Everything that has been removed I believe are, Ullr a riblet double going from near the start of mystery going to the top of Ullr (current Ullr used to be called Steps), Bridge T-bar, a Yan (I think) Bull, and then the other lifts under removed
With Eagle removed and probably not coming back, maybe lutsen could add back lift access to Ullr from near the river, then they could also cut trails on that side of Ullr
Isn’t Mystery Mountain the longest lift on the mountains (excluding the gondola) at over 4500 ft? They could add a low capacity detachable quad, maybe 1600pph, and it looks like they could add over a dozen trails of easy to intermediate terrain.
Eagle Chair crossed the gondola alignment. The original Gondola crossed over Eagle Chair. My guess is that the removal of Eagle Chair simplified the planning process for Summit Express. Not sure if the Summit Express alignment required the removal of Eagle Chair due to tower placement on either lift, or if having a crossover as with the original Gondola could have been an option but would have cost more or what, but I think that was the primary driver.
Use the image posted above of their expansion plan. It’s a scaled engineering survey. The lift scales out to between 5000 and 5500 feet. And that also jibes with my experience, having ridden that lift roughly 300 times. It’s not a 3.5 minute ride.
The ride times are correct for if the lift was running at full speed. Most lifts don’t run at their designated full speed to help preserve the lift’s life.
No, most lifts don’t run at their designated speed to make loading and unloading easier. Using Copper for an example, we typically run A, A-1, B, E, F, M, S, 4, 5, 6 at full speed because they don’t serve beginners. The rest of them we run at varying speeds, with K being an exception as it’s only designed to run at 4 m/s and not 5 or 5.5. If you’ve heard that the lift will last longer running slower, that’s maybe slightly true but lifts are *designed* to run at full speed.
I really think that the bridge lift and get replaced on the Summer of 2022. This lift is painfully slow and it needs much more capacity, And how much terrain it serves plus, returning skiers from mystery and Moose Mountain. If this lifts does fail it really messes with circulation and takes out many trails. In a podcast interviewing Charles Skinner, he mentioned that they considered replacing this offseason (2021) but Obviously has never happened. I feel this does need to get replaced with a detach quad (with detach mid station, or do a fixed/detach mid station (like with the Payday in ParkCity), or fixed quad with carpet to save money, but I think the lift should really be replaced ASAP. Thoughts?
(Sorry if 2 messages, not sure if 1st went though)
They have already cut much of the lift line for the new 6-pack. The base terminal will be just left of the current Bridge Chair loading area, and the upper part of the new lift line follows very close to the former Eagle Chair. There are also apparently future plans to reroute the alpine slide to the new lift and completely eliminate Bridge Chair. Not sure how that would work without a mid station since there is currently no easy walkable access to the base of Eagle Mountain.
The future of lift access for the alpine slide will probably depend on if the expansion goes through on Eagle Mountain, I thought there were a number of possible options for rerouting the slide and one was for it to go down to the future Eagle base area. Bridge Lift was way overdue for replacement for winter use, but will still be just fine for the slide (and a bonus emergency backup for Raptor). Funny though that Eagle lift and especially 10th were fairly short lived and the oldest (Bridge) will still stand for now.
Not to distract from the new replacement lifts and expansion plans, but is this correct – the old Bull Run chair was a St Lawrence and the now-replaced Caribou lift was a Yan? Does anyone have photos of these old lifts somewhere?
Caribou was all Yan, Bull had Yan chairs and tower components with the St Lawrence Drive and Return. I believe the Yan lift came from Vails first Chair 16 and they made two lifts out of it. If I’m not mistaken I think the St Lawrence components came from the former second chairlift on Ullr, because Moose Mountain was not open until the late 80s
Skiers Snowboarders of the Midwest posted that Lutsen recently updated their website that they will close for the season on April 16th and that the extended weekends are cancelled due to the lift construction on Eagle Mountain. Guests that have inquired about their reservations for late April were told the reasoning was they need to start removing the 10th Mountain Chair.
Raptor Express has been announced for quite some time. My best guess with 10th Mountain is they just want to continue to consolidate to High Speed Lifts and move away from having older secondary lifts to maintain and staff. Disappointing though, 10th was a nice rarely used lift from Snowmass when it was installed and is fun for laps on upper Eagle without the long runout.
No stall, just the wheels of the United States Forest Service moving slower than typical due to the large public interest. The USFS published the expansion plan to the public online early in 2021 w/a mandated public comment period that ended late that year. Just this past November, however, the Forest Service announced a decision could be expected to be made sometime in the spring of 2023, after a “Federal Register” notice was to be sent out in February. I wouldn’t doubt it if it goes a bit longer into this summer.
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Koo Koo T-bar was removed in the late 80s or early 90s
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Everything that has been removed I believe are, Ullr a riblet double going from near the start of mystery going to the top of Ullr (current Ullr used to be called Steps), Bridge T-bar, a Yan (I think) Bull, and then the other lifts under removed
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With Eagle removed and probably not coming back, maybe lutsen could add back lift access to Ullr from near the river, then they could also cut trails on that side of Ullr
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Isn’t Mystery Mountain the longest lift on the mountains (excluding the gondola) at over 4500 ft? They could add a low capacity detachable quad, maybe 1600pph, and it looks like they could add over a dozen trails of easy to intermediate terrain.
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The CEO said that they plan to cut more trails on mystery hopefully they can also have Doppelmayr build then a high speed quad
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I also see a fixed quad with carpet replacing Ullr Mountain
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Also the Bridge lift should be replaced by a fixed or detach quad
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Why was the eagle chair removed? Old age/lack of maintenance parts?
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It was used once or twice a year
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Have a hard time believing that. I’ve heard Bridge gets really long lines.
