Giants Ridge Scores $5.7 Million for New Lifts
Giants Ridge is about to tackle its aging lifts problem with a huge grant from Minnesota’s state economic development agency. Last Tuesday, the Iron Range Resources & Rehabilitation Board (IRRRB) approved $5.7 million to buy new detachable and fixed-grip quad chairlifts for the 200-acre mountain resort it owns. Giants Ridge’s fleet of five Riblet chairlifts and a Borvig J-Bar date back to 1984, 1987 and 1997. As with hundreds of other small American ski areas, Giants Ridge’s lifts are orphaned, meaning the original manufacturer is no longer in business. Tram Support, Inc. still supplies parts for Riblet lifts but the fact remains that many of these lifts have exceeded their useful life. Giants Ridge Executive Director Linda Johnson told the board, “the company that made our lifts is no longer in business. We can be down for hours and skiers are longing for a high-speed lift experience.”
The IRRRB’s mission is “to promote and invest in business, community and workforce development for the betterment of northeastern Minnesota, providing vital funding, including low or no interest loans and grants for businesses relocating or expanding in the region.” The board bought Giants Ridge outright in 1984 to enhance the quality of life and create jobs for the people of the Iron Range. This news is a win-win for a ski operation that generates an estimated $43 million in community economic impact each year. Of course, not everyone is happy about the government owning a ski area that’s lost more than $40 million. There is a middle ground, however, between government ownership of ski areas and private mountains going out of business. The National Ski Areas Association is currently at work on an initiative urging governments to provide low- or no-interest loans to ski areas investing in infrastructure such as the replacement of older lifts. It’s really no different than state governments providing economic incentives for manufacturing plants or call centers.
The new Calgary Express high speed quad at Giants Ridge will reduce a 5.6 minute ride to 2.3 minutes. A fixed-grip quad will replace a second lift but it’s unclear which one (educated guess is the Helsinki double.) Both new lifts will be completed by November 2017 and there’s no word yet who will build them.
Beartooth Basin Summer Ski Area Lives On Despite Setbacks
In a stunning alpine setting along the Beartooth Highway in Northwestern Wyoming sits the summit of one of America’s most unique ski destinations. “You could call it backcountry skiing with a lift,” proclaims the website for Beartooth Basin Summer Ski Area. Located at 10,900 feet between Red Lodge, Montana and the Northeast Entrance to Yellowstone National Park, Beartooth Basin is the only ski resort in North America that opens for summer but not winter. To give a sense of the environment we’re talking about, the parking lot sits 450 feet higher than the top of the Jackson Hole Tram, 115 miles and two national parks to the southwest. I made some turns this spring in Beartooth Basin to check out the lifts shortly after the pass reopened Memorial Day weekend.
In good times, Beartooth Basin offers 900 vertical feet of skiing on six hundred acres serviced by two platter lifts that generally spin late-May through mid-July. But everything here is subject to exception rather than rule and it hasn’t snowed enough for Beartooth Basin to open the past two years. Even in good seasons, storms close the road and ski area, subjecting it to the whims of National Park Service plowing. In 2005, the highway never even opened. Despite years with too much snow, others without enough snow and still more with landslides, the dream lives on for the love of skiing.
Pepi Gramshammer of Vail fame created Red Lodge International Race Camp with help from fellow Austrians Eric Sailer and Anderl Molterer in 1967 with the purchase of a portable Poma from Jean Pomagalski. Named for the closest town in Montana, the ski area actually lies just across the border in Wyoming. A permanent Doppelmayr platter was added in 1983 with another one following in 1984. Five Red Lodge locals purchased the mountain from the original ownership group in 2003 and renamed it Beartooth Basin.
Jay Peak Nears Tram Reopening with Upgrades Planned for 2017
Jay Peak Resort broke the silence today on its tram issues following a federal takeover in April and an order from the State of Vermont in May prohibiting operation without major upgrades to the 50-year old tram. Since those events and now under control of a receiver, the resort worked with the State Tramway Division on a plan to re-open the tram early this summer and schedule major upgrades for next spring, which is great news for employees and skiers. Jay Peak personnel, together with a tramway specialist from Doppelmayr/Garaventa and state inspectors, completed a load test and inspection of the tram this week. They found a crack in a component of one carriage that will be replaced next week before the tram reopens. $5 million worth of upgrades to the lift’s tower saddles, carriages, hangers, brakes and safety systems will take place after the ski area closes next Spring. See Jay Peak’s full statement below.
June 16, 2016 (Jay, VT)- Jay Peak Resort recently completed a three-day inspection of its aerial tram. The resort, in cooperation with the state, flew in an aerial tramway specialist and worked with state inspectors to examine the tram and its operating systems. Inspectors conducted a successful load test designed to ensure that all of the conveyance’s electrical, hauling and braking systems can function normally under strenuous conditions. After passing the load test, resort personnel successfully completed and passed an evacuation drill. The team also inspected the tram’s towers and its bolting structures. All were found to be operating normally.
