I think you forgot something. In your pics of First Time and Eagle, what you didn’t post is 3 Kings Double. Also, are there pics of Prospector Express, one of 2 yan high-speeds in Utah?
It was relocated and became the new Motherlode Express. Tower foundations and tubes from the old CTEC lift were reused on the new Doppelmayr six pack, while the crossarms were used on the Motherlode.
It is almost completely dependent on The Colony, as they own the land and simply have PCMR operate the ski infrastructure. They are slowly moving up the canyon adding houses. Phase 5F will require another lift and they have already started marketing homesites in that area. However, physical construction on any of those properties is likely 2-3 years away.
Greenhorn lift was replaced by the Red Hawk Quad, along with Tumbleweed. After 1997, the beginner area was moved to High Meadow and it didn’t make sense to keep two lifts for a small area.
Nope. Garaventa CTEC detachables use Garaventa detachable technology. They are similar in that they resemble eachother and operate almost the same, but they aren’t the same grips.
No, it is a Garaventa design, specifically the AK400. CTEC used four different Garaventa grip designs from 1990-2004. The first/second is the AK4.0/AK4.1, which was seen commonly on High-speed quad lifts they built. For their 6 pack lifts, they must’ve felt they needed a heavier duty grip, so this one was used. When the Stealth III terminal design came out, the Garaventa AK460 grips replaced all of the earlier grips, and were used until CTEC’s detachable designs were phased out by Doppelmayr in 2004.
OOPS, I mis-typed slightly. The Stealth II PCMR six packs have the Garaventa AK 680 grip (NOT the 400). The AK400 and 460 came later (with Stealth III/2000).
Doppelmayr has become as large as they are today mainly because they have taken over several companies in the past.
Agamatic was an Italian lift manufacturer, which designed and manufactured their own lifts before being bought out by Doppelmayr. The Agamatic grip was one such product. The Agamatic grips are offered primarily because they are a single position grip, which is in contrast to the DT series grips, which are dual position. The DT grips are an original Doppelmayr design.
Garaventa was a Swiss lift manufacturer, who is best known in North America for supplying parts on CTEC’s detachable lifts. In 1993 Garaventa purchased CTEC, creating Garaventa CTEC. CTEC’s lift designs were quite different from anything Garaventa, with the main thing being that CTEC used Garaventa’s detachable grips, including the AK-400 and 460, which visually look like Agamatic grips, and are both single position grips.
Doppelmayr acquired both of these firms. Agamatic first, Garaventa second. With Doppelmayr acquiring Garaventa, this meant that Garaventa CTEC and Doppelmayr USA needed to merge, forming Doppelmayr CTEC in 2002. With this, most of CTEC’s detachable products were phased out, although the fixed grip designs lasted longer, and Doppelmayr USA fixed grip installations are still different from the worldwide Doppelmayr fixed-grip product. Because of this, Garaventa grip designs haven’t been seen on a new North American installation since Collins at Alta was completed in 2004. Everything since then (except for the new D-Line which has it’s own grips and terminals) has been Uni-G/GS with either DT grips, or the Agamatic grips.
I think this has created some confusion because new lifts were built by essentially the same company with very similiar grips, leading to some thinking the Agamatic grip is a rebranded AK-460. It is not. Garaventa grips, including the AK-400/460, can still be found on MCS-series detachable lifts. No such installation has occurred in North America, however.
BOB- Basically, a single position grip is in the closed position (Called “Failsafe” by the Manufacturers) until it is opened by a rail / device as it enters the arrival side of the terminals. It then closes again until it is opened on the departure side to re-attach to the haul rope. PRO: The grip wants to close on its own by geometric design making it ‘failsafe’. CON: It must be activated twice in each terminal cycle- once to detach and then again to attach = 2X wear.
The dual position grip is either open or closed. When it enters the terminal, it is opened by a rail / device and remains open until it exits the terminal, when it is again closed by a rail / device. PRO: It only has to operate once per terminal cycle. CON: Because it is open while passing through the terminal there is the possibility that the grip/carrier could be launched without the grip being closed.
Those are the basics. Others may expound with their experiences and knowledge.
According to the Wikipedia page on detachable chairlifts, lifts with double-position grips (mainly from Doppelmayr) are designed to run in reverse to bring a carrier back into the terminal if a grip fault is detected upon exit. Lifts with single-position grips (mainly from Poma) aren’t designed to do this but instead measure the grip force while it’s in the terminal contour (and in the closed position) so that the lift can be stopped before the faulty grip exits the terminal.
BB17- I may have to edit the Wikipedia page as the information there is misleading. Any detachable grip can be operated in reverse; where the grip force is measured is definitely dependent on the manufacturer for the reasons you mention. In addition, Doppelmayr mirrors the grip position switches on both sides of the terminals for standard reverse operation where L-P does not; this may be where the idea that L-P grips can’t operate backwards comes from.
pbropetech — Thanks for the correction! So unless I’m mistaken, Poma/L-P grips can function in reverse but the lifts themselves aren’t designed for reverse operation in the same way that Doppelmayrs are?
Poma of America and early Leitner-Poma lifts were not designed to run in reverse, correct. Current LPOA lifts can be, all three of ours are (though there’s no need to run our fixed triple backwards, normally). All styles of Doppelmayrs are as well. I can’t speak for Garaventa-CTEC.
Bob- Some ski areas will run in reverse to bring a misloaded passenger back into the station (we don’t). It’s a great tool for maintenance, and our two LPA sixpacks actually need carriers loaded in reverse off the parking rail as it’s not a full loop.
Opt. 1: I think you intend for a gondola to replace Crescent and be extended to the top of Bonanza, to relieve traffic on Silverlode. I’d keep Crescent as is, so that there is a chairlift for lapping the trails west of Treasure Hollow and south of CB’s Run.
Opt. 2: An up-and-over gondola directly from Miner’s Camp to the main village would allow someone more direct access to the Quicksilver Gondola for Canyons access without having to take chairlifts and ski down to Miner’s Camp. But it would also put more demand on Silverlode, and I can’t fathom the tall towers (and wind exposure) that would happen while crossing over King Con.
Opt. 3: I guess Opt. 3 would be something like a high speed quad to provide lapping service to most of Crescent’s pod in conjunction with Opt. 1?
