This is the former Santiago lift from Keystone, with the Lift Engineering chairs having Doppelmayr hanger arms, and the sheaves being replaced with Doppelmayr sheaves as well.
I’ve heard rumor that Lone Tree might finally be getting replaced by a HSQ this coming summer due to major real estate developments planned for the Lone Moose base area… any confirmation on that yet?
I agree that it should get the “Shedhorn Treatment” but I would much rather see Big Sky replace Six Shooter with a D Line 6 and move the current Sixer to Lone Moose
that should be done too, but reuse 6 shooter for southern comfort, or even better yet, 6 shooter-> thunder wolf, thunder wolf -> lone moose and shooter gets the d line
It definitely seems like relocating the 6 pack to Lone Moose is overkill at the moment, but I think it would be a good decision. The Flatiron development isn’t just private real estate, it also includes 2 new public base villages: one at the bottom of Lone Moose and one at the bottom of Thunder Wolf. Since these base villages would be farther down the mountain than Mountain Village they will probably be pretty popular justifying the 6 pack (old six shooter) for Lone Moose and then eventually a D line 6 pack to replace Thunder Wolf.
The problem with using the existing Six Shooter to replace Southern Comfort or Thunder Wolf is you would not pick up capacity you need over the existing quads. This issue is because there are only so many chairs on the existing lift and both those alignments are too long. To get the existing Sixshooter lift equipment to a capacity of 2400 pph (same as a HSQ) the lift would need to be around 6000 ft long, to get 3600 pph it would need to be around 4500 ft long. Big Sky already has plans in place to replace Southern comfort with a D-line, snowmaking is expanding onto a couple of runs in the Southern Comfort pod next summer too, so I expect the new lift will be built sooner than later. Southern comfort will likely go to Lone Moose and Six Shooter either to another boyne resort or to a peripheral location on bigsky.
Not sure I understand. Either alignment is much shorter than the current Six Shooter length, and if there aren’t enough chairs even on those shorter alignments to boost capacity beyond 2400/hr, you need only purchase more chairs.
Regardless, agree with the idea that Thunder Wolf should get a 6-pack of some kind while Lone Moose can remain a quad. Flatiron development only serves to accelerate the need here.
Lone Moose does not need the capacity of a six, even with the proposed future development. I think Thunder Wolf going to a six and moving the existing equipment over to Lone Moose is sufficient.
For Six Shooter, I would move the existing lift to the top of Lone Tree in that alignment from the base that has been cut for years and put a new lift in the existing Six Shooter alignment.
This was a bottom drive when it was at Keystone too, and it does make sense why it was a bottom drive while the high speed quad that replaced it has a top drive. And that’s because when Santiago was built, North Peak was the farthest back you could go. By the time the Santiago Express was built, that was no longer the case as Keystone had expanded further south with the addition of the Outback Express, Wayback, and Outpost Gondola in 1991. With the Outpost Gondola came the Outpost restaurant, so it makes sense that it would be easier to connect the Santiago Express to the same electrical lines used to power Wayback (as that’s a top drive and also ends at the top of North Peak).
No idea what is going on with this lift and it’s still down, it sucks even more because Thunderwolf has been having a issues with the electrical upgrade it got in this last summer and has been down often so all access to the north side of Andesite is lost since neither lift is functioning..
Thunderwolf has been a learning curve for us all and some days are better than others with it, we are working out the bugs and hopefully with time, it’ll be back to how it was before (last season was rather tumultuous as well with the OEM equipment). As for Lone Moose, the motor is fried so we had to sent it out, that is now beyond our control as to how long that one will take.
With both these lifts down in addition to Six Shooter, and the upper mountain lifts not being run because of the heavy snowfall, I would imagine operations were rough at Big Sky. Not to mention extra skiers who came out for the powder days just adding to the few overstressed core lifts that were open. The snow looked great though. Just bad timing to have all that going on at the same time
Yah motor rebuild will take time and often unavoidable. I remember from when I was at Copper what a pain it was when the Piltz controllers started failing on Timberline exp. The fact that electrical control components ( PLCs, etc) are considered obsolete within 5-10 years. Hopefully the contractor is helping out.
This rumor seems odd to me for a few reasons. First there are no immediate plans for replacing Lone Moose. While I expect it to happen within the next 4-5 years, the Tram and Explorer Gondola will both be first along with replacing an existing detachable with a D-Line 6 to relocate the old lift to Lone Moose. It seems odd that a ski area outside the Boyne portfolio is lining up at least 4 years in advance to buy this lift.