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Lutsen is a small company they don’t have a lot of employees, only about 200
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Eagle Chair crossed the gondola alignment. The original Gondola crossed over Eagle Chair. My guess is that the removal of Eagle Chair simplified the planning process for Summit Express. Not sure if the Summit Express alignment required the removal of Eagle Chair due to tower placement on either lift, or if having a crossover as with the original Gondola could have been an option but would have cost more or what, but I think that was the primary driver.
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Is it common for expansions to be pushed back? The notice of initiation was supposed to be in May, then September and now November.
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This is a master plan from them. Is this one still in use? https://skimap.org/data/381/916/1419631926.jpg
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This is the updated one
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The expansion is not on their property, it is a proposal involving National Forest Land and is facing local and regional opposition.
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The expansion isn’t happening anymore. Sad, but I see why.
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The Caribou Express length on here is wrong – It’s more like 5000ft. You can scale it off of the Expansion Plan above.
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I measured it out at ~3,500 feet on Google earth
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Use the image posted above of their expansion plan. It’s a scaled engineering survey. The lift scales out to between 5000 and 5500 feet. And that also jibes with my experience, having ridden that lift roughly 300 times. It’s not a 3.5 minute ride.
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The ride times are correct for if the lift was running at full speed. Most lifts don’t run at their designated full speed to help preserve the lift’s life.
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No, most lifts don’t run at their designated speed to make loading and unloading easier. Using Copper for an example, we typically run A, A-1, B, E, F, M, S, 4, 5, 6 at full speed because they don’t serve beginners. The rest of them we run at varying speeds, with K being an exception as it’s only designed to run at 4 m/s and not 5 or 5.5. If you’ve heard that the lift will last longer running slower, that’s maybe slightly true but lifts are *designed* to run at full speed.
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I really think that the bridge lift and get replaced on the Summer of 2022. This lift is painfully slow and it needs much more capacity, And how much terrain it serves plus, returning skiers from mystery and Moose Mountain. If this lifts does fail it really messes with circulation and takes out many trails. In a podcast interviewing Charles Skinner, he mentioned that they considered replacing this offseason (2021) but Obviously has never happened. I feel this does need to get replaced with a detach quad (with detach mid station, or do a fixed/detach mid station (like with the Payday in ParkCity), or fixed quad with carpet to save money, but I think the lift should really be replaced ASAP. Thoughts?
(Sorry if 2 messages, not sure if 1st went though)
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I agree, I’m my opinion a fixed quad with a carpet is probably the best option
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Good news, Skinner announced a new Leitner Poma high-speed six-pack that will replace the Bridge Lift, on Eagle mountain in summer 2023.
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They have already cut much of the lift line for the new 6-pack. The base terminal will be just left of the current Bridge Chair loading area, and the upper part of the new lift line follows very close to the former Eagle Chair. There are also apparently future plans to reroute the alpine slide to the new lift and completely eliminate Bridge Chair. Not sure how that would work without a mid station since there is currently no easy walkable access to the base of Eagle Mountain.
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A tunnel would be cool (but probably expensive)
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No. Bridge chair will stay put as will the slide.
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Perhaps they will add a mid start and stop point in the alpine slide.
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Perhaps they will add a mid start and stop point to the alpine slide.
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The future of lift access for the alpine slide will probably depend on if the expansion goes through on Eagle Mountain, I thought there were a number of possible options for rerouting the slide and one was for it to go down to the future Eagle base area. Bridge Lift was way overdue for replacement for winter use, but will still be just fine for the slide (and a bonus emergency backup for Raptor). Funny though that Eagle lift and especially 10th were fairly short lived and the oldest (Bridge) will still stand for now.
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Not to distract from the new replacement lifts and expansion plans, but is this correct – the old Bull Run chair was a St Lawrence and the now-replaced Caribou lift was a Yan? Does anyone have photos of these old lifts somewhere?
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I think that right, if you go to google earth, there are street view of the runs, where you can see the old lifts.
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Caribou was all Yan, Bull had Yan chairs and tower components with the St Lawrence Drive and Return. I believe the Yan lift came from Vails first Chair 16 and they made two lifts out of it. If I’m not mistaken I think the St Lawrence components came from the former second chairlift on Ullr, because Moose Mountain was not open until the late 80s
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They have now decided to remove the 10th Mountain lift. That makes 5 Riblets being replaced between Snowriver and Lutsen this Summer.
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Where have you heard this?
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Skiers Snowboarders of the Midwest posted that Lutsen recently updated their website that they will close for the season on April 16th and that the extended weekends are cancelled due to the lift construction on Eagle Mountain. Guests that have inquired about their reservations for late April were told the reasoning was they need to start removing the 10th Mountain Chair.
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why are they removing such a recent installation?
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I just looked it says something about a new lift installation called raptor express, https://www.lutsen.com/winter/mountain-information/winter-hours-of-operation. Maybe a new lift to add to peters website
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Raptor Express has been announced for quite some time. My best guess with 10th Mountain is they just want to continue to consolidate to High Speed Lifts and move away from having older secondary lifts to maintain and staff. Disappointing though, 10th was a nice rarely used lift from Snowmass when it was installed and is fun for laps on upper Eagle without the long runout.
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Does anyone know anything about the expansion? It seems it has stalled because a decision was supposed to made at least a year ago.
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No stall, just the wheels of the United States Forest Service moving slower than typical due to the large public interest. The USFS published the expansion plan to the public online early in 2021 w/a mandated public comment period that ended late that year. Just this past November, however, the Forest Service announced a decision could be expected to be made sometime in the spring of 2023, after a “Federal Register” notice was to be sent out in February. I wouldn’t doubt it if it goes a bit longer into this summer.
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The original ullr lift was removed by 1982 and the chalet lift was renamed ullr lift
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