Purple – Installed in 1994, was the relocated and modified Dories lift.
As far as removed lifts:
1958 – original center-pole double chair was installed in 1958 and removed in 1978 when the Green Quad lift was instailled. I believe it was a Poma
1961 – original Yellow, the second lift installed, was installed 1961 and removed in 1989 when replaced the Yellow Triple was installed. The original Yellow was a centerpole double chair and was relocated to Mt. Holiday near Traverse City, MI
1971 Blue Lift, currently still operational, at least for the 2019-2020 season
1972 Dories Lift; replaced by the Red Chair in 1993 and repurposed and relocated into the Purple lift in 1994.
All subsequent lifts were installed by current ownership:
1978 Green – Riblet 4; underwent overhaul in 1996 replacing the center-pole chairs with bail-style chairs to match the other Riblet Quads, new tower heads, new drive motor, new lower terminal with hydraulic tensioning replacing the original counterweight system
1979 Orange – Riblet 3; underwent overhaul in 2002 receiving new chairs, new drive motor, and new lower terminal with hydraulic tensioning replacing the original counterweight system
1989 Yellow – Riblet 3
1991 Brown – Riblet 3
1993 Red – Riblet 4
1997 Black – Riblet 4
2008 Gray – Superior 4 (made mostly from Riblet service/replacement parts)
Telecar’s existence explains quite a bit. You’ll notice many high capacity early Poma doubles using C&S drives and towers, perhaps this has something to do with that
Hopefully nubs will make some changes soon, especially now that boyne is actually doing something with their Midwest resorts again. Maybe replace green and orange each with a HSQ and maybe relocate one of them to a terrain expansion, either in the back or off of the side of Pintail if possible.
also I doubt purple is 290 vert. it’s pretty close to red, which is much steeper and longer. and the combined vert of purple and red (about 550′) should be about the same as green’s (400′).
2) I don’t think Nubs is motivated to do anything in regards to whatever Boyne is doing; they have always marketed themselves as being the anti-resort to Boyne. Other than maybe all of about 5 days a year (afternoons of Christmas week & Presidents Weekend Saturday) there are never any lines. They don’t need any additional lift capacity or terrain expansions currently since most days its just pretty empty and chill.
3) There really isn’t any viable terrain to further expand on Pintail Peak. They expanded as far south as they can to the property line. The backside of Pintail doesn’t have much elevation drop and is super flat or has some terrain undulations that aren’t good for continuous ski trails.
I had heard, that when they acquired some additional acreage in a land swap on the north side a few years back, that would enable them if the need ever arose to expand skiing on the slope on the north side of the purple lift adjacent to the Race Arena. In theory it was said they could put a lift in the area of the locker room parking lot and run it up that slope and have runs that came down from the top of the Race Arena area.
Again, this more like a “what if” scenario but nothing that was any sort of definitive plan.
I like the idea of the Race Arena hill/shoulder expansion.
I just want to say that the Green Riblet lift did not look or feel 45 years old. The new bottom/return terminal and carriers, along with fresh paint, kept it looking good. Were there any problems with it, or is management just being preemptive given probable difficulty of parts replacement?
The concept of down the road / future expansion options with “Nubs North” on the hillside north of the Purple lift was brought up on the Storm Skiing podcast earlier this year. It is basically a “TBD” could happen some day, if/when we max our out current terrain and all our infrastructure its through its replacement cycle. Basically could be 1 lift with ~3 trails; a long green, a blue, and a black run. Frankly I don’t see this happening any time in the next decade or two. Not with at 2 more lift replacements on the horizon over the next couple of years.
In regards to the Green, yes, like all lifts, extremely well maintained and kept looking good. They seem to repaint their lifts more than any other place I know. Seems like about every 5 years or so. I think the Green lift was last repaint Summer of 2019. The major rebuild in 1996 made it look more like a late-90s Riblet than the 1970s vintage (exception of the upper terminal and motor room/house).
My understanding is that there weren’t any major issues with the lift, but there were a few factors going into the need and timing for replacement.
– It being the main workhorse lift, if there is a mechanical issue, if can severely impact uphill capacity and skier flow out from the lodge. Especially on a weekend or holiday, and this did happen a few times where it was down for a few hours on peak days. (There was a day this past Christmas holiday week it happened, and they decided to stop ticket sales). While not a true single point of failure lift, it does need to have top reliability.
– It eventually would becoming due for some bigger ticket maintenance / replacement items, and it didn’t make sense to make investments into a 45+ year old lift from a defunct manufacturer. By the time you start replacing stuff piecemail (or like how some ski areas have done stuff with Skytrac about replacing terminals in phases) you might as well just replace the lift altogether.
– Parts, with the Green now being a parts donor to the other Riblets. There are still a lot of Riblet parts out there, but some stuff is being harder to obtain and/or everyone is hoarding what they have to avoid having to get stuff custom / fab.
– It was just time to start replacing as the Orange and Purple will be due for replacement in the next couple of years. Can space out the replacement timing and financial outlay.
Lift Blog 
A couple of updates to the table above:
Purple – Installed in 1994, was the relocated and modified Dories lift.