Opt. 4: A fixed grip out of Miner’s Camp to take some traffic off of SIlverlode is practical, but I’d probably align it to end at the top of Crescent to reach more trails, rather than end it at the top of King Con.
Option 1: I think it is a good idea presuming it is has a mid/angle station for offloading where Crescent’s top terminal currently resides to allow easier access to the Crescent pod. They could also then expand Summit House to use it during the summer, as it has pretty good views.
Option 2: I think this lift is pretty unnecessary because it is pretty easy to get in and out of Miner’s Camp and it would require tall towers to cross a number of lifts. This looks like a replacement for Eagle, which isn’t really necessary by itself but…
Option 3: I think this lift could make a lot of sense as a replacement for Eagle & Eaglet & 3 Kings if Park City wanted to create a mega-terrain park serviced by a high-speed lift.
Option 4: I think a fixed-grip lift to help alleviate the Silverlode traffic and get people back to the main base, similar to the new Over and Out across the mountain, would be useful.
It is absolutely practical. However, it would only serve terrain already accessible from Crescent and force skiers to go to either King Con or Miner’s Camp if they wish to use it as an out of base lift. These two areas are already very crowded. A Crescent upgrade would make more sense as it would provide the same out of base capacity increase but better distribute skiers across the mountain.
The tram was built by riblet in 1901 last ran in 1952 the ore bins sat on the line until 1963 were they were Soto red in the bottom terminal in 1978or1979 the bottom terminal burnt down. Then in 1989 the top terminal and parts of the mill structures were torn down for the new lifts and runs the mine last operated in 1977-1978
No. A lift from the base of Day Break/Dreamscape to bypass Tombstone was a separate earlier proposal years ago by WPC. It was to go from the base of Day Break to the top of Peak 5. Even though the proposal has been withdrawn, it would still be possible to build because the property lines were designed to accommodate the lift.
The proposed expansion is tied up in Colony real estate. They are the landowners and will start building when their house construction moves that far up the canyon. Currently, they are entering phase 5F, which is likely the farthest they can get without needing to build a lift right above Flat Iron to keep ski-in/ski-out access. Phase 5H will likely require another lift up to pinecone ridge, roughly to the top of Half Moon/Quarter Moon. These two lifts are both accounted for in their master plan.
Most skiers/boarders that are coming from Park City back to Canyons use Dreamcatcher to get to the Tombstone base. Also, most skiers/boarders want to ski down rather than riding Timberline across the Canyon. Since Park City is probably going to replace Dreamcatcher soon, that would make less of a demand for this lift to the top of Iron Mountain. If this lift were to be built, it would probably be used as more of a housing access lift, considering its proximity to the housing near there.
There’s also a private ski lift off the Upper White Pine trail thats some sort of lift on a track. Peter doesn’t include rope tows, pony tows, or carpets.
Where exactly was the Poma platter at Park City? This lift doesn’t show up on any of the trail maps at the time. Was the lift private or for race training?
There was a Poma lift at the Red Pine lodge on the Canyons side, just to the north of the gondola terminal originally in a learning area. I think there’s a carpet lift there now
Does anyone else find it odd that Canyons did not re-use the original Tombstone High Speed quad to install Dreamcatcher? I feel like it would have cost them the same or even less to re-install it there. Was maintenance costs a concern? If the lift was bottom drive, how hard would it have been to convert ti to a top drive? Also I do know that at the time that Dreamcatcher was constructed, it was in the middle of nowhere. The Tombstone Quad had more than enough length to be re-installed over there and if they wanted to reduce capacity they could have always just not used some of the chairs.
Tombstone was relocated to Steamboat where it replaced Sunshine. Back in 2006, Sunshine at Steamboat was much more heavily used than Dreamcatcher and in need of an upgrade. Honestly, it still may be more heavily used to this day, even after the Park City/Canyons connection.
Steamboat more urgently needed a high speed quad for the Sunshine Express lift. The original Tombstone wasn’t such a bottleneck back at a time when most of the Canyons traffic stayed closer to the area around Saddleback and Super Condor.
Remember at the time Dreamcatcher was built in 2006 there was no plan on the table to ever link up the Canyons and PCMR. When it was built it was the end of the earth miles away from the base area and was never expected to have any crowds, much less be the centrally located lift in a 7000-acre resort with a crowded restaurant at the top. Everything south of 9990 was built with the purpose of selling houses in the Colony, and American Skiing Company had long since run out of money to build out their master plan as they originally intended in the late 1990s, with every one of those south side lifts being detachables. Peak 5, Dreamscape, Dreamcatcher, and Day Break were all supposed to be HSQs in more interesting locations, with three more lifts that would have helped a ton with traffic flow if they’d ever been built. Too late now with all the houses in the way.
I get the feeling that had ASC not run out of money while expanding southwards that some of the projects that have been done to the Canyons since then would’ve eventually been built as they are today: Tombstone would’ve eventually needed to become a six-pack due to being the only way to get to everything on the south side and the only way back to Red Pine Lodge. They probably would’ve still built Over And Out to ensure that everything south of Red Pine had a direct way back to the base at the end of the day or if Tombstone went down.
Just from this map, I think they would’ve still needed to build Timberline to provide a direct link from Tombstone to Iron Mountain since otherwise, the only way there would be via a trail down from Peak 5. And Timberline would also be necessary since otherwise, the only way back to Tombstone and Over and out from Iron Mountain, Dreamscape, Dreamcatcher, and Daybreak would be via that one egress high speed quad. I also think that Orange Bubble probably would’ve still been built in its current form at some point, with Raptor being repurposed elsewhere (although not being used for Dreamscape).
It seems like the list is missing Treasure Mountain’s lifts that were built in 1963 with the PHB gondola: the original Prospector double chair (https://exhibits.lib.utah.edu/s/ski-archives/item/139960) and two J-Bar (Silver King Novice, Tenderfoot). Source: The Wasatch Wave, 8/15/63). Also missing is the Skiers’ Subway that was opened with the Thaynes Canyon double on 12/15/64 (source: The New York Times, 12/13/64).
Prospector (was also called C-1), double, 1963-1974, likely a Stearns-Roger, 1307 ft vert., 5940 ft long, 550 ft/m, 174 chairs, 24 towers, 900 p/h, drive and tensioning at the bottom
Tenderfoot, J-Bar, 1963-????, Stearns-Roger, 1500 ft long, 150 ft vert.
