News Roundup: Small Mountains and Big Cities
- Construction on The Balsams Resort in New Hampshire may begin late this summer. We could see new lifts there next summer.
- A bit further south, Waterville Valley started cutting trees for its Green Peak Expansion. Unfortunately they don’t have funding for a new lift or even a used one.
- Also in New Hampshire, Tenney Mountain plans to reopen next season after being closed since 2010. The mountain has a 1964 Stadeli double and 1987 Borvig triple
- You can own one of Oregon’s ski areas for only $1.25 million. Includes lifts with charming names like “Happy” and “Echo.”
- The Harbour Skylink would be a four-stage gondola in one of the world’s great capitals.
- Poma is currently building five gondolas in Latin America, two for the Metrocable system in Medellin, Colombia and one each in Bolivia, Chile and Mexico. They recently received €1.3 million from the French government to lead a consortium promoting ropeway transportation in cities.
- The world’s tallest observation tower is coming to Brighton, England, courtesy of Poma, who also brought us the London Eye and the High Roller in Las Vegas.
- Sigma takes on CWA with 3S gondola cabins developed by Italian car designer Pininfarina, set to debut in 2018 on the world’s highest 3S in Zermatt.
Lift Profile: Sunshine Village Gondola
Sunshine Village is one of two ski resorts in North America with access provided by gondola rather than road, the other being Silver Mountain in Idaho. Visitors park at the end of Sunshine Road and transfer to a Poma gondola for a 17 minute ride to Sunshine Village. Along the way there are two angle stations, one where doors stay closed and the other with loading/unloading at Goat’s Eye Mountain. All three sections share one haul rope driven by a 2,000 HP electric motor underneath the top terminal. The Goat’s Eye angle station has indoor cabin storage and there are additional maintenance rails at each end.
When opened on November 22, 2001, Poma claimed the Sunshine Village Gondola was the world’s fastest 8-passenger gondola with a max speed of 1,200 feet per minute. I don’t believe this was ever true as Whiteface’s Cloudsplitter Gondola opened two years earlier and can run 1,212 fpm. There are now at least 15 gondolas in North America that can do 1,200 feet a minute or faster. Regardless, Sunshine’s gondola is an impressive machine that moves 2,800 people per hour in each direction 15+ hours per day. It cost $16 million to build.
Snow King Transformation
Little Snow King Mountain in downtown Jackson, Wyoming is in the midst of an $8 million transformation. They are simultaneously building a new Doppelmayr quad, Wiegand alpine coaster, zip-line adventure course and brand new base lodge. The lift is nearly complete and expected to open shortly along with Snow King’s famous alpine slide. The goal was June 15th but I think it will probably be a week or so later. The alpine coaster is well on its way and planned to open in August. With a $4 million base-to-summit TechnoAlpin snowmaking system installed last summer, the future is looking good for this community ski area. The only thing they need now is a detachable summit lift and restaurant overlooking the Town of Jackson with the Tetons in the background. Willamette Pass’ six pack with gondola conversion would be perfect.
Behind the Scenes of the Jackson Hole Tram
The $31 million Jackson Hole Aerial Tram is the most expensive lift ever built at a US ski area. Constructed by Garaventa over 20 months, the new tram opened to great fanfare on December 20, 2008. It can move a hundred people 4,083 vertical feet in under nine minutes. Compared with a detachable lift, the tram is a relatively simple machine built on a massive scale.
Like most jig-back aerial tramways, there are four track ropes and a single haul rope that that drives both cabins. All five wire ropes were manufactured by Fatzer in Switzerland. Five towers support the line; towers 1 and 2 are the tallest and furthest apart. Two CWA Kronos cabins move 650 passengers per hour per direction at a maximum speed of 10 m/s. Slope length is 12,463 feet.
Instagram Tuesday: Construction Season
What’s in a Lift Name?
