboat.com/the-mountain/live-cams/christie-cam
https://www.steamboat.com/the-mountain/live-cams/gondola-square
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rji4h0VpToA Cable Splice back in 2019.. and then they get to do it all over again this fall.
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Does anyone have any pictures of controls in the operator house including the back cabinets
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new bottom terminal complete, they are doing line testing on her right now. All cabins on line, full speed. Load testing likely happening very soon.
https://www.steamboat.com/the-mountain/live-cams/christie-cam
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Something tells me this is going to be renamed once Wild Blue is built. I think that they might consider reviving the Silver Bullet name for this one.
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Yeah, they also have the name Silver Bullet Gondola copyrighted if I remember correctly.
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It’s just called Steamboat Gondola so there will be Steamboat Gondola and Wild Blue gondola.
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“Thunderhead Gondola” would make sense. It probably wouldn’t be called “Steamboat Gondola” anymore since there will be two of them.
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Steamboat is trying to get away from the Silver Bullet name, due to its association with beer/alcohol. Somebody decided that was not a good look for a family-friendly resort.
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I believe they essentially now have two spare cabins since the shorter lift line can’t carry all 137 cabins.
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Interestingly Steamboat doesn’t seem to be taking the cabins off of the line at night this season like they did in the past, especially when heavy snow was expected at night. I wonder why? The top parking terminal is massive and nice.
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They haven’t had many opportunities to worry about heavy snowfall this year
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