- Apparently Cannon Mountain in New Hampshire will get the first LST Ropeways lift in North America. Manufactured in Germany, it will be a T-Bar for the Mittersill racing area which has an existing Doppelmayr CTEC double chair. SkyTrac will be doing the installation. LST Ropeways is owned by the MND Group which also owns Gazex (avalanche release systems) and Sufag (snowmaking systems) with a North American facility in Eagle, CO.
- Leitner-Poma will re-engineer and modify towers on the Grey Mountain lift at Red Mountain, BC this fall. The quad chair was built in 1992 at Alyeska and moved to Red in 2013. The re-installation was done by Summit Lift Co. of Fernie, BC and the lift has 18 towers in its current configuration. No word on the exact reason for the re-design.
- The Camelot chair at Boyne Highlands is losing its vault drive terminal that is literally part of the ski area’s base lodge. In its place will be a used CTEC drive terminal. Does anyone know where it came from?
- The Aspen Daily News reports on the all new High Alpine detachable quad at Snowmass.
- Snow King debuted Doppelmayr’s new ‘Alpinstar’ terminal this summer and now Caberfae Peaks, MI will debut the ‘Ministar’ in 2016. The new triple chair will replace the Clubhouse double which is a 1967 Hall.
- Developers are still trying to figure out how to get a new Lift 1A back into downtown Aspen like the original single chair.
Instagram Tuesday: Still Building
The Lifespan of a High Speed Quad
When detachable lifts were invented, no one knew exactly how many years they might last before having to be replaced. Now at 35 years since the first high speed quad went in at Breckenridge, we are getting an idea of what that number is. Twenty-two early high speed quads built in the 1980s have been removed and replaced so far at an average age of 23.8 years. The oldest of these was the Siberia Express at Squaw, removed this spring after 30 years of service. There are six more detachable quads built the same year as Siberia that are going into their 31st winter season.
Some would say that rather than looking at a lift’s model year and the associated technology, what really matters is operating hours. A machine that runs winter- and daytime-only will accumulate around a thousand hours a year while the Whistler Village Gondola will rack up 3,500 hours in the same year spinning 18 hours per day all winter and all summer. Since there’s no way for me to know how many hours most lifts have I will have to stick with looking at them by model year.
The Ten Longest Lift Rides in North America
The average lift ride in the United States and Canada takes just under five minutes. In fact, only about four percent of lifts (fewer than a hundred) take more than ten minutes to ride. You wouldn’t know it hearing the average skier complaining about long and slow lifts at just about any ski area. Below are the ten longest lifts by actual ride time at design speed. Of course lifts do not always run at their design speed but this gives a pretty good idea of the longest rides. Two of the top ten are detachable lifts that are so long that they take more than 15 minutes.
1. Burfield Quad – Sun Peaks Resort, BC – 1997 Doppelmayr Fixed-grip quad
9,510 feet at 453 fpm = 21 minutes
2. Cyclone – Sunrise Park Resort, AZ – 1983 Yan Fixed-grip triple
7,982 feet at 450 fpm = 17.7 minutes
3. Gondola – Silver Mountain, ID – 1990 VonRoll 8-passenger gondola
16,350 feet at 1,000 fpm = 16.4 minutes
4. Castlerock – Sugarbush Resort, VT – 2001 Poma fixed-grip double
4,707 feet at 300 fpm = 15.7 minutes
5. Wallowa Lake Tramway, OR – 1968 Hall 4-passenger gondola
9.650 feet at 650 fpm = 14.9 minutes
News Roundup: Tragedy in Oklahoma
- OSHA is investigating the death of one of two mechanics who fell while doing line work on the Skyride at the Tulsa State Fair. A work chair on the 1965 VonRoll gondola appears to have failed below the hanger, dangling both men from their harnesses. Steve Shelton, 43, died of trauma as a result. His family set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for funeral expenses.
- Poma is setting steel for Europe’s new highest lift in Russia. The three-stage, two-passenger gondola on Mt. Elbrus will reach 3,847 m/12,621 feet (Breckenridge’s Imperial Express SuperChair goes 350 feet higher.)
- Sugarloaf begins removing its oldest lift as part of a ‘lift safety’ initiative. I guess a lift that doesn’t exist is safer than one that does.