The second is its age. This lift has been in its current location since 1999, and came used from Keystone where it was originally installed in 1984. By the time BS gets around to replacing this in 5ish years this lift will be over 40 years old. Is it really worth relocating a lift that age?
Third: If this lift is worth relocating, Boyne is operating a ton of ancient Riblets at both their Michigan resorts and at Summit at Snoqualmie. Why wouldn’t they keep it and use it to update one of those resorts.
Just my thoughts but it will be interesting to see what happens.
It is worth noting that Maverick’s lift contains parts from a lift most likely from the mid 1960s along with minimal modifications from Riblet most likely at some point during the 70s. This lift is easily 10 years newer than Maverick’s lift and has all the potentially faulty parts on mid 1980s Yan lifts replaced. It is worth noting that Dodge Ridge was able to make good use of Mount Rose’s Lakeview Yan despite it being older than this lift. While age most definitely matters, I would say a modified mid 80s Yan would be more reliable than the “frankenlift” that Maverick operates.
The timeline is the main reason this seemed odd to me, but maybe Lone Moose will get replaced sooner than I mentioned above. The replacement used HSQ could be coming from another Boyne Resort so we don’t need to wait for one of Big Sky’s other detachables to be removed.
What comes to mind after the announcement yesterday is Crest Express from Brighton. While Lone Moose is shorter than Crest by a decent amount, the vertical rise is a tad more here. The numbers match up well enough that this could be a reasonable solution. If Boyne is working this angle, that would make sense why there are already rumors about where Lone Moose 3 is going. Hmmmm…💡
Someone on the Brighton page mentioned the Crest HSQ could be getting scrapped, but knowing Boynes history, I am kind of skeptical of that. Crest is the same model and age as the Ramcharger HSQ which was relocated to Shedhorn.
Gosh there’s an awful lot of ski lift experts out there, you’d think it would be easier to find qualified mechanics, but it turns out ski lifts are a lot more fun to talk about than work on :)
Lift Blog 
This is the former Santiago lift from Keystone, with the Lift Engineering chairs having Doppelmayr hanger arms, and the sheaves being replaced with Doppelmayr sheaves as well.
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….as well as having the original plastic YAN couches replaced with YAN steel baskets.
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I’ve heard rumor that Lone Tree might finally be getting replaced by a HSQ this coming summer due to major real estate developments planned for the Lone Moose base area… any confirmation on that yet?
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If thats the case, it really should get the Shedhorn treatment, and come from thunder wolf, which itself gets replaced by a D line 6 Bubble
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I agree that it should get the “Shedhorn Treatment” but I would much rather see Big Sky replace Six Shooter with a D Line 6 and move the current Sixer to Lone Moose
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that should be done too, but reuse 6 shooter for southern comfort, or even better yet, 6 shooter-> thunder wolf, thunder wolf -> lone moose and shooter gets the d line
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It definitely seems like relocating the 6 pack to Lone Moose is overkill at the moment, but I think it would be a good decision. The Flatiron development isn’t just private real estate, it also includes 2 new public base villages: one at the bottom of Lone Moose and one at the bottom of Thunder Wolf. Since these base villages would be farther down the mountain than Mountain Village they will probably be pretty popular justifying the 6 pack (old six shooter) for Lone Moose and then eventually a D line 6 pack to replace Thunder Wolf.
Article on Flatiron Development:
https://unofficialnetworks.com/2021/12/27/new-flat-iron-base-village-at-big-sky-resort-development-gains-approval/amp/
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The problem with using the existing Six Shooter to replace Southern Comfort or Thunder Wolf is you would not pick up capacity you need over the existing quads. This issue is because there are only so many chairs on the existing lift and both those alignments are too long. To get the existing Sixshooter lift equipment to a capacity of 2400 pph (same as a HSQ) the lift would need to be around 6000 ft long, to get 3600 pph it would need to be around 4500 ft long. Big Sky already has plans in place to replace Southern comfort with a D-line, snowmaking is expanding onto a couple of runs in the Southern Comfort pod next summer too, so I expect the new lift will be built sooner than later. Southern comfort will likely go to Lone Moose and Six Shooter either to another boyne resort or to a peripheral location on bigsky.
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Not sure I understand. Either alignment is much shorter than the current Six Shooter length, and if there aren’t enough chairs even on those shorter alignments to boost capacity beyond 2400/hr, you need only purchase more chairs.
Regardless, agree with the idea that Thunder Wolf should get a 6-pack of some kind while Lone Moose can remain a quad. Flatiron development only serves to accelerate the need here.
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Lone Moose does not need the capacity of a six, even with the proposed future development. I think Thunder Wolf going to a six and moving the existing equipment over to Lone Moose is sufficient.
