The only lift at Winter Park with a bottom drive, for obvious reasons.Depression towers 1-2.Middle part of the lift line.Upper lift line nearing the tree line.Arriving up top.Tri-leg return terminal from below.View down the lift line from the summit.Another view looking down.A tall tower.Leitner-Poma wide gauge tower.Lower lift line.Tower 9.Near the bottom station.Panoramic and Sunnyside on a busy Saturday.Lower station with 90-degree loading.View up the line from the base.The old lift that was here was appropriately called Timberline.Unloading area.Side view of the return.
Surprisingly, Breckenridge doesn’t boast about that on the red sign at the top of the Kensho SuperChair. And yet Winter Park still boasts about the Panoramic Express being the highest as if the Kensho SuperChair doesn’t exist.
I like to think of this lift and Kensho as twins. They both serve harder high alpine blue terrain before dipping below tree line and have hike only expert terrain.
I think double-combi sheave trains like on the uphill line on this lift (eight support, four hold-down) are rare to see on high speed six packs. They’re more common on gondolas.
I know of other detachables with more wind exposure than the Panoramic Express that don’t have double-combis, just simple 4C/4S and 2C/4S towers, such as the Kensho SuperChair:
Doubtful. Combination assemblies are used where the lift’s profile is essentially neutral, as in it’s not all that heavy in support or in compression but there needs to be a tower there for random loading circumstances (similar to when LP had to add two towers on our Flyer).
It doesn’t cost as much to run utility lines to power the drive at the top. This was also true of the original Timberline double that this lift replaced.
You’ll notice at most other ski areas with high-alpine lifts that the high-alpine lifts for the most part have bottom drives for this same reason, including:
* All of Loveland’s chairlifts save for lift 7 (the learning lift at the Valley)
* A-Basin’s Lenawee Mountain lift (Zuma and Beavers have top drives)
* Outback Express lift at Keystone (not above-treeline, but very distant from the rest of the resort)
* Lift 6, the T-Bar, the Kensho SuperChair, and the Imperial Express SuperChair at Breckenridge
* The fixed grip lifts in Copper Mountain’s Copper Bowl with the exception of Blackjack
Environmental impact is probably (increasingly) another factor … for instance, the Beavers expansion at A-Basin did not involve building any roads, and utility lines were already present at the summit for Zuma and the various buildings.
The bottom station of timberline actually wasn’t removed when Pano went in, you could ski by it! I remember always stopping and looking at it before I knew a lot about chairlifts. Sadly I’d say somewhere between 2013-2015 they removed the station.
Pano is open a lot, but I would say is closes a lot too. It was closed in December because the bowl wasn’t set up with the low amount of snow. At other high winds are usually what closes it. It has high wind exposure.
This lift has some wind exposure issues, why didn’t they put slated seats for this lift? It would have been less wind prone and why did they have parts of it near the top so high up in the air? Wouldn’t that make more it more wind prone?
I don’t think Leitner Poma was very popular with the idea of wind slats at the time. However, there is one lift at Mt. Hutt in New Zealand, built by Leitner-Poma (Omega Design) that does have wind slats.
It’s a fake rumor. I happened to a catch a chair with the COO of the resort who said it was false. Even looking from lunch rock you could tell that there was damage to the terminals.
Certainly within Colorado, since the other LPA projects in the state that year (Highline Express, Sourdough Express, Christie Peak Express, Zuma) have the older style footrests (or at least handlebars in Christie Peak’s case).
I think in practice, Panoramic’s capacity is more like 2,800 pph than 3,200 pph. The chair spacing seems to be similar to that of the DeMoisy Express, which is about 100 feet shorter than Panoramic but has almost the same number of chairs and has a listed 2,800 pph uphill capacity.
Lift Blog 
Panoramic Express is the highest six pack in North America.
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Not any more. That’s Kensho at Breck now
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Surprisingly, Breckenridge doesn’t boast about that on the red sign at the top of the Kensho SuperChair. And yet Winter Park still boasts about the Panoramic Express being the highest as if the Kensho SuperChair doesn’t exist.
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nobody at Winter Park boasts bout it being the highest six pack because people just wanna get to the top or ski down the bowl or drop into the cirque.
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I like to think of this lift and Kensho as twins. They both serve harder high alpine blue terrain before dipping below tree line and have hike only expert terrain.
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Not anymore. It was surpassed by the ABasin’s Lenawee 6-pack in 2022, and goes to ABasin’s summit at 13,040 feet.