As far as removed lifts:
1958 – original center-pole double chair was installed in 1958 and removed in 1978 when the Green Quad lift was instailled. I believe it was a Poma
1961 – original Yellow, the second lift installed, was installed 1961 and removed in 1989 when replaced the Yellow Triple was installed. The original Yellow was a centerpole double chair and was relocated to Mt. Holiday near Traverse City, MI
1971 Blue Lift, currently still operational, at least for the 2019-2020 season
1972 Dories Lift; replaced by the Red Chair in 1993 and repurposed and relocated into the Purple lift in 1994.
All subsequent lifts were installed by current ownership:
1978 Green – Riblet 4; underwent overhaul in 1996 replacing the center-pole chairs with bail-style chairs to match the other Riblet Quads, new tower heads, new drive motor, new lower terminal with hydraulic tensioning replacing the original counterweight system
1979 Orange – Riblet 3; underwent overhaul in 2002 receiving new chairs, new drive motor, and new lower terminal with hydraulic tensioning replacing the original counterweight system
1989 Yellow – Riblet 3
1991 Brown – Riblet 3
1993 Red – Riblet 4
1997 Black – Riblet 4
2008 Gray – Superior 4 (made mostly from Riblet service/replacement parts)
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The Gray lift is a triple, not a quad.
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The original Yellow lift built in 1958 was a Poma-Telecar.
Telecar installations in a table on this skilifts.org forum.
http://www.skilifts.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=11169
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Telecar’s existence explains quite a bit. You’ll notice many high capacity early Poma doubles using C&S drives and towers, perhaps this has something to do with that
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I would also like to note that the original yellow had a capacity of 900, a length of 1846 feet, and a vertical of 406 feet.
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Does anyone have any photos of the old Dories Lift? My first year skiing at Nubs was the last year that it was in service.
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Hopefully nubs will make some changes soon, especially now that boyne is actually doing something with their Midwest resorts again. Maybe replace green and orange each with a HSQ and maybe relocate one of them to a terrain expansion, either in the back or off of the side of Pintail if possible.
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just realized you got orange marked as a bottom drive. it’s top drive and bottom tension.
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also I doubt purple is 290 vert. it’s pretty close to red, which is much steeper and longer. and the combined vert of purple and red (about 550′) should be about the same as green’s (400′).
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1) Purple Lift vertical is ~150 ft.
2) I don’t think Nubs is motivated to do anything in regards to whatever Boyne is doing; they have always marketed themselves as being the anti-resort to Boyne. Other than maybe all of about 5 days a year (afternoons of Christmas week & Presidents Weekend Saturday) there are never any lines. They don’t need any additional lift capacity or terrain expansions currently since most days its just pretty empty and chill.
3) There really isn’t any viable terrain to further expand on Pintail Peak. They expanded as far south as they can to the property line. The backside of Pintail doesn’t have much elevation drop and is super flat or has some terrain undulations that aren’t good for continuous ski trails.
I had heard, that when they acquired some additional acreage in a land swap on the north side a few years back, that would enable them if the need ever arose to expand skiing on the slope on the north side of the purple lift adjacent to the Race Arena. In theory it was said they could put a lift in the area of the locker room parking lot and run it up that slope and have runs that came down from the top of the Race Arena area.
Again, this more like a “what if” scenario but nothing that was any sort of definitive plan.
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I like the idea of the Race Arena hill/shoulder expansion.
I just want to say that the Green Riblet lift did not look or feel 45 years old. The new bottom/return terminal and carriers, along with fresh paint, kept it looking good. Were there any problems with it, or is management just being preemptive given probable difficulty of parts replacement?
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The concept of down the road / future expansion options with “Nubs North” on the hillside north of the Purple lift was brought up on the Storm Skiing podcast earlier this year. It is basically a “TBD” could happen some day, if/when we max our out current terrain and all our infrastructure its through its replacement cycle. Basically could be 1 lift with ~3 trails; a long green, a blue, and a black run. Frankly I don’t see this happening any time in the next decade or two. Not with at 2 more lift replacements on the horizon over the next couple of years.
In regards to the Green, yes, like all lifts, extremely well maintained and kept looking good. They seem to repaint their lifts more than any other place I know. Seems like about every 5 years or so. I think the Green lift was last repaint Summer of 2019. The major rebuild in 1996 made it look more like a late-90s Riblet than the 1970s vintage (exception of the upper terminal and motor room/house).
My understanding is that there weren’t any major issues with the lift, but there were a few factors going into the need and timing for replacement.
– It being the main workhorse lift, if there is a mechanical issue, if can severely impact uphill capacity and skier flow out from the lodge. Especially on a weekend or holiday, and this did happen a few times where it was down for a few hours on peak days. (There was a day this past Christmas holiday week it happened, and they decided to stop ticket sales). While not a true single point of failure lift, it does need to have top reliability.
– It eventually would becoming due for some bigger ticket maintenance / replacement items, and it didn’t make sense to make investments into a 45+ year old lift from a defunct manufacturer. By the time you start replacing stuff piecemail (or like how some ski areas have done stuff with Skytrac about replacing terminals in phases) you might as well just replace the lift altogether.
– Parts, with the Green now being a parts donor to the other Riblets. There are still a lot of Riblet parts out there, but some stuff is being harder to obtain and/or everyone is hoarding what they have to avoid having to get stuff custom / fab.
– It was just time to start replacing as the Orange and Purple will be due for replacement in the next couple of years. Can space out the replacement timing and financial outlay.
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