Lower lift line.Riding up at tower 6.Looking down from tower 13.Approaching the top.Mile-long lift line.The top terminal is in a building like most high-altitude lifts on Mt. Hood.Bottom terminal.Bottom with chair parking building.
Site of the first-ever Riblet ski lift. The original was a single-person lift.
There’s a small section in the book Tramway Titan about it. Byron Riblet did not take the Great Depression well, spiraling off into alcoholism and his company nearly went out of business.
Almost the entirety of the funding, design, and construction of the lift was handled by his chief engineer. The resulting lift apparently had problems with rime ice, it derailed a few times, and its motor was WW1-era.
Funny you mention first ever “ski lift”. In the BC town of Kimberly and Britannia (50km away from whistler) people used to get on “Riblet mining Ariel conveyor belts” with their ski’s to some small slopes hand cut by miners.
I’m pretty sure the hourly capacity is closer to 2,400pph, I think the chair spacing was about six seconds. This is probably the only detachable at Timberline that is high capacity. The others have pretty wide chair spacing, especially since three of the detachables reuse towers of their fixed grip predecessors.
You’re right, I went skiing at Timberline for the first time in a couple years last February, and it indeed had wide chair spacing like the rest of the detachables at Timberline!
This lift has been running rather slow this season, it’s only doing 790 in my recording here, and on Sunday, 6/20/21 it was doing a pitiful 715fpm with an insane line to get up to Palmer, I’m guessing that here soon it’s going to need overhaul or replacement. Considering it runs 9-10 months a year and takes one heck of walloping from the weather on Mt Hood, it’s had a pretty good run over nearly 30 years.
I clocked it running at 850 (The fastest I have ever seen it run) during the 7am rush on the 20th but it had slowed down quite a bit by 10. They also run it even slower in the summer due to foot traffic from the Magic Mile Sky Ride. I know Timberline was planning on replacing the haul rope last summer but that project was postponed because of the damage to Palmer. This lift is going to be a nightmare to replace given that it is a critical lift all year, much like the Whistler Village Gondola.
Fastest I’ve ridden it at is 990 in March of 2016 on a powder day, it’ll be interesting to see what they do to it, since like you said, it’s an incredibly crucial lift. It’s gotten progressively slower since I rode it in 2016 (I go most every June) and has gotten to the point where it’s got me wondering if it’s due for an overhaul like I said, it it almost 30 years old after all, which is an age where most HSQ’s are either getting replaced or massively overhauled. They could use cats to access Palmer but that’d be a nightmare, it’ll take a fair amount of planning to do it right.
I remember when the old Riblet Magic Mile double chair was replaced in 1992. Today’s detachable and the old double actually are in slightly different alignments. The top terminals are very close to each other, with the old double’s unloading area being slightly farther east – closer to Palmer, while the bottom terminals are a bit farther apart. I believe the old Riblet’s bottom-terminal motor room is still there.
The differing alignments allowed the existing detachable to be built while summer operations, utilizing the old double, continued uninterrupted during the summer of 1992. Because the top terminals were so close together, some of the the work up top had to wait until after summer operations concluded on Labor Day, when the old double’s unloading station could be dismantled. The new detachable opened on time that winter, but the old Riblet double’s towers remained standing and weren’t removed until the following summer.
To replace the existing Magic Mile lift, they would probably do like they did with the Palmer upgrade in 1996: Close the summer season early – in August, after most of the race & freestyle camps are finished – then work quickly to construct the new lift in four months so that it could open by Christmas. I imagine the existing towers and top/bottom terminal buildings could remain, making the project smaller (and cheaper) in scope.
Note that Timberline does not include a replacement Magic Mile lift in its most recent Master Plan. So, while its fun for us to speculate about its replacement, it seems that Timberline intends to operate the existing lift for a while longer.
If they can time it right, they can probably do a lot to it at once with a rope replacement, things like gearbox rebuild, bullwheel bearings, etc etc, or phase it out in smaller chunks over the spring while other lifts are still turning and the fall after season closes. Granted a rope replacement is already a massive undertaking, just on the two rope replacements I’ve been on,one was rope only & the other we doubled up the project so to speak & pulled the motor to have it rebuilt & dropped the drive bullwheel & did bearings.
Years ago I worked it. One day we were putting the chairs on the line from the storage rails.
Somebody forgot to open the gates on the opening of the barn uphil. If you see those small squares at the top of the opening. There is a track there so the doors can be slid into place. Some how the track had not been switched open and the fault was “faulty”. The first chair that somehow patrol did not get in. Got squeezed through that 2foot square.
The noise was tremendous and we all looked at horror.
Lift Blog 
Site of the first-ever Riblet ski lift. The original was a single-person lift.
There’s a small section in the book Tramway Titan about it. Byron Riblet did not take the Great Depression well, spiraling off into alcoholism and his company nearly went out of business.