For Six Shooter, I would move the existing lift to the top of Lone Tree in that alignment from the base that has been cut for years and put a new lift in the existing Six Shooter alignment.
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This was a bottom drive when it was at Keystone too, and it does make sense why it was a bottom drive while the high speed quad that replaced it has a top drive. And that’s because when Santiago was built, North Peak was the farthest back you could go. By the time the Santiago Express was built, that was no longer the case as Keystone had expanded further south with the addition of the Outback Express, Wayback, and Outpost Gondola in 1991. With the Outpost Gondola came the Outpost restaurant, so it makes sense that it would be easier to connect the Santiago Express to the same electrical lines used to power Wayback (as that’s a top drive and also ends at the top of North Peak).
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This notice appeared on Big Sky’s website
“Lone Moose is currently down for maintenance. We apologize for any inconvenience. We will share a better repair estimate as soon as we have one.”
Does anyone know anything?
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No idea what is going on with this lift and it’s still down, it sucks even more because Thunderwolf has been having a issues with the electrical upgrade it got in this last summer and has been down often so all access to the north side of Andesite is lost since neither lift is functioning..
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Thunderwolf has been a learning curve for us all and some days are better than others with it, we are working out the bugs and hopefully with time, it’ll be back to how it was before (last season was rather tumultuous as well with the OEM equipment). As for Lone Moose, the motor is fried so we had to sent it out, that is now beyond our control as to how long that one will take.
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With both these lifts down in addition to Six Shooter, and the upper mountain lifts not being run because of the heavy snowfall, I would imagine operations were rough at Big Sky. Not to mention extra skiers who came out for the powder days just adding to the few overstressed core lifts that were open. The snow looked great though. Just bad timing to have all that going on at the same time
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Yah motor rebuild will take time and often unavoidable. I remember from when I was at Copper what a pain it was when the Piltz controllers started failing on Timberline exp. The fact that electrical control components ( PLCs, etc) are considered obsolete within 5-10 years. Hopefully the contractor is helping out.
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rumor has it that Lone Moose will be finding a new home over at Maverick Mountain once it is removed… it will be interesting to see if that pans out!
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This rumor seems odd to me for a few reasons. First there are no immediate plans for replacing Lone Moose. While I expect it to happen within the next 4-5 years, the Tram and Explorer Gondola will both be first along with replacing an existing detachable with a D-Line 6 to relocate the old lift to Lone Moose. It seems odd that a ski area outside the Boyne portfolio is lining up at least 4 years in advance to buy this lift.
The second is its age. This lift has been in its current location since 1999, and came used from Keystone where it was originally installed in 1984. By the time BS gets around to replacing this in 5ish years this lift will be over 40 years old. Is it really worth relocating a lift that age?
Third: If this lift is worth relocating, Boyne is operating a ton of ancient Riblets at both their Michigan resorts and at Summit at Snoqualmie. Why wouldn’t they keep it and use it to update one of those resorts.
Just my thoughts but it will be interesting to see what happens.
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It is worth noting that Maverick’s lift contains parts from a lift most likely from the mid 1960s along with minimal modifications from Riblet most likely at some point during the 70s. This lift is easily 10 years newer than Maverick’s lift and has all the potentially faulty parts on mid 1980s Yan lifts replaced. It is worth noting that Dodge Ridge was able to make good use of Mount Rose’s Lakeview Yan despite it being older than this lift. While age most definitely matters, I would say a modified mid 80s Yan would be more reliable than the “frankenlift” that Maverick operates.
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The timeline is the main reason this seemed odd to me, but maybe Lone Moose will get replaced sooner than I mentioned above. The replacement used HSQ could be coming from another Boyne Resort so we don’t need to wait for one of Big Sky’s other detachables to be removed.
What comes to mind after the announcement yesterday is Crest Express from Brighton. While Lone Moose is shorter than Crest by a decent amount, the vertical rise is a tad more here. The numbers match up well enough that this could be a reasonable solution. If Boyne is working this angle, that would make sense why there are already rumors about where Lone Moose 3 is going. Hmmmm…💡
Someone on the Brighton page mentioned the Crest HSQ could be getting scrapped, but knowing Boynes history, I am kind of skeptical of that. Crest is the same model and age as the Ramcharger HSQ which was relocated to Shedhorn.
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I guess Crest isn’t coming here. It is officially getting scrapped
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Gosh there’s an awful lot of ski lift experts out there, you’d think it would be easier to find qualified mechanics, but it turns out ski lifts are a lot more fun to talk about than work on :)
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