Inspectors did find on the last day of the inspection a hairline crack to one of the components of one of the tram carriages. That part will be removed and replaced next week. After that work is complete, state officials will return for a final review.
“We’re happy the inspection process has gone so smoothly,” remarked Steve Wright, Jay Peak’s General Manager. “The resort has a long history of cooperation with the state’s lift inspectors and it’s their rigor and responsiveness that has allowed this process to move so efficiently.”
The resort recently signed a $5 million contract with the Doppelmayr/Garaventa Group to conduct custom upgrades to the tram, but that work isn’t scheduled to begin until the spring of 2017 and is not required for operations this summer or for the coming winter.
Wright said Doppelmayr/Garaventa will begin work on the enhancements shortly as the improvements are all customized and will take approximately 12 months to complete. Installation of the upgrades will begin in the spring of 2017.
News Roundup: Six-Packs
- Mt. Snow becomes the latest mountain to replace a chairlift with a beginner-friendly carpet lift.
- New construction webcams are live at the Leitner 3S Matterhorn Glacier Paradise project.
- Skier visits in Colorado were up 13.9 percent last season, Vermont was down 32 percent.
- County approves The Balsams redevelopment.
- Baton Rouge, Louisiana is still eyeing gondolas.
- Stunning photos from inside the new Eisgratbahn 3S stations.
- Sipapu is upping the power on its new quad chair.
- Leitner-Poma will build three new lifts in Ontario this summer including a six-pack at Horseshoe Resort.
- Telluride’s Mountain Village Gondola turns 20 this year with celebrations planned. The gondola has over 100,000 hours and provides 2.5 million rides each year!
Instagram Tuesday: Inspiring Places
Soelden Announces Record-Breaking Giggijochbahn
Soelden, Austria unveiled its record-breaking gondola today called Giggijochbahn, to open next winter with the ability to carry 4,500 passengers per hour. The ropeway will feature Doppelmayr’s next-generation D-Line components and two modern terminal buildings, one featuring panoramic images of the Alps and the other showing off ropeway technology behind real glass. The top terminal will have parking for most of the lift’s 134 CWA Omega IV-10-D cabins. Innsbruck architect Johann Obermoser designed the stations in collaboration with Soelden and Doppelmayr.
This will be an impressive system by any measure with 3,022 feet of vertical rise and an 8,688-foot slope length. Travelling at the record-breaking speed of 6.5 m/s (1,280 fpm) the ride will take just 8.87 minutes. The fastest monocable gondolas in the world currently top out at 1,212 fpm. The Giggijochbahn will have 26 towers and a 62 mm haul rope driven by a ~2,180 HP electric motor. The biggest innovation will be the capacity – reaching 4,500 passengers per hour, per direction. I believe 3,600 is the current capacity record for a monocable gondola, a record shared between many lifts including the 10-passenger Gondola One at Vail and the 15-passenger Village Gondola at Mammoth.
Steamboat Plans More Lifts
Steamboat is the fourth largest ski resort in Colorado with 19 lifts and almost 3,000 acres of terrain on 10,568 foot Mt. Werner. In 2011, Steamboat Ski & Resort Corporation commissioned Ecosign Mountain Resort Planners to perform a detailed mountain analysis and update the resort’s master plan. The Routt National Forest approved the plan in 2013, which envisions seven new lifts installed over the next ten years to better serve skiers. Included are a mid-mountain learning center served by a second gondola, a new lift on Sunshine Peak and replacement of four lifts with upgraded equipment. The first of the upgrade projects already underway, replacing the Elkhead triple (a 1984 Yan) with a Doppelmayr detachable quad. Initially proposed as a six-pack, Steamboat opted to build a 4-place detachable instead. The new Elkhead will be the first Doppelmayr lift built here since 1997 following four new Leitner-Poma lifts built at Steamboat in the 2000s.
Two fixed-grip chairlifts dubbed Rough Rider and Swinger (no way that name sticks) will service teaching terrain in Bashor Bowl along with 2-3 new magic carpets. The 1989 Rough Rider platter nearby will be removed. A third new chairlift will replace the Bashor lift in the same vicinity but in a new alignment ending 500′ higher. Bashor is the second oldest lift at Steamboat, a Lift Engineering double dating back to 1972.
News Roundup: Vail Effect
- The state of Utah hosted 4.5 million skier visits last season, a new record credited in part to the “Vail effect” and six new lifts.
- The Boston Globe autopsies New England’s nightmare season.
- Bloomberg Businessweek talks urban ropeway growth with Doppelmayr and Poma, so does The Wall Street Journal.
- Snowbird’s tram track cable replacement project is finished a week early.
- Disneyland will demolish historic VonRoll Skyway terminal to make way for Star Wars Land.
- Fatzer finishes six 27,000 foot ropes for the world’s longest 3S, set to open in 2017 in the Gulf of Thailand.
- Powdr buys Eldora.
- Jay Peak works on a plan to get its grounded tram running sometime this summer.
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