Just wondering how there is a 169 vertical feet difference between the blue skyride and the red skyride? They should be almost the same vertical seeing as they load and unload at the same place.
Hi Peter, another update here, the third lift on the mountain was a T-bar from the old Blueberry mid-station to the top of the inferno chair (before either was built). The Tbar listed in your table was actually 2 side by side. The homemade cut double was nowhere in sight in 1980, so I assume removed in 1972.
As far as I know, the t bar was on the other side of the cut from the old cut chair. You can still see an old lift shack on the side of the cut presumably from a midstation. There were two side by side. This appears on old maps.
I don’t know if this is true, however some people at grouse where saying the Skyline chair was the first double chair in the world. The grouse mountain website also states it. Anybody know the truth?
Folks I found out officially today that the Skyline Chair in the removed section of the menu is in-fact The Worlds First Double Chairlift. Grouse was originally going to build an incline railway up to the present top area, however it got cancelled twice, both thanks to world wars. Once 1945 hit, when WW2 officially ended, the skiing industry was on the rise, and grouse decided to hired some conveyer belt workers to build the lift. It had wooden towers, and the chairs can still be seen at grouses museum, located right before the theater in the sky entrance. It operated right until the red skyride was constructed when it was deemed “unsafe”. The lift can still be found today, abandoned. Its not standing anymore however old sheaves, towers and more still remain, after 65 years. If your looking for sources, the grouse website clearly states it under “about us” and also the museum has a whole exhibit including one of the original chairs.
That is not true. There was a double called Green at MT Hoodoo, Oregon that was built in 1942. Peter has it listed as homemade but in fact it was a very early Riblet with wooden towers.
There was a t-bar on the right side of the cut for sure. And a rope tow on Paradise and a rope tow kinda where Greenway is now. The old Peak chair had a unique bar system that swung outward and locked closed with a pin that could get stuck.
The North Shore is fairly low; the summit of Grouse is only a little north of 1200 metres. While not a truly coastal range, it is still the first set of mountains off the Fraser Delta and the Salish Sea. That said, the Fraser gap does allow some goodly east wind during a strong continental high/Pacific low contrast, which draws in cold air from the interior. The Fraser Outflow doesn’t affect Grouse as much as Port Angeles–which can sometimes get 25-40 cms in an afternoon if the flow is right–due to the face of the range being parallel to the mid- and low-level flow, but more cold air is more cold air. All this to say that it depends on your perspective, but it is not as wet as some folks would say it is. In the scheme of things, it’s certainly wetter on average than in any interior or continental range. If you are used to skiing somewhere like Summit Co, CO, it is basically water. If you, like me, grew up in the Salish Sea Basin, it’s just plain ol’ snow.
I was in Vancouver 2 weeks ago to begin a cruise. I didn’t go to Grouse Mt. but I could see it from town and the ship. I may have missed it, but I didn’t see comments about what they have on their website. They plan a new gondi to open 12/23. It will handle 1000 pph. This plus the Red Tram will give them 1900 pph from the base. This is the 1980s ref. below. It will start looker’s left of the Red Tram and cross under it, ending to it’s right at the summit. Two paragraphs from their site:
We are excited to share the latest news with you about our transformational lift replacement project. Grouse Mountain is proposing a project to replace the Blue Tram, which first opened in 1966, with a new state-of-the-art, world class Gondola.
The proposed new lift structure includes a total of 13 towers and 27 cabins, with each cabin holding up to 8 people. The Gondola will allow Grouse Mountain to return back to capacity levels of the 1980s. The proposal also includes updating existing infrastructure, such as the current base operations building and expanding parking.
i was here this summer and they keep the towers for all of the old lifts up for lighting and stuff like that, which think is really cool. Also there was this run with abandoned towers and no replacement chairlift.
I think that the new gondola should have been one of those Leinter 2s systems. 1000 pph is nowhere near enough capacity for the only way up to the mountain.( they will probably not run the red skyride much when the gondola goes in) Plus, it could cross longer spans with less towers because of the track rope support, which i imagine would be useful here.