Silver King, J-Bar, 1963-????, Stearns-Roger, 1600 ft long, 100 ft vert.
The PHB gondola only had a capacity of 300 p/h for opening day as the manufacturer out of SLC couldn’t deliver all cabins on time (they weren’t allowed to get them from Europe). They were able to deliver more cabins a few weeks later (cap. was raised to 500 p/h), but the full capacity was not reached until the 64/65 season.
Thaynes Canyon (C-2), double, 1964-1975, Stearns-Roger, 2760 ft long, 887 ft vert.
Skiers’ Subway, 1964-1969 (opening might have been delayed until 01/09/65), train/trolley, approx. 3 miles long, speed: 7 mph
Elevator (“Thaynes hoist”), 1964-1969, 1770 ft vert.
Source: various newspapers like The Wasatch Wave.
Silver King either wasn’t a J-bar or was converted to a similar setup to Alta’s Transfer tow. I read somewhere that Park City opened with one J-bar and one rope tow. I wound think Silver King was the rope tow the article mentioned.
Even in the ads that were placed by the United Park City Mines Co. in 1963, they were talking about two J-bars resp. J-bar “Tows”. A drawing shows the Js hanging on a rope. I would not be surprised if both the illustrator and the marketing dept. wasn’t informed about the actual appearance of the lift. But I should receive a scan of another photograph shortly, that may help to compare it with the one you found.
It would have to be Tenderfoot with the gondola in the background. Looking at a trail map from when Treasure Mountain opened, there’s only one lift Tenderfoot could be.
Why does the Stearns-Roger Double look so much like Roebling? Did Stearns-Roger buy parts from Roebling and market them in the west, or did the old Prospector double get a major retrofit?
Some of the chairs from those lifts are still hanging around at the old PCMR base area. There’s also a couple of center pole Yan chairs which I’m not sure where they came from.
Is the chair next the SLI chair near the main parking lot at the Park City Base from one of the Stearns-Roger lifts? It’s near the base of First Time by where the shops end the parking lot starts.
They are scattered throughout the base village. There’s some stearns-roger chairs by rocky mountain chocolate factory as an example. The Yan center pole chair I believe was last located near by Jackson’s base camp, but it may have moved. As you mentioned there’s also some chairs over by the beginner carpet lifts.
Gondolas: Two stages and out of the Park City base, with the first stage replacing Crescent and the second going up to Summit House.
Upgrade to detachable eight packs: Silverlode
Upgrade to detachable quads: Town (realigned to the top of Payday), Day Break (extended to the top of the ridge), Pioneer, Dreamcatcher, Dreamscape, Sunrise (extended to Orange Bubble mid-station)
Infill/bypass lifts: Base of Day Break to top of Peak 5 (bypass Tombstone), Red Pine Lodge to top of Tombstone (bypass Tombstone), Something up Fantasy Ridge
Expert fixed-grips to eliminate some hiking: Base of Jupiter to top of Jupiter Peak, Base of Thaynes to top of Pinecone Ridge, Upper Boa to top of Murdock Bowl, Upper Boa to top of Junipers
Crescent is a relatively new lift. It was built in 2008 so it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.
While Silverlode is definitely getting up there in age, what’s more likely is that it’s replaced with another high speed six pack, and it’s supplemented with a high speed quad running from Miners Camp to the top of Crescent.
Town is unlikely to go detachable or be realigned.
Your idea of what do with Sunrise is impossible because that would entail it having to cross over or under the Red Pine Gondola, leaving one of them increasingly vulnerable to wind exposure.
I 100% agree that a two stage gondola is needed for out of base capacity. The layout of Park City has never been the same since the old gondola’s removal. With a one lift ride to the summit, Park City can open more terrain earlier, like they used to prior to 1997. As for Crescent, Crescent was designed to be a lapping lift to begin with. Its base is bit of a hike from the main base area, not to mention that the parking lot isn’t at the main base area. It requires riding First Time if you don’t want to hike. As for Canyons, I agree that Dreamcatcher needs an upgrade. It has good terrain, but it being fixed grip and crowded doesn’t help.
I think a gondola going out of the Base Area would be a great idea and would somewhat help relieve the insane lift lines that Park City gets in the base area. The only thing is Crescent is on the newer side, and isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. The only way I think they will put in a Gondola is if they replace Payday with a gondola with a mid station where the current upper terminal is to Payday, then make that extend up to the Summit House, even with that though, they will have to somehow get around Bonanza, which is sort of in the way of if they wanted to make it end at Summit House.
I do think that an eight pack at Silverlode is needed, but would be somewhat unlikely, as eight packs at the time in the United States are not common at all. After all, there is only one at the moment in the United States. I also think it would be difficult and expensive to manufacture.
Town doesn’t really need an upgrade, but I think Pioneer, Dreamcatcher, Dreamscape, and Sunrise would be great as detachable quads. However, it would be very hard to make Sunrise extend up to the mid-station of Orange Bubble, as Red Pine doesn’t run high enough where it would have to pass under, and if they were to make it pass over Red Pine, that would be very hard to make and be very expensive.
I like the idea of bypassing tombstone, as it does get busy.
Also like the idea of making fixed grips to the top of Jupiter, as that would eliminate a hike, as well as the other fixed grips you mentioned.
Overall, these would be great ideas, but I just don’t think the resort/Vail would take the time and money to do all of this. I would love to see something like these ideas you mentioned though, especially a gondola from the base of Park City to Summit House.
I disagree that Vail won’t put money into Park City/Canyons. This mountain usually has about one new lift per year. I don’t think Vail will upgrade Pioneer, unfortunately. What Park City really needs is an out of parking lot lift. I don’t know is there’s enough room for a gondola at the parking lot area, but it would be useful. As for Silverlode, I think the most Vail would do is take a used detachable (Possibly Saddleback, which could receive the old Bonanza lift) and have it run on the other side of Prospector run in the location of the old Prospector lift.
There are thousands of acres of terrain in the Wasatch Range that one can hike and ski that is superior to Murdock Peak (and anywhere else in PCMR). Plus, it can be done without paying $200 for a single day’s access.
If Park City was run like PowMow, perhaps I would think differently. However, Park City is run by Vail, and the experience I expect from a Vail resort includes limited to no hiking.