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Lenawee only goes to about 12,400, so nowhere near breaking Imperial’s unloading altitude.
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Looking glass is also bottom drive.
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I think double-combi sheave trains like on the uphill line on this lift (eight support, four hold-down) are rare to see on high speed six packs. They’re more common on gondolas.
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I think that’s for wind reasons, because much of this line is exposed.
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I know of other detachables with more wind exposure than the Panoramic Express that don’t have double-combis, just simple 4C/4S and 2C/4S towers, such as the Kensho SuperChair:
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Doubtful. Combination assemblies are used where the lift’s profile is essentially neutral, as in it’s not all that heavy in support or in compression but there needs to be a tower there for random loading circumstances (similar to when LP had to add two towers on our Flyer).
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What obvious reasons for bottom terminal drive?
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It doesn’t cost as much to run utility lines to power the drive at the top. This was also true of the original Timberline double that this lift replaced.
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oh, I though it was becuase of the extreme temps it could get up there, but I wasn’t for sure
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You’ll notice at most other ski areas with high-alpine lifts that the high-alpine lifts for the most part have bottom drives for this same reason, including:
* All of Loveland’s chairlifts save for lift 7 (the learning lift at the Valley)
* A-Basin’s Lenawee Mountain lift (Zuma and Beavers have top drives)
* Outback Express lift at Keystone (not above-treeline, but very distant from the rest of the resort)
* Lift 6, the T-Bar, the Kensho SuperChair, and the Imperial Express SuperChair at Breckenridge
* The fixed grip lifts in Copper Mountain’s Copper Bowl with the exception of Blackjack
* Gold HIll at Telluride
* High Alpine at Snowmass
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There is also no road to get up there. In the winter it is a snow road. In the summer there is no road, so its easier to have it at the bottom.
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Environmental impact is probably (increasingly) another factor … for instance, the Beavers expansion at A-Basin did not involve building any roads, and utility lines were already present at the summit for Zuma and the various buildings.
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The bottom station of timberline actually wasn’t removed when Pano went in, you could ski by it! I remember always stopping and looking at it before I knew a lot about chairlifts. Sadly I’d say somewhere between 2013-2015 they removed the station.
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I think most of the parts were cannibalized for the other Heron Poma lifts.
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What % of time is Panoramic open? Lift operator s guessed 40% due either to high winds or low wind chill
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Pano is open a lot, but I would say is closes a lot too. It was closed in December because the bowl wasn’t set up with the low amount of snow. At other high winds are usually what closes it. It has high wind exposure.
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Drive Equipment:
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This lift has some wind exposure issues, why didn’t they put slated seats for this lift? It would have been less wind prone and why did they have parts of it near the top so high up in the air? Wouldn’t that make more it more wind prone?
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I don’t think Leitner Poma was very popular with the idea of wind slats at the time. However, there is one lift at Mt. Hutt in New Zealand, built by Leitner-Poma (Omega Design) that does have wind slats.
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In Québec, Poma has a few fixed lifts with slatted seats.
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Anyone hear about Pano being damaged by high winds recently? Heard a rumor on Reddit, but not sure if it’s true.
https://www.reddit.com/r/COsnow/s/TzBwSIfAh3
https://www.reddit.com/r/COsnow/s/9JJ03E0Upl
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I read these posts yesterday and emailed Winter Park PR. No reply yet.
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It’s a fake rumor. I happened to a catch a chair with the COO of the resort who said it was false. Even looking from lunch rock you could tell that there was damage to the terminals.
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Source?
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Sorry, that was supposed to say “there wasn’t* any damage to the terminals.”
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Ummm did he not literally say he rode a chair with the COO?
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Credentials?
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Was this the first Leitner Poma lift in North America to get modern plastic footrests seen on current LPA chairlifts?
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Certainly within Colorado, since the other LPA projects in the state that year (Highline Express, Sourdough Express, Christie Peak Express, Zuma) have the older style footrests (or at least handlebars in Christie Peak’s case).
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I think in practice, Panoramic’s capacity is more like 2,800 pph than 3,200 pph. The chair spacing seems to be similar to that of the DeMoisy Express, which is about 100 feet shorter than Panoramic but has almost the same number of chairs and has a listed 2,800 pph uphill capacity.
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Capacity is 2,600PPH.
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I think WP should add in an infill lift above the bottom of this lift to take pressure off it, since this lift gets the longest lines on the mountain.
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There’s no room at the top of the bowl for another lift nor do they need another one up there.
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