News Roundup: Flying Volkswagens
- Gunther Jochl, the Austrian-born owner of Sugar Mountain, got the CEOs of both Doppelmayr and CWA to come christen his new six-pack Saturday along with the governor of North Carolina. Apparently the lift may get gondola cabins in the future.
- A lawsuit from a homeowner could force the closure of Pennsylvania’s second largest ski resort. Seven Springs Mountain Resort operates two six-packs and eight fixed-grip lifts on 300 acres. Unfortunately, four of those lifts and 75 percent of the mountain’s ski runs cross a public road that the homeowner wants opened in winter. There are plenty of other ski resorts that have major highways passing through that close seasonally, including Deer Valley, Bridger Bowl and Mt. Baker.
- Cherry Peak, the new ski area in Utah, won’t be able to complete their Summit lift in time for this season. When I was there a few months ago, towers were laying on the ground along the line which will either have to be set or moved elsewhere. Two other triple chairs and a carpet are set to go.
- Arizona Snowbowl’s first new lift in 30 years is almost finished.
- An 8.5 mile gondola system coming to Missouri’s Las Vegas?
- Bartholet’s aerial tramway across the city of Puebla in Mexico will be finished December 15th, about a year behind schedule. Speaking of BMF, they have a new website.
- The Balsams clears some more hurdles but has still yet to break ground.
- Staying on the mega-resort topic, Hemlock Resort near Chilliwack, BC receives approval to spend $1.5 billion on 23 new lifts and 20,000 lodging beds among other improvements over the next 60 years. Hemlock currently has a 1977-vintage Doppelmayr triple and two even older Mueller doubles. Buried in the linked article is the fact that the ski area never opened last year due to lack of snow.
Hemlock Master Plan rendering from Brent Harley & Associates.
Whistler Blackcomb’s Next 20 Years
Whistler Blackcomb is the greatest resort success story on our continent – from humble beginnings in 1966 to a resort municipality with 53,000 beds, Olympic host and the first to draw two million skiers in a season. While Whistler and Blackcomb mountains were developed independently, they are now linked by one of the most iconic ropeways ever built. Today, the mountains have a fleet of thirty lifts including seven gondolas and 14 detachable chairs over 8,200 sprawling acres. Despite being the largest ski resort in the US or Canada, W-B still gets crowded and has opportunities for continued improvement and expansion. The resort’s master plan prescribes replacing nine lifts and adding eleven more, primarily on Whistler Mountain. Many of the lifts add new out-of-base capacity with the goal of “staging” both mountains with 32,000 skiers in 2.5 hours or less.
On the Whistler side, the plan includes a major expansion to the south, creatively dubbed Whistler South. It would include an 8-passenger gondola from a new “Cheakamus” parking area and another base facility part way up. At just 2,000 feet above sea level, The lower base would have no trails to it, just the gondola to the upper base area. A second gondola would connect to here from Whistler Creekside. Trail pods above would include a beginner area and three detachable chairlifts including one in Bagel Bowl.
The Creekside base would also get a fourth gondola direct to Whistler’s Chic Pea, bypassing the Creekside Gondola/Big Red choke point. Higher up, Franz’s chair and Whistler’s two original T-bars would be replaced by a single detachable quad from the bottom of the former to the top of the latter. At the heart of Whistler Mountain, Emerald Express is slated to be swapped with a six-pack. The quad would move to a parallel alignment ending slightly higher. Talk about an increase in capacity!
If you’ve ever been in Symphony Bowl, you know the high speed quad built in 2006 serves an area larger than most ski resorts. As such, Whistler Blackcomb plans two more lifts starting at the Symphony base fanning out in opposite directions. One called Robertson’s goes towards Harmony while the other serves either Flute Peak or Flute Shoulder with a detachable four or six-passenger chair. Access to the alpine from Whistler Village stays exactly the same; the only change on this side of the mountain is replacement of Magic (a Yan triple) with a 6/8 chondola.
Leitner Introduces Premium Chair
When Sigma decided to develop a new 3S gondola cabin, they turned to a designer of Ferraris and Maseratis to create Symphony. Now Leitner is giving its chairs the same treatment with automotive-style upholstered seating. The new ‘Premium Chair’ combines real leather with heated seats and bubbles for the ultimate in rider comfort. The chair also has automatic locking footrests for safety. One of Audi’s design firms created the chair and it is manufactured at Leitner’s plant in Telfs, Austria. In a press release announcing the new option, Martin Leitner remarked, “The Leitner Premium chair delivers optimum comfort, ergonomics, and elegant design in one luxurious package. ‘Business Class for ski resorts’ sums it up perfectly.”
