The second longest lift at Taos services intermediate terrain on the east side of the mountain.View up the lift line.Looking down towards the bottom terminal.Poma Alpha drive station.Loading area.Lift overview.Riding up the line.View back down.Middle section of the line.Upper lift line.Nearing the top bullwheel.Unloading ramp and top operator house.Top station overview.Another view of the return.A splice tower.The first couple towers.Motor room and tension system.Upper section of the line below Kachina Peak.
In my opinion this should be Taos’ next lift project, replacing it with a HSQ. I rode it a couple times today today and it had the longest lines out of any lift and every time I rode it it stopped at least once because of beginners. Even with it running slower at 300 fpm (10 second chair spacing) one ride it stopped three times because of some little kids who didn’t know what they were doing. A HSQ (or, while expensive and extremely unlikely, a chondola) would make the lift a lot easier to load for beginners and more pleasant for experts.
All that money for either the same capacity, 2400 pph or at a max of 2800 pph? If a lift with 2400 pph has lines exceeding 30 minutes, a 3000 pph six pack is the answer. I agree that a chondola is a little overkill. Chondolas are more for signature out of base lifts with lappable terrain. Unless another bas area is developed at the base of this lift, I don’t think lift 4 will see a chondola.
This lift isn’t running anywhere close to 2400 pph; they slow it way down because texans suck at riding chairlifts (ok, I might be a little unfair there but you get the point) and it’s more efficient to run it at 3/5 speed because it has so many misloads. The lines aren’t crazy long, but 300 fpm for a lift this long, plus several stops, is painfully slow. A HSQ could easily handle the skier load in this area and would greatly decrease the ride time and misloads.
According to my relative who skis Powderhorn all the time the original Take Four quad was built with bulkier towers designed for a HSQ; the resort couldn’t initially afford the installation and power costs of a HSQ so they opted for a temporary fixed grip but with HSQ towers to save money (the fixed grip ended up being a little less temporary than planned). It might be harder to reuse the towers from a lift which was never intended to be a HSQ, but I’d imagine it’d still be feasible with some upgrades and possible tower head replacements.
Take the stuff about Powderhorn with a grain of salt though because although my relative knows quite a bit about Powderhorn, she doesn’t have a ton of knowledge of ski lifts; she was pretty shocked when I told her the terminals on Flat Top Flyer came used. The part about Take Four being installed with HSQ towers to save money on a future upgrade seems plausible though.
(For some reason I can’t reply to your comment Donald so I have to reply to mine)
You can reuse tower tubes from fixed grip lifts you just need new crossbars. Some examples of this are Stormin Norman and Pucci Express at Timberline which are built on riblet double tower tubes and Sunshine Express Steamboat which is built on Doppelmayr triple tower tubes. If it was built on double tower tubes it might affect capacity but with quad tower tubes it should be fine.
This lift is likely to be the next one replaced with a HSQ. It’s not used to do laps off of the Ridge (usually it’s 7 to 7A, unless Kachina Peak is running), but instead serves mostly intermediate terrain. It’s also expected to get more use in the summer with the addition of Via Ferrata cables and mountain bike trails (which is why TSV is proposing the gondola from the ski area base to the base of this lift).TSV doesn’t have the skier volume to justify a chondola there.
As for Texans misloading, they’ll do that even when the chair is stationary. One of the joys of skiing in New Mexico…
Seconded, this is a long, relatively young Alpha. Big drive and high capacity. It could be a pretty big deal to a smaller mountain… Or perhaps Taos have plans??
Per TSV’s Instagram, the chair is “headed for greener pastures.” There’s no mention of where it’s headed. As the chairs are not being sold/auctioned, I assume it’s going to another ski area or mountain bike park. Pajarito Ski Area would be an ideal home for a relatively young quad chairlift, as it’s only 90 minutes away and most of their chairs are 40+ years old.
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In my opinion this should be Taos’ next lift project, replacing it with a HSQ. I rode it a couple times today today and it had the longest lines out of any lift and every time I rode it it stopped at least once because of beginners. Even with it running slower at 300 fpm (10 second chair spacing) one ride it stopped three times because of some little kids who didn’t know what they were doing. A HSQ (or, while expensive and extremely unlikely, a chondola) would make the lift a lot easier to load for beginners and more pleasant for experts.
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All that money for either the same capacity, 2400 pph or at a max of 2800 pph? If a lift with 2400 pph has lines exceeding 30 minutes, a 3000 pph six pack is the answer. I agree that a chondola is a little overkill. Chondolas are more for signature out of base lifts with lappable terrain. Unless another bas area is developed at the base of this lift, I don’t think lift 4 will see a chondola.
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This lift isn’t running anywhere close to 2400 pph; they slow it way down because texans suck at riding chairlifts (ok, I might be a little unfair there but you get the point) and it’s more efficient to run it at 3/5 speed because it has so many misloads. The lines aren’t crazy long, but 300 fpm for a lift this long, plus several stops, is painfully slow. A HSQ could easily handle the skier load in this area and would greatly decrease the ride time and misloads.
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Plus, a HSQ could easily reuse almost all of the towers (it’s been done before; see the Flat Top Flyer).
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According to my relative who skis Powderhorn all the time the original Take Four quad was built with bulkier towers designed for a HSQ; the resort couldn’t initially afford the installation and power costs of a HSQ so they opted for a temporary fixed grip but with HSQ towers to save money (the fixed grip ended up being a little less temporary than planned). It might be harder to reuse the towers from a lift which was never intended to be a HSQ, but I’d imagine it’d still be feasible with some upgrades and possible tower head replacements.
Take the stuff about Powderhorn with a grain of salt though because although my relative knows quite a bit about Powderhorn, she doesn’t have a ton of knowledge of ski lifts; she was pretty shocked when I told her the terminals on Flat Top Flyer came used. The part about Take Four being installed with HSQ towers to save money on a future upgrade seems plausible though.
(For some reason I can’t reply to your comment Donald so I have to reply to mine)
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You can reuse tower tubes from fixed grip lifts you just need new crossbars. Some examples of this are Stormin Norman and Pucci Express at Timberline which are built on riblet double tower tubes and Sunshine Express Steamboat which is built on Doppelmayr triple tower tubes. If it was built on double tower tubes it might affect capacity but with quad tower tubes it should be fine.
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I don’t think Making this lift detachable will stop Texans from misloading. It’s unfortunately the truth.
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HSQs load at 200 fpm, which is significantly slower than even beginner, bunny hill lifts and would definitely help.
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This lift is likely to be the next one replaced with a HSQ. It’s not used to do laps off of the Ridge (usually it’s 7 to 7A, unless Kachina Peak is running), but instead serves mostly intermediate terrain. It’s also expected to get more use in the summer with the addition of Via Ferrata cables and mountain bike trails (which is why TSV is proposing the gondola from the ski area base to the base of this lift).TSV doesn’t have the skier volume to justify a chondola there.
As for Texans misloading, they’ll do that even when the chair is stationary. One of the joys of skiing in New Mexico…
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Where is this going from here?
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Seconded, this is a long, relatively young Alpha. Big drive and high capacity. It could be a pretty big deal to a smaller mountain… Or perhaps Taos have plans??
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Per TSV’s Instagram, the chair is “headed for greener pastures.” There’s no mention of where it’s headed. As the chairs are not being sold/auctioned, I assume it’s going to another ski area or mountain bike park. Pajarito Ski Area would be an ideal home for a relatively young quad chairlift, as it’s only 90 minutes away and most of their chairs are 40+ years old.
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Lift 4 is for sale but nothing has been finalized yet.
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