I respect ski resorts that come up with creative, well-thought-out names for their lifts. A lift’s name will usually last decades and be passed on to subsequent lifts in the same location. KT-22 is an example of a lift name so iconic I do not even need to say the resort. Yet more than 900 lifts in the US and Canada have no name at all or go only by a letter/number. Many resorts have a bunch of lifts with generic names like “T-Bar” and “Beginner.” I set out to identify some of the most frequently-used names in hopes that the ski industry can be more creative in the future. Here are the top 10:
- Summit. There are 38 lifts called Summit including nine Summit Expresses. Forty-four more lifts have other words added such as Mt. Snow’s Grand Summit Express. The temptation to name a lift Summit is obvious but it is hardly a helpful name when we are talking about machines that ascend mountains.
- North. While only ten lifts are called North, 34 more are named North Bowl, North Creek, North Face, etc. The other compass directions are almost as common – there are 28 West lifts, 22 East lifts and 21 South lifts. Not very creative and I would argue most ski resort guests have no idea which direction is which.
- Blue. Most ski areas have gotten away from painting their lifts bright colors and giving them corresponding names since the Forest Service banned such displays. However there are still 23 Blue lifts, 20 Green, 19 Silver, 15 Red & Gold, 7 Yellow, and a handful each of Orange, Pink and Purple lifts.
- Eagle. A surprising 26 lifts have the word Eagle in their name including four that are Eagle Express. Other resorts go further with Flying Eagle, Soaring Eagle, Screaming Eagle, Golden Eagle and Copper’s American Eagle. Other popular animal names include Bear and Elk. These aren’t bad names; they are just too common.
- Village. The US and Canada have 17 Village lifts including 4 Village Gondolas. I put these in the same generic category as Summit.
- Sunrise. Some resorts try to get past East and West by using Sunrise and Sunset. The result is 15 Sunrise lifts and almost as many Sunsets. For an industry centered on snow, the word sun is very popular. I count 9 Sunnysides, 8 Sundances and 8 Sunshines among others.
- Meadow. Learning lifts in particular seem to suffer from generic naming. Meadow is by far the most popular name for a beginner lift at 18, followed by Easy Rider at 12, Beginner (10) and Discovery (8.)
- Skyline. A logging term for transporting timber by cable, Skyline is a natural name for a ski lift. But with 12 Skyline lifts and counting, it’s time to use some new logging terms.
- Panorama. There are seven of these. Winter Park tried to put a spin on it with Panoramic Express but it’s still not very creative.
Last summer’s construction season had two new Summit lifts, 3 Sun variations, a Meadow and a Discovery. Hopefully 2015 will be better but it’s looking like we may see three more Summit chairs!
News Roundup: Projects and Plans
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- Doppelmayr and Bolivia break ground on Subway in the Sky part II.
- Steamboat has a new master plan proposal that includes two new six packs to replace the Elkhead and Thunderhead lifts.
- Will our nation’s capitol get it’s first aerial lift?
- Lake Louise abandons plan for Wolverine Ridge lift but still wants new lifts on Richardson’s Ridge and Hidden Bowl.
- A six-mile aerial tram across New York Harbor? The Gondola Project says no and even Doppelmayr says it may not be possible.
- The International Skiing Federation again tells Aspen to build a new lift or lose the 2017 World Cup Finals.
- Powderhorn and Leitner-Poma break ground on lift replacement.
- Helicopter removes “poles” at the Hermitage Club.
Lift Profile: Sunday River’s Chondola
The Chondola at Sunday River, Maine was Boyne Resorts’ first (and arguably last) major investment after purchasing the resort from American Skiing Company in 2007. This Doppelmayr CTEC combination lift replaced two fixed grip lifts and connects the South Ridge Lodge to North Peak. The older South Ridge Express and North Peak Express run parallel enough that the latter no longer operates midweek. I would not be surprised to see this 1997 Doppelmayr detachable quad relocated within the Boyne Resorts family at some point. Big Sky perhaps?
At $7.2 million, the Chondola is one of the most expensive lifts ever built in New England. It is also one of only five combination lifts in North America, the others being at Telluride, Beaver Creek, Mont Orford and Northstar. It is one of only eleven lifts in North America with Doppelmayr’s European towers. Sixty-four six passenger chairs alternate with 16 eight passenger cabins that move a combined 2,330 passengers an hour. The chairs are Doppelmayr’s extra comfy “flying couches” from Austria. The Chondola is Sunday River’s longest lift at 6,427 feet although the vertical is a modest 1,138’. Continue reading
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