What about a multi stage gondola replacing Sunrise from Canyons Village to with a loading/unloading turn to replace Over and Out. Then replace Timber Line and Iron Mountain with Gondola that unloads at top of Iron Mountain but continues to QuickSilver Gondola. From Park City QuickSilver base replace Silverlode Express and Bonanza Express with gondola and continue same line or replace Town Lift. Expensive, yes. Rationale is this would be more than ski lift but become year-round tourist attraction, relieve some traffic into and out Old Town, drive pedestrians to Canyons Village base and Old Town and offer many other on mountain year-around options for Vail.
1. On the Canyons side, Over and Out is a brand new lift that was just installed last year. While Iron Mountain and Timberline are relatively new (at ten years old). Not to mention, Iron Mountain acts as a lapping lift.
2. On the Park City side, the same thing: SIlverlode and Bonanza are both lapping lifts, so any replacements for them are going to stay as chairlifts.
Why does Canyons need another gondola? The existing could need a capacity boost to 3600 pph, but the Orange Bubble rarely has big lines. Also, the last thing Canyons needs is more traffic on Tombstone. It’s already crazy without being directly fed by a gondola. As for Timberline, I do think it makes more sense as a gondola for bidirectional loading, along with it being the main access to Iron Mountain. Replacing Silverlode with a gondola makes no sense. As Donald said, it’s a lapping lift but also, a monocable gondola can only reach 3600 pph. A detachable eight can reach 4000-4500 pph. I could see Bonanza being replaced by a 2 stage gondola going up the old gondola alignment for easier access to the Summit. It would make sense use the old Bonanza to replace Pioneer and have its base start where Bonanza’s base is currently. Bonanza isn’t really much of a lapping lift and a Pioneer extension makes more sense for lapping that pod.
Park City has some amazing lifts, but I think an upgrade of pre-existing lifts or just new lifts all together should still be taking place on the ever-so-growing-popular mountain.
1st lift: Tombstone Express; Tombstone Express itself is a great lift, but still doesn’t seem to handle capacity well on busy days, and can be prone to sometimes long lift lines. Even though the lift is relatively new, it can be better used elsewhere on the mountain. I think a good idea for Tombstone is for it to become a 8 Person detachable with a loading carpet. A 8 person detachable especially with a loading carpet could help prevent a lot of misloads and slowdowns of the lift, which could make it get people up the mountain somewhat safer and quicker. I also think a bubble could also could be a good idea, and it could help the mountain get on a lot of news sources with the headline “First 8 Person Bubble Chairlift to come to Utah.” I think just with this lift becoming an eight person chair would bring a lot of headlines to Park City Mountain.
2nd lift: Iron Mountain Express; While Iron Mountain Express overall handles capacity well, with a perfectly working 6 person chair right across the ridge, I think it would be a good move to not sell the Tombstone Six but instead replace Iron Mountain Express with the Tombstone Express Six. You may think this might be overkill, but I generally would think it would be a better idea to increase uphill capacity at the mountain rather than sell it to a competitor resort.
3rd lift: Dreamcatcher; Dreamcatcher is again a good lift, but is a popular lift choice when coming off of Quicksilver. Again, why sell a brand new lift to a competitor resort when it can be used elsewhere on the mountain? I think a good idea for Dreamcatcher would for it to be replaced by the HS4 Iron Mountain Express, and since the Iron Mountain Express would be replaced by Tombstone Express, the resort overall would be saving a good amount of money by not spending money on two extra brand new lifts.
4th lift: A gondola; There was once a gondola going from where PayDay Express currently starts to Summit House, and I think something similar to that would be great again. Following a similar alignment as the previous Park City Gondola, this new Gondola would start at the lower PayDay terminal, and head up to the current PayDay upper terminal. At the current upper terminal of PayDay, there would then be a mid angle station which could be used to offload or onload onto the lift. The gondola would then come out of the angle station and make its way up to the Summit House, which it would then end. I think this would give some of that original Park City Mountain charm back onto the mountain but also alleviate some of the horrendous lines at the base of Park City Mountain.
Overall, I think this with these lifts Park City lines can maybe be * a little * shorter.
I like your ideas but unfortunately dreamcatcher is doomed to remain a fixed grip for a long time. The reason being is that the lift goes right through a millionaire neighborhood. High speed chairlifts are noisy as hell particularly the older ones. The towers alone are prone to vibrate/rattle and bang. Yes i think its a little dumb that some people cant handle a little noise. But you cant really change that. Best to leave them alone. I also doubt vail will ever build another bubble chairlift as they grab a lot of wind.
I do not believe that there is any clause from WPC about detachable lifts. Tombstone and Iron Mountain are both on WPC property and in decently close proximity to houses. Additionally, Quicksilver being a gondola is noisier than a detachable quad and it passes right next to some very nice houses. There has also been talk of the future Scott Hill lift being detachable, which will go right by houses. The reason the lifts around Cloud Dine are fixed-grip is that there was no reason for them to be detachable when they were built. Before the PC-Canyons connection, they were almost entirely real estate lifts.
The only one of those I agree with is Dreamcatcher. The others, not so much.
1. Vail Resorts doesn’t do eight packs. Six packs are the most they’ll do. Not to mention, they built Over and Out last year so that traffic headed north can bypass Tombstone. Instead of replacing Tombstone, build a lift from Red Pine Lodge to the top of Tombstone.
2. Iron Mountain is fine as is.
4. Payday is a lapping lift, so not ideal for a gondola replacement. It’s more likely that you’d see a two-stage gondola replace Town with an extension to the Summit House.
I think how you said instead of replacing Tombstone they would build a lift going from Red Pine going to the upper terminal of Tombstone would be a great idea. Most of the reason it gets busy is just simply because people are trying to get from the Red Pine Lodge area over to the Iron Mountain Express/Quicksilver area. That large pod of blues that feed into Tombstone make it real busy and they are hard to navigate.
What Canyons really needs is a lift from the base of Tombstone to the bottom of Dreamscape. I was thinking a 2400 pph detachable quad would do. It would help reduce crowds on Tombstone and Timberline, along with an easier way to get to Dreamcatcher and Dreamscape. I would think this lift would be good with a Dreamcatcher upgrade to make it easier to get to Quicksilver. As for the noise, the rich people agreed to live at a ski resort, which means that hey should be able to tolerate the noise. They probably only stay there for 10 days per year anyway. If you make it a top drive, along with one of those sound barriers they’re putting on the new Highway 89, they wouldn’t hear anything.
