Six Big Lifts Launch in Colorado

Peter Landsman12 Comments
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This new high-speed chairlift on Beaver Creek Mountain is one of six new lifts on Colorado slopes this season, representing the most new additions in a single year since 2013.

With over 100 detachable chairlifts, 22 gondolas and some 150 fixed-grip lifts, the Colorado lift fleet represents a total investment somewhere in the neighborhood of $700 million.  The Centennial State has more ski lifts than any other state or province and on each visit I’m amazed by the caliber of ski infrastructure here.  More than half of Colorado’s lifts are detachable models, a feat which no other North American region comes close to achieving.  This winter, six more high-speed chairlifts came on scene, and while none open up new terrain, each one serves an important purpose.  I was lucky enough to ride the new machines at Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Copper, Eldora, Keystone and Vail over three days this week, testament to the remarkable amount of skiing available within a few hours’ drive here.  This year’s class includes two Doppelmayr high-speed quads, a Doppelmayr six-pack and three Leitner-Poma six-place chairs representing half of all new detachable chairlifts built in North America for 2017-18.

Red Buffalo Express – Beaver Creek Mountain

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The last lift from Beaver Creek’s 1980 inaugural season, Drink of Water, was replaced with a new lift with a new name over the summer.  The quad’s namesake, Red Buffalo Park, is now a dedicated learning zone with awe-inspring views of the Gore Range from 11,400 feet.  While lift 5’s terminals, hangers, grips and operator houses are new, most of the tower components and chairs are from the former Montezuma lift at Keystone.  Like its sister Vail, Beaver Creek now has just one fixed-grip lift of appreciable length remaining alongside an amazing 14 detachable chairlifts and gondolas.

Falcon SuperChair – Breckenridge

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Breckenridge debuted its third next-gen Leitner-Poma LPA six-pack on December 28th.  The new Falcon SuperChair replaces a Poma high-speed quad that opened along with Peak 10 itself in 1985.  The new ride lifts capacity by 25 percent to 3,000 guests per hour in this popular advanced-intermediate pod.  The Falcon has the same sweet plush chairs as the new Colorado and Kensho SuperChairs.

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Gore & Whiteface Propose Ten New Lifts

Peter Landsman13 Comments

Whiteface is the largest resort in the East by vertical and played host to the 1980 Olympic Downhill.  The New York State-owned Olympic Regional Development Authority continues to operate Whiteface along with nearby Gore Mountain and Belleayre in the Catskills.  This week, Governor Andrew Cuomo proposed an impressive $62.5 million for capital improvements at ORDA facilities for 2018-19.  While the budget proposal is not yet law and does not identify specific items, it is likely to fund projects from Whiteface and Gore‘s management plans which, probably not coincidentally, were updated this month to include up to ten new lifts.

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The biggest project in Whiteface’s future is the replacement of the Freeway double (a 1978 Hall) in a completely new and much longer alignment.  A new high-speed quad would start at in the base area and cross over the Little Whiteface double-double, topping out on the Upper Mackenzie trail.  Two new trails would be cut from the top, making this lift ideal for intermediate skiers and riders.  A second project would replace the 1984 VonRoll double named Bear with a fixed-grip quad.  An offload opportunity would be included near the current top terminal and the new lift would continue to the Mid-station lodge area parallel with the Face Lift detachable quad.

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Current Whiteface trail map for reference.

Significant improvements are planned for the Bear Den beginner complex.  A relocated Riblet double-turned-triple currently services this zone and would be replaced with a fixed-grip quad.  “The new quad and magic carpet at Bear Den will serve the extensive trail work we are planning in that area,” Whiteface General Manager Aaron Kellett tells NY Ski Blog.  “We want to extend the lift top terminal higher to create better flow in and out of the area.”  Last year, Whiteface proposed a new lift from Bear Den all the way to the Mid-station but that plan has morphed into a conceptual transfer lift between the two base areas.  A second transfer lift (think gondola, pulse gondola or cabriolet) could link the main parking lot to the base lodge.

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Copper Mountain Pursues New Tucker Mountain Lift

Peter Landsman8 Comments
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A lift on Tucker Mountain, seen here in the background, would provide expanded access to 360 acres of terrain currently accessible only by cat or on foot.

Copper Mountain is moving forward with plans for lift service on Tucker Mountain, the 12,337 foot peak that forms the backside of Copper Bowl.  A Tucker lift was first approved in 2006 under Intrawest ownership but free cat skiing is as close as it got to being implemented.  Eight years into new management, Powdr Co. has proposed a new alignment that begins at the current Blackjack return terminal and ascends 1,150′ to the Tucker summit.  The fixed-grip triple chair would be only around 3,000 feet long and move up to 1,200 skiers per hour.  Blackjack’s return terminal would be moved slightly uphill to make room for the new machine.

tuckermountainmapThe project would improve access to underutilized advanced terrain within Copper’s existing permit area and is undergoing expedited review as a result of the previous approval. The White River National Forest opened public comment yesterday (running through February 9th) and a decision is expected in March.  According the the forest’s schedule of proposed actions, construction could begin as early as this June with an opening next winter.