- Hidden Valley, New Jersey’s three Borvig lifts are out and two new Partek lifts are going in. The ski area which closed in 2013 also has a new name – the National Winter Activity Center. Follow the progress live here.
- The city of Cali in Colombia will open MIO Cable, a 10-passenger Poma gondola, on Friday. The 6,800′ system has four stations and 60 Sigma cabins that move 2,000 passengers per hour each way.
- Deer Valley Resort, SkyTrac and the NSAA will host an evening program honoring Jan Leonard on October 14th at Snow Park Lodge.
- Doppelmayr crews fly 11 towers for a new gondola at Lutsen Mountains, Minnesota. The $7 million system is going up alongside the resort’s Hall gondola, which will run through October 18th.
- It’s looking like Saddleback, Maine will have a ski season without a new lift.
Instagram Tuesday: Wheels
The World’s First Chairlift (Almost)
Despite the dominance of European companies in today’s tramway business, the ubiquitous chairlift was actually invented in Nebraska by the most American of corporations. Union Pacific Railroad built the world’s first chairlift at its new Sun Valley Resort in 1936 based on a design by their lead bridge engineer. The two original single chairs were fabricated in the rail yards of Omaha and installed on Dollar and Proctor Mountains in time for the 1936-37 ski season. Dollar’s original lifts are long gone, replaced by ones from Hall and Lift Engineering (and eventually Doppelmayr detachable quads in 2007.)
Just down the road from Dollar you can go back in time to Ruud Mountain, where the world’s third chairlift still stands among 10-bedroom mansions and two holes of the Sun Valley Golf Course. The Sun Valley Company has preserved Ruud Mountain pretty much as it was during World War II with its chairlift and ski jump. The top-drive, bottom-tension lift shows just how little the fixed-grip chairlift has changed since it was invented.
Pomerelle Mountain Gets a SkyTrac
SkyTrac, the new American lift builder based in Salt Lake City, is building two complete lifts this summer including one at Pomerelle Mountain near Burley, Idaho. SkyTrac seems to be gaining a following with smaller, independent resorts that need new lifts but are price-sensitive. By the end of this summer SkyTrac will have built 19 complete lifts in 12 states. Only two of those were purchased by companies that own multiple resorts (Boyne went with SkyTrac for the latest lifts at The Summit at Snoqualmie and Crystal Mountain.)
Pomerelle originally had Stearns-Roger and SLI double chairs, built in 1964 and 1975, respectively. The longer of the two was replaced by a CTEC triple in 1988 and now a SkyTrac triple will replace the shorter double chair. Work didn’t begin until late July but the SkyTrac crew has already installed most of the lift. Because of the mellow terrain, towers are being set without a helicopter and only numbers 7 and 10 are left to go up. The top terminal is finished and the bottom station just needs a motor room. I didn’t see a haul rope or chairs yet. The lift also apparently still needs a name!
News Roundup: Closings and Openings
- When is a ski resort expansion not really an expansion? When the terrain used to be served by a detachable quad that was re-possessed by Bank of America. Kidding aside, Tamarack seems to be getting back on track.
- Another eastern ski area bites the dust; Tuxedo Ridge, NY and its four double chairs will not operate this winter.
- Saddleback has reportedly canceled this summer’s NDT and let go of its lift mechanics.
- Hong Kong’s Ngong Ping 360 (Leitner bi-cable gondola) may get a third section.
- The Indonesian city of Bandung is still studying a $357 million, 26-mile gondola network.
- Dodge Ridge, Soda Springs, Boreal, Sugarloaf, Cannon Mountain, Pat’s Peak and Wildcat are all looking for lift maintenance managers ten weeks from ski season.
- Leitner Ropeways has a brand new website. It even has a station configurator tool to match Doppelmayr’s.
Park City King Con Express September Update
Like the Quicksilver Gondola, Park City’s new King Con Express is just about ready for a haul rope. Both terminals are nearly complete and all the towers have been ready to go since August. The chairs are still down in the base area waiting to be assembled. As far as I can tell, grips and operator houses have not been delivered yet. I’m guessing Park City is getting the pre-fabricated CTEC-style houses for both King Con and the Gondola.
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