As for a gondola from the Park City base, why make it go up Payday? Why not use the old gondola alignment? It might interfere with the alpine coaster though. They could add the four cabins from the old gondola (the ones from the 80s) to the line for some of the old feel. They’re not doing any good at the base of 3 Kings. I was thinking for capacity a 3000 pph 8 person gondola and make it capable for 3600 pph. It would also replace Bonanza, which could be realigned to the top of Pioneer to replace Pioneer.
I was also thinking that Silverlode could use some chairs from Payday, which wouldn’t need the capacity with a gondola nearby. I would try that and then see if Silverlode is still a mess.
At 3600 pph, Silverlode is maxed out on capacity. At this point, it needs a high speed quad running from Miners Camp to the top of Crescent to supplement it.
The top of Crescent only allows you to access Pioneer and Bonanza to get to the summit. What really needs to happen is a lift on the other side of Prospector run, I was thinking a used lift would do fine. The King Con upgrade didn’t really help anything. All it did was feed Silverlode more. And if the lift ends at the top of Crescent, it would have to be fixed grip.
Honestly, Silverlode and King Con just have too many people, and the only real solution is to convince more people to lap elsewhere because there will always be a large number of skiers using the area just to transit over from Quicksilver. I think making Thanes and/or Pioneer detachable lifts would really help push a lot of Intermediate/Advanced skiers up the ridge away from Miners Camp and spread people out.
Yes, Pioneer could really use a detachable upgrade, but Thaynes is too short for a detachable, not to mention that it’s never crowded even as a double. It does have some really nice terrain and runs at a reasonable speed. Pioneer is the main way to get out of the McConkey’s area and skiing down to Bonanza doesn’t really get you to the upper mountain without riding Thaynes, or hiking up a ski run. I would think a 2000 pph detachable quad would do.
I think the ideal solution would be a high speed quad starting next to King Con and running to the top of Silverlode, possibly with a mid-load station at Miner’s Camp next to Silverlode. This would also ensure a way out of the King Con pod if King Con goes down for any reason.
Lots of interesting ideas in this thread. I think we’d all agree that the main issues we’re trying to solve for are as follows:
1) Out of base capacity at Park City base
2) Crowding/capacity in Thaynes Canyon from King Con up to Motherlode
3) Capacity on the southern half of Canyons given new location in the center of the resort and the Quicksilver influx from legacy PCMR
4) Skier circulation between the north and south sides of the legacy Canyons terrain
I’ll take these one by one. First, I find Donald Reif’s thoughts on the base capacity issue to be most compelling. Given that Bonanza is much more of a transport lift than a lapping lift, it is the perfect candidate to be removed and replaced by the upper stage of a two-stage gondola beginning down near Crescent/Payday base terminals. Town Lift should be upgraded, but it’s hard to imagine that ever being a key out-of-base workhorse given location.
Second, I’m not sure I understand the logic of pushing to add massive amounts of new capacity to an area of the mountain that already sees more than its fair share of traffic. At some point, you’re simply inducing demand and making the problem worse, like adding new lanes to a crowded highway. While lift upgrades/additions may be part of the answer there, the bigger solution IMO is to try and make other pods more attractive to spread out the crowds in a more organic way. So for me, that has to start with making Pioneer detachable despite it’s relatively short length, though I don’t think forcing skiers to spend lots of time on a flat run out to a new base at the bottom of current Bonanza is going to help in that regard. That should be the new home for the Bonanza 6pack unless it’s used elsewhere like Dreamcatcher. Frankly I think they should try to pop a lift up to the top of Pioneer Ridge about halfway to Jupiter, but that seems less likely. In addition, while it’s hard for me to imagine them running a lift out of King Con up to the top of Crescent, Donald Reif’s configuration from Miner’s Camp to that location seems reasonable to me. Yes you still have no back up in the event of a failure at King Con, but get in line along with umpteen other resorts who have the same issue for one lift or another. PCMR still has major challenges, and adding an expensive lift whose primary purpose is redundancy seems like a luxury IMO.
Third, in terms of mid-resort capacity, Dreamcatcher has to be upgraded to an HS6. Full stop. That seems like a no brainer. Dreamscape likely comes along for the ride with a switch to a detachable lift at some point, but not an immediate need IMO. One other relief valve would be the implementation of the previously planned lift from somewhere between Dreamcatcher base and Iron Mtn base (perhaps near where White Water merges with Cascade) running up to where Sanctuary and Serenity break off from Power Alley. That would provide a much needed means of transiting over to Peak 5/9990 w/o having to go all the way down to Timberline. But that starts to merge into the solution for #4 above…
So that lift out of McDonald Draw is one piece of the puzzle – have to avoid the long slog to Timberline which just adds pressure on Tombstone, and ultimately results in a two lift process to transit what is a relatively short distance from the Dreamscape area to Peak 5/9990. Looking at the maps, there does appear to be room to make that work w/o impacting homeowners. Beyond that, if the most logical option of an HS6 or gondola from Tombstone base to Dreamscape isn’t feasible due to Colony home conflicts, then 1-2 upper mtn lifts need to be part of the solution. Donald Reif’s idea of a Sidewinder lift from Red Pine Lodge up to Tombstone summit is certainly one part of it. I would suggest that a new lift from 9990/Peak 5 base up to Fantasy Ridge is the other half of the solution. Sure I’d like to see them run lifts up to new points on the ridge line and do things like making Daybreak a usable/relevant lift that does something beside provide ski in/out access for poorly located McMansions at 9000′ in the Wasatch, but improving circulation and the existing skiing experience has to come first if they are smart (which they are).
I like almost everything you said and appreciate the analysis. Just a couple of comments:
Unfortunately, they cannot add any lifts in the area between Dreamcatcher and Tombstone because of property lines. Even if they could find a liftline that does not go over a physical home, all of the plots of land were sold and are privately owned. The odds of it all coming together are extremely low. That means the odds of any more lifts out of Tombstone base or McDonald Draw is low. The only lift they planned out before selling WPC plots that they did not build is one from the base of Dreamscape/Day Break to the top of Peak 5, so there is still an eligible liftline there that would help bring people over to 9990 without utilizing Tombstone. A lift from 9990/Peak 5 Base up to the top of Fantasy Ridge is not possible because of property lines as well, although anything to the top of Fantasy Ridge from the Red Pine Lodge side should be fair game.