News Roundup: Study

Peter Landsman4 Comments
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I’m in Colorado for a few days checking out this year’s new lifts. There are six!

4.9 Miles! Lift Length Record Falls Again

Peter Landsman5 Comments
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The Hon Thom-Phu Quoc Cable Car in Vietnam is the newest of three record-length gondolas in Vietnam.  Photo credit: Fatzer AG

It’s finished!  The new longest lift in the world, spanning a ridiculous 26,000 linear feet with just six intermediate towers, is undergoing testing and will open soon off the southern tip of Vietnam.   With this latest achievement, the Doppelmayr Garaventa Group breaks its own record held since February 2, 2016 by the Fansipan Legend, a 20,755-foot 3S gondola to the highest summit in Southeast Asia.  Before these two 3S lifts launched, the lift length record belonged to the Ba Na Cable Car, a monocable gondola stretching 19,032 feet that opened on March 29, 2013 in, you guessed it, Vietnam.  With completion of the Hon Thom-Phu Quoc 3S, Da Nang-based Sun Group now operates the three longest gondolas in the world as well as the planet’s largest aerial tramway with the tallest ropeway towers.  Silver Mountain’s gondola, the world’s longest when it opened in June 1990, is now fourth at 16,350′.  The lengthiest gondola in multiple sections remains the Bursa-Uludag three stage system built by Leitner in 2014 at almost 29,000 feet.

Hon Thom Phu Quoc MapThe new record-breaking gondola hopscotches from the large Phu Quoc Island over two smaller ones to an emerald isle called Hon Thom (Pineapple Island), previously undeveloped and encircled by white sand beaches.  $458 million of development is planned for the area which currently is a small fishing community with a state-of-the-art gondola station.

Setting aside its length, the rest of the gondola’s stats are also remarkable.  Hon Thom-Phu Quoc is the world’s fastest gondola, with cabins transiting at 8.5 m/s or 1,673 feet a minute (another Doppelmayr 3S built for the Sochi Olympics can also go 8.5.)  Sun Group’s latest system has more cabins than any other 3S – 70 CWA Taris models for 30 passengers each.  At 3,500 passengers per hour per direction, it would be the fourth highest capacity gondola in North America (Peak 2 Peak, the only 3S in the Americas, moves 2,050 an hour.)   A ride will take only 15.6 minutes at full speed and the lift’s six towers reach up to 525 feet above the Gulf of Thailand.  Four track ropes supplied by Fatzer are a crazy 58.5 mm thick with a 52 mm diameter haul rope.  The haul rope loop is so long that it had to be manufactured in two sections totaling 54,212 feet.  The new gondola will open to the public sometime this spring and we’ll see what Sun Group and Doppelmayr come up with next as they push the boundaries of ropeway technology in Vietnam.

Construction of Disney’s Skyliner is Well Underway

Peter Landsman5 Comments
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A new rendering of the new Pop Century/Art of Animation gondola station, part of the Skyliner gondola system opening in 2019.

We’re somewhere around a year-and-a-half away from the grand opening of Walt Disney World Resort’s innovative Skyliner gondola network and it’s becoming clear this will be North America’s most expensive lift project ever.  Yes, much more costly than the $52 million Peak 2 Peak Gondola, way beyond the $57 million Portland Aerial Tram and many times more than the eight-figure Blackcomb Gondola, also set for construction this year.

I have never been to Florida but luckily there are die-hard Disney fans who charter helicopters on a weekly basis to photograph the goings-on at the world’s most-visited resort.  This week, they are beginning to spot tower foundations for the first of five gondola segments.

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In Whitefish, a Disused Lift is Born Again

Peter Landsman7 Comments
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A 35-year old chairlift is proving very popular in Whitefish, Montana this season after moving from an alignment redundant with other lifts to an underutilized corner of the mountain.