I think Grouse is trying to keep costs low. I’m just upset that they only put in a capacity of 1,000 pp/h, which I believe is hideous, especially on busy days. I’m not sure though, they may have an actual reason not to install higher capacity.
Keep in mind this is also not a cheap build project. Newly cut lift line, new tower footings located in some gnarly terrain with no road, Top terminal is being built overtop of /in a gully, plus removing blue tram and adding other things. They’ll likely be able to add more cabins later on if needed. No real need for something much higher than 1000pp/h with red tram in the mix as then you’d be pumping far too many people up the mountain and what comes up Grouse must go down. Anytime you have a mandatory download you’re gonna have a line up especially on busy days. It’ll be a noticeable improvement though
You can see the top of the Skyline double in the second picture. It was the original access lift (bottom station in the last picture) and the line is still visible on the mountain extending down from the bottom of the Cut to North Vancouver. The original lodge was also at the bottom of the Cut and burned down – when they put in the Trams they rebuilt the lodge up on the plateau.
The third picture I don’t think is Grouse? The topography is all wrong (no city in the background) and the chairs are bails instead of centre poles.
The original Blue Tram (used primarily for hauling goods up/down and ski school on peak days) will be removed. The larger Red Super Skyride will remain, likely for group/foot passenger travel (and taking over the cargo duties – road access to the plateau is not practical). Grouse gets a lot of cruise ship groups in the spring/summer months and in many ways is more of a tourist destination than a ski area.
Look foward to the reopening of the red skyride this summer for the bike park. It recentely has been closed and it staff only, but reopens june to open the park
Lift Blog 
Just wondering how there is a 169 vertical feet difference between the blue skyride and the red skyride? They should be almost the same vertical seeing as they load and unload at the same place.
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the blue skyride station is further back, and the docks are further indented, and they travel a steeper part of the mountain
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Hi Peter, another update here, the third lift on the mountain was a T-bar from the old Blueberry mid-station to the top of the inferno chair (before either was built). The Tbar listed in your table was actually 2 side by side. The homemade cut double was nowhere in sight in 1980, so I assume removed in 1972.
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As far as I know, the t bar was on the other side of the cut from the old cut chair. You can still see an old lift shack on the side of the cut presumably from a midstation. There were two side by side. This appears on old maps.
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I don’t know if this is true, however some people at grouse where saying the Skyline chair was the first double chair in the world. The grouse mountain website also states it. Anybody know the truth?
LikeLike
Folks I found out officially today that the Skyline Chair in the removed section of the menu is in-fact The Worlds First Double Chairlift. Grouse was originally going to build an incline railway up to the present top area, however it got cancelled twice, both thanks to world wars. Once 1945 hit, when WW2 officially ended, the skiing industry was on the rise, and grouse decided to hired some conveyer belt workers to build the lift. It had wooden towers, and the chairs can still be seen at grouses museum, located right before the theater in the sky entrance. It operated right until the red skyride was constructed when it was deemed “unsafe”. The lift can still be found today, abandoned. Its not standing anymore however old sheaves, towers and more still remain, after 65 years. If your looking for sources, the grouse website clearly states it under “about us” and also the museum has a whole exhibit including one of the original chairs.
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I’m not sure about the accuracy, but coloradoskihistory.com states that the Heron double at Berthoud Pass began operating in 1947.
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That is not true. There was a double called Green at MT Hoodoo, Oregon that was built in 1942. Peter has it listed as homemade but in fact it was a very early Riblet with wooden towers.
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If you want to see photos of the lifts current state and photos of it running, Check out these links! http://skiingbc.info/pages/photos2-28640.php https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnQ1Ob2ydmM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnQ1Ob2ydmM <— (4:12 also states its mount seymour however its a mistake)
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There was a t-bar on the right side of the cut for sure. And a rope tow on Paradise and a rope tow kinda where Greenway is now. The old Peak chair had a unique bar system that swung outward and locked closed with a pin that could get stuck.
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Based on the pics of the mountain, the snow looks very wet all the time. Is that true?