@skitheeast – That’s good intel. If true, then what an incredible indictment of ASC and successor regimes to allow this to happen, effectively creating unsolvable bottlenecks at key points on the hill, specifically Dreamcatcher and Tombstone. To your point, the burden on Tombstone can be eased somewhat via the potential Dreamscape>Peak 5 and Red Pine>Fantasy Ridge/Tombstone summit lifts. But even then, for anyone moving north towards Red Pine Lodge and beyond, your options are either 9990 (for experts only, when open), an annoying 2 lift transfer via Over and Out, or Tombstone. No points for guessing where the traffic will congregate. And Dreamcatcher will be even worse, especially if/when they put in the Scott Hill lift(s).
Damn shame the real estate was the driver here instead of the skiing experience. Imagine how much more valuable those lots would have been had then been allowed to build the mountain the right way and then let the ski experience drive demand for the real estate (or at least find a better balance).
WPC is both a blessing and a curse. It provided the funding that allowed the Canyons to be developed to the extent that it is today but also hampered its future potential through property sales.
2) Iron Mountain does not need a capacity boost relative to other lifts. Under your plan, I would rather see them use the ex-Tombstone equipment to replace Town. It can get really congested in the morning, enough to warrant a six-pack. Plus, it does get used during the summer.
3) With step 2 changed, it could not reuse equipment, but it is a good idea to put a detachable lift here regardless.
4) I like a PC base gondola, but I would have it replace Crescent, with the first stage using its existing alignment and the second stage heading up to Summit House. Crescent is not as well utilized compared to Payday and your proposed liftline would have to cross back and forth over Town, which is obviously doable but not ideal.
when tombstone was replaced there were no plans for pc and canyons to merge, so it wouldn’t have made very much sense to put a hsq in a more remote area very far away from the base
Would a combined lift (chondola) be a good option to put in the alignment where the gondola used to run, or to replace Payday and Bonanza? I’m not sure if combined lifts are able to do mid stations, but if they can I think it would be a descent idea. I would think it would be a 6 person chair with a 8 person gondola, since Vail doesn’t do 8 person chairlifts. Even better, they can maybe make it similar to the Zinsberg combined lift (8 person chairs with 10 person cabins) at SkiWelt in Austria in a sense where there is a designated area to board a gondola cabin and a designated area to load onto a chair. I think a good chairs for cabins ratio would be 2 chairs for every cabin, but only if they incorporate the designated areas to board gondola cabins and chairs. If not, they should do a 4 chairs for every cabin. The only problem I could see if they were to do a combined lift would be the angled mid station if they make it so that it goes up by Bonanza/Payday and then continue it up to summit house, I don’t know how well that would work as I’ve never seen a combined lift with a mid/angle station.
I feel like it’s trying much to replace Payday and Bonanza with one lift. Payday isn’t just an access lift, it actually has terrain that would be better served by a chairlift. I think the old gondola alignment would be best for a lift out of the village area.
And seeing as Bonanza is the means of getting from Town or Payday to the Summit House and is a lapping lift too, a gondola would be supplementing the existing lifts without replacing them.
I disagree that Bonanza is a lapping lift. The few runs you can lap off of Bonanza return to Pioneer, which is a lapping lift. Bonanza is more of an access lift from Payday and Crescent. The majority of the terrain served by Bonanza requires a runout on a narrow traverse. Pioneer allows you to completely avoid that runout and lap the terrain easier.
I do agree that Bonanza should supplement a lift (preferably a gondola) from Park City village to the summit. With a higher capacity lift taking the majority of skiers up the mountain, I think some chairs on Bonanza should be used to add capacity to Silverlode so it can have a full 3600 pph.
And as others have been saying, the simplest solution for now to get people away from Silverlode would be if Dreamcatcher and Pioneer became high speed quads.
For openers, I reject this framing b/c it discounts entirely the value of Canyons and Park City now being connected and accessible on one pass. But even then, your statement really only applies to Quicksilver. The other main upgrades were needed anyway on a very busy part of the mountain.
I’m no fan of Vail, but the notion that Talisker than anything better than them is a joke.
I think I see the confusion here. Park West was called Wolf Mountain at one point. Wolf Mountain was also the former name of Nordic Valley. The Hall double at Nordic Valley was a new installation in 1970, not 1980. The 1980 installation was the lift at Parley’s Summit. It fits with the description of tripling the existing vertical. The existing lift at Parley’s Summit was less than 1000 feet long for reference. Summit Recreation would be a fitting entry for Parley’s Summit. I don’t know where the 1978 Hall double belongs, possibly Alta?
I was unable to find any reference to Greenhorn, but Greenhorn was for sure a Riblet. It would be safe to assume that Slaughterhouse was the other SLI double.
Here is what the former lifts at Park West should be:
Also Arrowhead was a unique center bar CTEC double. All others were as listed however Golden Eagle was originally called Tomahawk and had center bar chairs which were charged to bail style maybe by ASC? For some reason Tomahawk ran very fast for a double chair, I guess that was one way to have a high speed lift.
Indeed arrowhead was a very unique lift. It from what I was told and led to believe it was Albion double(the heron one) which was removed in 1976 and relocated here in 76 rather than 1968. It was rather odd to see photos of the lift with Ctec chairs but I’m thinking the chairs must of failed some test. As for green horn it was originally supposed to be installed as buckboard lift in 1976 it was realigned to green horn(before they finished it). But I do find it interesting that it was realigned to a different spot. For anyone who’s curious here’s a link to the map with buckboard and arrowhead in the process of being installed https://skimap.org/data/218/7/1214808142.jpg
A used Hunziker T-Bar from Solitude in 1960? Cal McPhie opened the area in 1960? A 1971 Thiokol when the area was about to close? Sounds more like lift fiction to me than a credible source.
I don’t think the brand would be Hunziker as the only known lifts under the Name Hunziker Lift were Ponderosa double, Northwest Passage double, and Alphorn T-Bar at Mt Rose Nevada. It could be an unconfirmed Hunziker Lift but, it also could have been western lift and crane.
It makes sense that they bought the Pomalift from Solitude in 1968. Was the Rustler the original single chair, because he was talking about two double chairs in 1968 in another article? I will ask a former Thiokol employee if he knows about that sale in 1971.
