The Needles Eye Express is one of three roughly parallel lifts from the Skyeship mid-station.View down at tower 5.Lift line overview.Arriving at the top terminal.Top station.Another view of the top terminal.Looking up the line from the base area.Side view of the lower station.Lift overview.
7 thoughts on “Needles Eye Express – Killington, VT”
skitheeastOctober 19, 2020 / 3:33 pm
This lift replaced the Needle’s Eye Double Chair with a different alignment. The old double was parallel with Skyeship all the way up the Needle’s Eye trail to the ski patrol building on the opposite side of the wind fence from the current Skye Peak Express top terminal. The reasoning for the realignment downhill was to better distribute skiers, as the old lift, combined with Skye Peak and Skyeship, dropped a ton of people off in a relatively small space, resulting in trails like Great Eastern being absolutely packed with people trying to reach intermediate or advanced lapping trails.
Those are the Short Challenger terminals which never got the rounder corners that the large Challenger terminals got in the mid 90s. Access Express at Big Bear also has terminals like this and was built a year or two later. I think this lift was built with leftover older towers that Poma had, and half of the chairs came used from Waterville when White Peaks Express was shortened.
I believe this is true. Les Otten owned Waterville Valley at the time. I believe as much of White Peaks as possible was relocated here, and that includes all the towers, and a majority of the chairs. This lift has 85 chairs, and roughly 2/3rds are from White Peaks. The length is misreported. It’s definitely not 3590 feet long. The resort reports the length as 3286 feet, and I get 3326 feet on Google Earth. I actually get 3590 feet as the length for Superstar on Google Earth (the resort reports it as 3504 feet). Given the fact that I ride both lifts often, there is no way this lift is longer than Superstar.
Love this lift so much. Serves as a great reliever to the Skyeship Gondola. Serves trails of all abilities. I got stuck on it for nine minutes once in 9 degrees. You can see snowdon, rams head, and the lower part of the skyeship gondola as well as snowshed
My unpopular opinion is that Killington would be better if this lift was located elsewhere (like South Ridge, Canyon, or an expansion north of Ramshead towards Pico). The reality is that Killington will not expand its detachable lift fleet size until its skier visits climb back up to where they were in the late 90s. This lift is redundant, and it would be wise to spread out the limited number of detachable lifts to better disperse skiers around the resort. While it is nice to keep your skis on and avoid Skyeship Stage II, the reality is that Stage II can (and does) run independently of Stage I, meaning Skyeship Base need not be open for this terrain to continue to be served. Plus, when Stage I is open, the cabins generally have plenty of room after the morning rush clears out Skyeship Base.
Lift Blog 
This lift replaced the Needle’s Eye Double Chair with a different alignment. The old double was parallel with Skyeship all the way up the Needle’s Eye trail to the ski patrol building on the opposite side of the wind fence from the current Skye Peak Express top terminal. The reasoning for the realignment downhill was to better distribute skiers, as the old lift, combined with Skye Peak and Skyeship, dropped a ton of people off in a relatively small space, resulting in trails like Great Eastern being absolutely packed with people trying to reach intermediate or advanced lapping trails.
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Are you sure this is from 1996? it has the pre-1993 tower heads and Challenger I Terminals.
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Those are the Short Challenger terminals which never got the rounder corners that the large Challenger terminals got in the mid 90s. Access Express at Big Bear also has terminals like this and was built a year or two later. I think this lift was built with leftover older towers that Poma had, and half of the chairs came used from Waterville when White Peaks Express was shortened.
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Some of the towers might’ve come from White Peaks too, considering the lifting frame design is the same.
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I believe this is true. Les Otten owned Waterville Valley at the time. I believe as much of White Peaks as possible was relocated here, and that includes all the towers, and a majority of the chairs. This lift has 85 chairs, and roughly 2/3rds are from White Peaks. The length is misreported. It’s definitely not 3590 feet long. The resort reports the length as 3286 feet, and I get 3326 feet on Google Earth. I actually get 3590 feet as the length for Superstar on Google Earth (the resort reports it as 3504 feet). Given the fact that I ride both lifts often, there is no way this lift is longer than Superstar.
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Love this lift so much. Serves as a great reliever to the Skyeship Gondola. Serves trails of all abilities. I got stuck on it for nine minutes once in 9 degrees. You can see snowdon, rams head, and the lower part of the skyeship gondola as well as snowshed
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My unpopular opinion is that Killington would be better if this lift was located elsewhere (like South Ridge, Canyon, or an expansion north of Ramshead towards Pico). The reality is that Killington will not expand its detachable lift fleet size until its skier visits climb back up to where they were in the late 90s. This lift is redundant, and it would be wise to spread out the limited number of detachable lifts to better disperse skiers around the resort. While it is nice to keep your skis on and avoid Skyeship Stage II, the reality is that Stage II can (and does) run independently of Stage I, meaning Skyeship Base need not be open for this terrain to continue to be served. Plus, when Stage I is open, the cabins generally have plenty of room after the morning rush clears out Skyeship Base.
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