Kitzbühel is the launch customer for the new chair, debuting 62 of the 8-passenger version on their new Brunn chairlift this winter. Brunn is the resort’s eighth Leitner installation and will serve a pod of three new runs. The lift will also feature a 980-horsepower DirectDrive that Leitner claims will reduce noise and electric consumption by 20 percent versus a standard drive with a gearbox. Brunn will haul an impressive 3,300 skiers per hour at up to 6.0 m/s. The lift is 4,790 feet long and rises 1,417 feet with 17 towers. Kitzbühel’s total investment in the Brunn lift and trails is $22.1 million.
News Roundup: Panoramabahn
- I passed a Doppelmayr drive terminal on I-80 last week. Now I know where it was going: Sugarloaf.
- More pictures from Lutsen Mountains of their new gondola. The old Hall Skycruiser is still standing parallel to her replacement.
- Haul rope and commline go up at Okemo.
- North Korea’s Masik Pass ski resort looks to have gotten a base-to-summit gondola this summer based on recent satellite imagery. Perhaps another counterfeit Doppelmayr?
- In British Columbia, first Crystal Mountain and now Mt. Baldy will not open this season. Baldy has a T-Bar, Mueller double, and 2007 Leitner-Poma quad that last operated in 2013.
- SkyTrac load tests at Pomerelle. One more to go at Arizona Snowbowl.
Instagram Tuesday: Caption This
Finishing Up in the Snow at Solitude
Since I last posted about Solitude’s Summit Express project in September, workers from Solitude and Highlander Lift Services have made a ton of progress, completing 19 towers and the top terminal. Comm-line is being installed and the haul rope is on a spool at the bottom terminal location. I say location because the lift doesn’t actually have a bottom terminal yet. Walking up to the summit today, it’s obvious why the top got priority. Not only is it the drive, the top is also located on a ridge at over 10,000 feet. These guys are lucking out with the weather to be building terminals in November with just inches of snow on the ground instead of feet. The bottom terminal will be at 8,690′ in a more accessible spot and should go up quickly. The biggest components for it are already up there and the operator house is installed.
The Summit Express is a Doppelmayr detachable quad replacing a double chair which was one of the first twenty lifts CTEC built back in 1982. The replacement high speed quad’s lift line is completely new and very steep with a bunch of challenging tower locations. At one point, the lift line crests a ridge and jogs sharply down before continuing up again. This lift reminds me of Peruvian at Snowbird (which is only a few miles away) with some very steep sections alternating with flat ones.
What $50 Million Looks Like at Park City
Tomorrow will mark 11 months since Vail Resorts announced their massive $50 million project to connect Park City Mountain Resort with Canyons to create the largest ski resort in the country. A significant chunk of that investment went to Doppelmayr USA to build two new detachable lifts and relocate another. All three projects are nearly finished before there’s even much natural snow on the ground. In addition to the three new lifts, Park City built a huge new restaurant called Miner’s Camp, added significant snowmaking and did a lot of painting & re-branding.
When I visited today the new King Con six-pack was spinning and the Motherlode Express was also finished with chairs on the line. Crews were pulling com-line at the Quicksilver Gondola and finishing up the angle station. Check out pictures of all three projects below. Park City is making snow on both sides of the mountain under sunny skies this weekend and all three new lifts are scheduled to open by the holidays.
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News Roundup: New Owners
- See how Sigma Composite builds gondola cabins in the French Alps. The company also just delivered the first of two trains for Leitner-Poma’s automated people mover at Miami International Airport.
- Aspen Skiing Co. submits a formal proposal with the Forest Service to replace Lift 1A on Aspen Mountain with a high speed quad, gondola or combination lift as early as next summer. Meanwhile, this summer’s lift upgrade at Snowmass nears completion.
- Another Doppelmayr Eco-drive quad going up.
- Scott Shanaman, who founded Aerial NDT, becomes the proud new owner of Lost Valley near Lewiston, Maine. The resort (if you can call it that) has two classic Hall double chairs and a T-Bar that hasn’t run in quite some time. Congratulations, Scott and family!
- Powdr Corp.’s Las Vegas Ski & Snowboard Resort changes its name (back) to Lee Canyon.
- Pacific Group Resorts, Inc. buys Mt. Washington Alpine Resort on Vancouver Island, becoming the company’s fourth (and largest) mountain resort. The Utah-based group bought Ragged Mountain in 2007, Wisp Resort in 2012, and Wintergreen earlier this year. How’s that for some geographic diversity?
- Some pics of a sharp-looking bubble six-pack being built by Leitner Ropeways in the Czech Republic.
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