It says that Hunziker was involved at Solitude in this entry about Western Lift & Crane
Western Lift and Crane, Inc. (1967-1968): A new shop in Springville was bought and a new business started. It received various orders from Mammoth’s Dave McCoy incl. the construction of Chair 7. Around the same time, Hunziker became involved with Solitude. Chair 7 was eventually delivered in spring 1968.
I was told from a source at Nordic Valley that their Thiokol came from Gorgoza. The tension terminal, towers, and top terminal could only be a 1971 Thiokol. The length happens to match up well. Either way, we know for sure that Greenhorn wasn’t that 1971 Thiokol installation.
ASC had an incredible amount of debt, which is what ultimately drowned the company. Right before the turn of the century, before things even really went south, they had an interest coverage ratio of roughly 2. The general rule of thumb is that 3+ is good, 2-3 is okay as long as revenue is strong, and anything below 1 means the company is in poor financial health. They had to increase their revenue and EBITDA at a much faster rate than their interest expenses, but that did not happen.
Vail is sitting at 5.66 as of January, which is pretty good considering the economic realities of the pandemic for the travel industry.
From a financial standpoint, I would disagree. However, from an operations standpoint, this year at PCMR seemed a little bit worse than previous years.
They got a minor refresh when they painted them into Canyons orange around 2010, but definitely look old and beat up compared to the Quicksilver cabins (and not to mention very loud). Others from around that vintage are still in service though, they’ll have plenty of life left. Thinking of the Killington Skyeship and K-1, Bridger at Jackson, the Snowbasin gondolas, Lionshead at Vail, etc – most gondolas from the late 90s are still on their original cabins. I bet they get another 10 years out of them.
Utah Lost Ski Area ProjectOctober 16, 2021 / 11:52 am
I’m not sure as to why the Crescent Yan quad was removed after only 9 years of service. Even though Bonanza was installed on a similar alignment, it didn’t entirely replace Crescent. With the lift being scrapped after 9 years doesn’t make sense either. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to keep Crescent as a backup lift for the 10 years prior to the Crescent detachable similar to Ski Team? With Prospector being scrapped, they would have had more than enough Yan parts to keep Crescent running.
They might’ve had a split contract thing, and that’s why Saddleback and High Meadow were Garaventa CTEC lifts (with Raptor being a relocated Saddleback FGQ) while Poma got Tombstone and Red Pine.
Utah Lost Ski Area ProjectJanuary 17, 2022 / 8:16 pm
Even then, Doppelmayr also built 2 full lifts in 1997. I have never seen a split contract between three different manufacturers in the same year. I wonder if part of it was that Canyons had an order so large that none of the manufactures were able to deliver all of the lifts alone, hence 3 different lift manufactures building lifts the same year.
I wouldn’t be surprised given the amount of work on hand to put in three high speed quads and a gondola while relocating a fixed grip quad. Then again, I’ve seen single manufacturers undertake similar sized projects with just one manufacturer (Keystone’s Outback expansion in 1991 involved three new Doppelmayr lifts; Whistler-Blackcomb’s 2018 projects saw the construction of the Blackcomb Gondola and Emerald 6, while relocating Emerald 4 to upgrade Catskinner, with Doppelmayr again doing everything). But those arguably could be viewed as small potatoes compared to The Canyons’ expansion.
As the project manager for the lift we installed at the Canyons that season
For Doppelmayr, the reason all three of us were there is, quite simply, because ASC bought what was basically left in the capacity of the three manufacturers
Pretty amazing to consider how The Canyons grew in a short burst, largely from 1997-2001 (five years!) under ASC. They ran out of money nearly as fast. But they took “ParkWest” from a small mountain with dated lifts to Utah’s largest resort.
Talisker added some big expansions/improvements too after the sale. By the time Vail came in, the current footprint was almost entirely built out.
Oh well. That lift would move a lot of congestion off the tombstone lift, but your right, safe for using a VERY specific line with multiple angle stations, it’s probably not possible
Park west summit rec aka slaughterhouse https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=1719036&q=Dana+Kent just as some other info, slaughterhouse was installed in1980 being it’s on no other maps before then. From what I’m lead to believe is that it is from Alta originally. Also I didn’t see greenhorn/pelican on the removed lift spread sheet
I would guess Greenhorn/Pelican was a relocation from the 1969 Riblet double (which doesn’t appear to be listed on the spreadsheet). The spreadsheet has a lot of errors with lift identification, the most obvious being that the 2500 foot 1969 SLI should be assigned to Sundance, not Park City.
The relocation of green horn was acually called buckboard it was a plan to be installed in 1976 with arrowhead https://skimap.org/data/218/7/1214808142.jpg from what I’ve been told and gathered is that buckboard (future greenhorn) was supposed to be a village lift but wasn’t finished due to little use of the lift and also park city was in a bad spot with the mines closing down. Which would make sense that the model of riblet lift would match up with the time line.
Lift Blog 
Does anyone know how to access flat iron lift from a road?
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It’s in The Colony which is private with a 24-hour gatehouse. Best bet is walking the mid-mountain trail to get there.
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Was the Tombstone HSQ reused somewhere else?
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https://liftblog.com/sunshine-express-steamboat-co/
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I think you forgot something. In your pics of First Time and Eagle, what you didn’t post is 3 Kings Double. Also, are there pics of Prospector Express, one of 2 yan high-speeds in Utah?
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Unless someone else took the photos you might be right.
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I think there is a photo of prospecter but I’m not sure I will try to post the photo on here
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I think that’s the Summit Express at Pico, VT
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I found a video with it in the background here is the link. https://youtube.com/watch?v=FkqsCJDta20
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Prospector is at 4:36 in that video.
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lmao That’s summit at Pico in Vermont. That is however a cool pre-retrofit picture of it.
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You can see the grip on top of the chair in front
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what ended up happening to the HSQ King Kong Express that was replaced with a HSS in 2015?
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It was relocated and became the new Motherlode Express. Tower foundations and tubes from the old CTEC lift were reused on the new Doppelmayr six pack, while the crossarms were used on the Motherlode.
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Do you mean “High meadow express”? Nice to see the new lifts on the spreadsheets!
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Stearns -roger lift was the old thaynes lift
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Any news on when they might add those upper mountain lifts above Flat Iron and Dreamcatcher?