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The North Shore is fairly low; the summit of Grouse is only a little north of 1200 metres. While not a truly coastal range, it is still the first set of mountains off the Fraser Delta and the Salish Sea. That said, the Fraser gap does allow some goodly east wind during a strong continental high/Pacific low contrast, which draws in cold air from the interior. The Fraser Outflow doesn’t affect Grouse as much as Port Angeles–which can sometimes get 25-40 cms in an afternoon if the flow is right–due to the face of the range being parallel to the mid- and low-level flow, but more cold air is more cold air. All this to say that it depends on your perspective, but it is not as wet as some folks would say it is. In the scheme of things, it’s certainly wetter on average than in any interior or continental range. If you are used to skiing somewhere like Summit Co, CO, it is basically water. If you, like me, grew up in the Salish Sea Basin, it’s just plain ol’ snow.
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If they don’t want to replace the trams, they should definitely limit ticket sales.
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I was in Vancouver 2 weeks ago to begin a cruise. I didn’t go to Grouse Mt. but I could see it from town and the ship. I may have missed it, but I didn’t see comments about what they have on their website. They plan a new gondi to open 12/23. It will handle 1000 pph. This plus the Red Tram will give them 1900 pph from the base. This is the 1980s ref. below. It will start looker’s left of the Red Tram and cross under it, ending to it’s right at the summit. Two paragraphs from their site:
We are excited to share the latest news with you about our transformational lift replacement project. Grouse Mountain is proposing a project to replace the Blue Tram, which first opened in 1966, with a new state-of-the-art, world class Gondola.
The proposed new lift structure includes a total of 13 towers and 27 cabins, with each cabin holding up to 8 people. The Gondola will allow Grouse Mountain to return back to capacity levels of the 1980s. The proposal also includes updating existing infrastructure, such as the current base operations building and expanding parking.
https://www.grousemountain.com/gondola
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i was here this summer and they keep the towers for all of the old lifts up for lighting and stuff like that, which think is really cool. Also there was this run with abandoned towers and no replacement chairlift.
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I think that the new gondola should have been one of those Leinter 2s systems. 1000 pph is nowhere near enough capacity for the only way up to the mountain.( they will probably not run the red skyride much when the gondola goes in) Plus, it could cross longer spans with less towers because of the track rope support, which i imagine would be useful here.
LikeLike
I think Grouse is trying to keep costs low. I’m just upset that they only put in a capacity of 1,000 pp/h, which I believe is hideous, especially on busy days. I’m not sure though, they may have an actual reason not to install higher capacity.
LikeLike
Keep in mind this is also not a cheap build project. Newly cut lift line, new tower footings located in some gnarly terrain with no road, Top terminal is being built overtop of /in a gully, plus removing blue tram and adding other things. They’ll likely be able to add more cabins later on if needed. No real need for something much higher than 1000pp/h with red tram in the mix as then you’d be pumping far too many people up the mountain and what comes up Grouse must go down. Anytime you have a mandatory download you’re gonna have a line up especially on busy days. It’ll be a noticeable improvement though
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gondola already built, and the red skyride is going nowhere. the blue skyride is torn down, with both trams st the bottom station.
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I went digging and found some nice photos of the old double chairs:
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You can see the top of the Skyline double in the second picture. It was the original access lift (bottom station in the last picture) and the line is still visible on the mountain extending down from the bottom of the Cut to North Vancouver. The original lodge was also at the bottom of the Cut and burned down – when they put in the Trams they rebuilt the lodge up on the plateau.
The third picture I don’t think is Grouse? The topography is all wrong (no city in the background) and the chairs are bails instead of centre poles.
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3rd picture looks like Colorado.
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I thought they were removing a tram to make way for the gondola.
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The original Blue Tram (used primarily for hauling goods up/down and ski school on peak days) will be removed. The larger Red Super Skyride will remain, likely for group/foot passenger travel (and taking over the cargo duties – road access to the plateau is not practical). Grouse gets a lot of cruise ship groups in the spring/summer months and in many ways is more of a tourist destination than a ski area.
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normal visitors: gondola. ski school, overflow, sighseers, cargo: red tram
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Look foward to the reopening of the red skyride this summer for the bike park. It recentely has been closed and it staff only, but reopens june to open the park
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anyone have images of that t-bar? I heard rumours it was Murray-Latta vice doppelwanker.
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