This was one of Les Otten’s lift realignments that didn’t work out so well. The fixed grip quad was half the length of both the original and current high speed quad. It ended at the bottom of North Ridge and Slide Brook. It replaced only the lower section of the original GMX, which was relocated to North Ridge, where it replaced a double. The idea was that North Ridge was better suited for lapping (which it is), so Otten thought made sense to have the detachable lift there, and you just had to get people up there once, and then they’d just stay and not go back to the base. It also provided a transfer point between the Green Mountain Quad and either North Ridge or Slide Brook, whereas with the original and current layout, you take GMX up, then ski down to get to North Ridge or Slide Brook.
In reality, this layout was problematic and heavily criticized, because it meant that the base had no detachable lift, and it required 3 lifts to reach the summit. The fixed grip quad was also very slow, and nicknamed “The Snail”. As such, one of the first things Win Smith did when he bought Sugarbush, was to revert to the original layout by building the current GMX.
This was the first of Otten’s lift realignments was reverted to the original layout. The second time was at Mount Snow, where he split up the original Sundance Triple into a shortened version serving only the upper trails, and Tumbleweed, which served the lower trails. In 2022, Vail Resorts built the Sundance Express, which consolidated both Sundance and Tumbleweed back into one lift, thus reverting to the original layout.
Lift Blog 
why was a detachable quad replaced with a fixed grip quad?
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This was one of Les Otten’s lift realignments that didn’t work out so well. The fixed grip quad was half the length of both the original and current high speed quad. It ended at the bottom of North Ridge and Slide Brook. It replaced only the lower section of the original GMX, which was relocated to North Ridge, where it replaced a double. The idea was that North Ridge was better suited for lapping (which it is), so Otten thought made sense to have the detachable lift there, and you just had to get people up there once, and then they’d just stay and not go back to the base. It also provided a transfer point between the Green Mountain Quad and either North Ridge or Slide Brook, whereas with the original and current layout, you take GMX up, then ski down to get to North Ridge or Slide Brook.
In reality, this layout was problematic and heavily criticized, because it meant that the base had no detachable lift, and it required 3 lifts to reach the summit. The fixed grip quad was also very slow, and nicknamed “The Snail”. As such, one of the first things Win Smith did when he bought Sugarbush, was to revert to the original layout by building the current GMX.
This was the first of Otten’s lift realignments was reverted to the original layout. The second time was at Mount Snow, where he split up the original Sundance Triple into a shortened version serving only the upper trails, and Tumbleweed, which served the lower trails. In 2022, Vail Resorts built the Sundance Express, which consolidated both Sundance and Tumbleweed back into one lift, thus reverting to the original layout.
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This lift is now the Metro Quad at Jay Peak
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