Exactly half of the 14 lifts at Whitefish Mountain Resort stand in a second location, with some even finding a third home in Northwestern Montana.  By strategically re-engineering and relocating lifts from elsewhere on the mountain and beyond, Whitefish has been able to grow faster than many of its competitors and now encompasses 3,000 acres of glades, groomers and chutes.  This year’s move of Chair 5 creates the East Rim lift and turns a machine that sat idle for years into a dedicated lift for some of the finest advanced terrain in the Inland Northwest.

wmr_trailmap_frontside_1718For the first 50 years, every lift on Big Mountain was purchased new from a manufacturer.  That changed in 1999 and 2000, when the the Bigfoot and Sunrise T-Bars joined the Whitefish fleet just as consolidation and new technology were making new lifts increasingly expensive.  In 2002, the ski area acquired a Hall triple for a new beginner lift.  Continuing the pattern, Big Mountain, as it was then still known, snagged Moab’s failed Skyway experiment for another new beginner pod.  When the first-generation Glacier Chaser detachable needed to be replaced the following year, Whitefish had no choice but to go new for the flagship Big Mountain Express.  But instead of scrapping the old Doppelmayr, it shifted west to become the Swift Creek Express.  That summer’s lift shuffle also turned the old Easy Rider triple into Elk Highlands, a real estate egress lift.  In 2011, the Bad Rock lift was brought in all the way from Pennsylvania and now runs out of the base lodge in both winter and summer.  With a major lift renewal complete, Whitefish set its sights on expansion for winter 2014-15, opening the Flower Point lift and 200 additional acres.  That machine came from across the border, the old Rosa triple from Kimberley (and the predecessor to the Whistler Village Gondola before that.)  To summarize, Whitefish impressively built “new” lifts in 1999, 2000, 2002, 2006, 2007, 2011, 2014 and now 2017.

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This morning’s scene on the East Rim.

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Chairlift Coming to New Woodward Park City

Peter Landsman3 Comments

Many people don’t realize Powdr Co., the privately-held firm behind Copper, Killington and Mt. Bachelor, still owns the Gorgoza Park tubing area along I-80 despite losing nearby Park City Mountain Resort to Vail in 2014.  With unanimous approval Tuesday by the local planning commission, Powdr plans to break ground this summer on its sixth Woodward action sports park on the tubing site and build a chairlift in Park City for the first time since 3 Kings went up seven years ago.

This land hosted as a ski resort twice in the past.  A 2,070′ Hall double stood from 1978 through the early 1980s before being removed.  An even earlier iteration on Parley’s Summit featured a T-Bar and possibly another chairlift.  Powdr acquired the property and built the current tube park in 2000.

WWPC-Overview-SketchA 400′ vertical fixed-grip quad along with a new and existing carpet lift will provide uplift for skiing, snowboarding and mountain biking.  “Woodward provides aspiring athletes a place to safely progress their skills,” said John Cumming, Founder and CEO of Powdr in a press release announcing construction. “Having a Woodward in a venue that has hosted Olympic-level action sports competition, will, I believe, help to further inspire kids and enable them to develop. Park City is our home and we are extremely proud to be in a position to bring Woodward to our community and realize our initial vision for Gorgoza Park.”  A plan before Powdr Co.’s legal spat with Vail Resorts would have placed the new Woodward in town at the base of the First Time lift.

The company’s Woodward brand also has outposts at Boreal and Copper Mountain along with non-ski ones in Southern California, Pennsylvania and Mexico.  The Park City location will be the first with a dedicated chairlift and will open by the summer of 2019.  While the manufacturer of the new quad is not yet known, Powdr has also announced a new fixed-grip lift for Killington next summer which could be lumped into a single contract.

Schweitzer Commits to Two New Lifts in 2019

Peter Landsman7 Comments
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Outback Bowl at Schweitzer is currently serviced by three lifts, the longest of which will be replaced by two new ones in 2019.

Pacific Northwest favorite Schweitzer Mountain Resort will replace one long double with two new chairlifts in 2019, says CEO Tom Chasse.  The first lift will service the lower two thirds of the current Snow Ghost double, a 1971 Riblet with a 13-minute ride time.  The second one will replace Snow Ghost’s upper segment, servicing the Lakeside Chutes in a new alignment topping out near the new Sky House restaurant.  “We don’t have enough lift capacity right now,” Chasse told the Spokane Spokesman-Review.  “We think it’s going to be a draw and will bring in more people.”  The Bonner County Daily reported Schweitzer wanted to replace the nearly 2,000′ vertical lift a year ago but the $6-8 million project depended on financing becoming available.  Schweitzer completed a project very similar to this one in 2007, replacing the lower section of Chair 1 with a high-speed quad and the upper section with a realigned Doppelmayr CTEC triple.

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Snow Ghost is a sweet lift but its time will soon come.

Outback Bowl has a cool lift history.  The current Snow Ghost lift used to be called Chair 6 and went from the very bottom of the bowl to the Siberia Runout.  You can still see the old lift line in person and on the trail map.  In 1987, the entire machine was moved to start and end higher with a mid-station added, leaving the lower part of Outback serviced only by Chair 5.  That lift was replaced by a uniquely-themed six-pack called Stella in 2000.  Schweitzer skiers can enjoy another season and a half of Snow Ghost but 2019 can’t come soon enough!  No word yet on specific models or a manufacturer for the new lifts.