Almost the entirety of the funding, design, and construction of the lift was handled by his chief engineer. The resulting lift apparently had problems with rime ice, it derailed a few times, and its motor was WW1-era.
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Funny you mention first ever “ski lift”. In the BC town of Kimberly and Britannia (50km away from whistler) people used to get on “Riblet mining Ariel conveyor belts” with their ski’s to some small slopes hand cut by miners.
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If you are a 90s kid like me, the original single chair was depicted on the back of the “Pee-Chee” folders we used for school work.
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Here is a link to a photo of the folder. https://townsquare.media/site/133/files/2021/12/attachment-pee-chee.jpg?w=980&q=75
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I’m pretty sure the hourly capacity is closer to 2,400pph, I think the chair spacing was about six seconds. This is probably the only detachable at Timberline that is high capacity. The others have pretty wide chair spacing, especially since three of the detachables reuse towers of their fixed grip predecessors.
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It’s 1,600pph.
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You’re right, I went skiing at Timberline for the first time in a couple years last February, and it indeed had wide chair spacing like the rest of the detachables at Timberline!
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This lift has been running rather slow this season, it’s only doing 790 in my recording here, and on Sunday, 6/20/21 it was doing a pitiful 715fpm with an insane line to get up to Palmer, I’m guessing that here soon it’s going to need overhaul or replacement. Considering it runs 9-10 months a year and takes one heck of walloping from the weather on Mt Hood, it’s had a pretty good run over nearly 30 years.
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I’m going Sunday so I’ll tell you my experience with Magic Mile because it’s the only way to access Palmer.
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I clocked it running at 850 (The fastest I have ever seen it run) during the 7am rush on the 20th but it had slowed down quite a bit by 10. They also run it even slower in the summer due to foot traffic from the Magic Mile Sky Ride. I know Timberline was planning on replacing the haul rope last summer but that project was postponed because of the damage to Palmer. This lift is going to be a nightmare to replace given that it is a critical lift all year, much like the Whistler Village Gondola.
LikeLike
Fastest I’ve ridden it at is 990 in March of 2016 on a powder day, it’ll be interesting to see what they do to it, since like you said, it’s an incredibly crucial lift. It’s gotten progressively slower since I rode it in 2016 (I go most every June) and has gotten to the point where it’s got me wondering if it’s due for an overhaul like I said, it it almost 30 years old after all, which is an age where most HSQ’s are either getting replaced or massively overhauled. They could use cats to access Palmer but that’d be a nightmare, it’ll take a fair amount of planning to do it right.
LikeLike
I remember when the old Riblet Magic Mile double chair was replaced in 1992. Today’s detachable and the old double actually are in slightly different alignments. The top terminals are very close to each other, with the old double’s unloading area being slightly farther east – closer to Palmer, while the bottom terminals are a bit farther apart. I believe the old Riblet’s bottom-terminal motor room is still there.
The differing alignments allowed the existing detachable to be built while summer operations, utilizing the old double, continued uninterrupted during the summer of 1992. Because the top terminals were so close together, some of the the work up top had to wait until after summer operations concluded on Labor Day, when the old double’s unloading station could be dismantled. The new detachable opened on time that winter, but the old Riblet double’s towers remained standing and weren’t removed until the following summer.
To replace the existing Magic Mile lift, they would probably do like they did with the Palmer upgrade in 1996: Close the summer season early – in August, after most of the race & freestyle camps are finished – then work quickly to construct the new lift in four months so that it could open by Christmas. I imagine the existing towers and top/bottom terminal buildings could remain, making the project smaller (and cheaper) in scope.
Note that Timberline does not include a replacement Magic Mile lift in its most recent Master Plan. So, while its fun for us to speculate about its replacement, it seems that Timberline intends to operate the existing lift for a while longer.
LikeLike
If they can time it right, they can probably do a lot to it at once with a rope replacement, things like gearbox rebuild, bullwheel bearings, etc etc, or phase it out in smaller chunks over the spring while other lifts are still turning and the fall after season closes. Granted a rope replacement is already a massive undertaking, just on the two rope replacements I’ve been on,one was rope only & the other we doubled up the project so to speak & pulled the motor to have it rebuilt & dropped the drive bullwheel & did bearings.
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It’s only running about 790 today too.
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Video for today’s operations
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Years ago I worked it. One day we were putting the chairs on the line from the storage rails.
Somebody forgot to open the gates on the opening of the barn uphil. If you see those small squares at the top of the opening. There is a track there so the doors can be slid into place. Some how the track had not been switched open and the fault was “faulty”. The first chair that somehow patrol did not get in. Got squeezed through that 2foot square.
The noise was tremendous and we all looked at horror.
Worst mechanical event I ever saw on a lift
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