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It is almost completely dependent on The Colony, as they own the land and simply have PCMR operate the ski infrastructure. They are slowly moving up the canyon adding houses. Phase 5F will require another lift and they have already started marketing homesites in that area. However, physical construction on any of those properties is likely 2-3 years away.
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Are there any pictures of the crescent quad?
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So there is a rumor that the old gondola mid station still has the phb hall gondola stuff like drives and cabins
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What was Green horn replaced with?
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Greenhorn lift was replaced by the Red Hawk Quad, along with Tumbleweed. After 1997, the beginner area was moved to High Meadow and it didn’t make sense to keep two lifts for a small area.
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Maps for their lift lines:
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Do all the Garaventa CTEC high speed six packs have Leitner grips?
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Nope. Garaventa CTEC detachables use Garaventa detachable technology. They are similar in that they resemble eachother and operate almost the same, but they aren’t the same grips.
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No, it is a Garaventa design, specifically the AK400. CTEC used four different Garaventa grip designs from 1990-2004. The first/second is the AK4.0/AK4.1, which was seen commonly on High-speed quad lifts they built. For their 6 pack lifts, they must’ve felt they needed a heavier duty grip, so this one was used. When the Stealth III terminal design came out, the Garaventa AK460 grips replaced all of the earlier grips, and were used until CTEC’s detachable designs were phased out by Doppelmayr in 2004.
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OOPS, I mis-typed slightly. The Stealth II PCMR six packs have the Garaventa AK 680 grip (NOT the 400). The AK400 and 460 came later (with Stealth III/2000).
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What’s the difference with the AK-400 and the Agamatic grips?
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Doppelmayr has become as large as they are today mainly because they have taken over several companies in the past.
Agamatic was an Italian lift manufacturer, which designed and manufactured their own lifts before being bought out by Doppelmayr. The Agamatic grip was one such product. The Agamatic grips are offered primarily because they are a single position grip, which is in contrast to the DT series grips, which are dual position. The DT grips are an original Doppelmayr design.
Garaventa was a Swiss lift manufacturer, who is best known in North America for supplying parts on CTEC’s detachable lifts. In 1993 Garaventa purchased CTEC, creating Garaventa CTEC. CTEC’s lift designs were quite different from anything Garaventa, with the main thing being that CTEC used Garaventa’s detachable grips, including the AK-400 and 460, which visually look like Agamatic grips, and are both single position grips.
Doppelmayr acquired both of these firms. Agamatic first, Garaventa second. With Doppelmayr acquiring Garaventa, this meant that Garaventa CTEC and Doppelmayr USA needed to merge, forming Doppelmayr CTEC in 2002. With this, most of CTEC’s detachable products were phased out, although the fixed grip designs lasted longer, and Doppelmayr USA fixed grip installations are still different from the worldwide Doppelmayr fixed-grip product. Because of this, Garaventa grip designs haven’t been seen on a new North American installation since Collins at Alta was completed in 2004. Everything since then (except for the new D-Line which has it’s own grips and terminals) has been Uni-G/GS with either DT grips, or the Agamatic grips.
I think this has created some confusion because new lifts were built by essentially the same company with very similiar grips, leading to some thinking the Agamatic grip is a rebranded AK-460. It is not. Garaventa grips, including the AK-400/460, can still be found on MCS-series detachable lifts. No such installation has occurred in North America, however.
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What are the advantages and disadvantages to both dual and single position grips?
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BOB- Basically, a single position grip is in the closed position (Called “Failsafe” by the Manufacturers) until it is opened by a rail / device as it enters the arrival side of the terminals. It then closes again until it is opened on the departure side to re-attach to the haul rope. PRO: The grip wants to close on its own by geometric design making it ‘failsafe’. CON: It must be activated twice in each terminal cycle- once to detach and then again to attach = 2X wear.
The dual position grip is either open or closed. When it enters the terminal, it is opened by a rail / device and remains open until it exits the terminal, when it is again closed by a rail / device. PRO: It only has to operate once per terminal cycle. CON: Because it is open while passing through the terminal there is the possibility that the grip/carrier could be launched without the grip being closed.
Those are the basics. Others may expound with their experiences and knowledge.
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According to the Wikipedia page on detachable chairlifts, lifts with double-position grips (mainly from Doppelmayr) are designed to run in reverse to bring a carrier back into the terminal if a grip fault is detected upon exit. Lifts with single-position grips (mainly from Poma) aren’t designed to do this but instead measure the grip force while it’s in the terminal contour (and in the closed position) so that the lift can be stopped before the faulty grip exits the terminal.
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BB17- I may have to edit the Wikipedia page as the information there is misleading. Any detachable grip can be operated in reverse; where the grip force is measured is definitely dependent on the manufacturer for the reasons you mention. In addition, Doppelmayr mirrors the grip position switches on both sides of the terminals for standard reverse operation where L-P does not; this may be where the idea that L-P grips can’t operate backwards comes from.
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pbropetech — Thanks for the correction! So unless I’m mistaken, Poma/L-P grips can function in reverse but the lifts themselves aren’t designed for reverse operation in the same way that Doppelmayrs are?
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Poma of America and early Leitner-Poma lifts were not designed to run in reverse, correct. Current LPOA lifts can be, all three of ours are (though there’s no need to run our fixed triple backwards, normally). All styles of Doppelmayrs are as well. I can’t speak for Garaventa-CTEC.
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Apart from insufficient grip force, what would be a reason for running a lift in reverse?
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Bob- Some ski areas will run in reverse to bring a misloaded passenger back into the station (we don’t). It’s a great tool for maintenance, and our two LPA sixpacks actually need carriers loaded in reverse off the parking rail as it’s not a full loop.
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The original Crescent was removed in 1998 or 1999.
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According to a timeline document I have, it was removed in 1998.
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my ideas for what they should do with new lifts at pc
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Opt. 1: I think you intend for a gondola to replace Crescent and be extended to the top of Bonanza, to relieve traffic on Silverlode. I’d keep Crescent as is, so that there is a chairlift for lapping the trails west of Treasure Hollow and south of CB’s Run.
Opt. 2: An up-and-over gondola directly from Miner’s Camp to the main village would allow someone more direct access to the Quicksilver Gondola for Canyons access without having to take chairlifts and ski down to Miner’s Camp. But it would also put more demand on Silverlode, and I can’t fathom the tall towers (and wind exposure) that would happen while crossing over King Con.
Opt. 3: I guess Opt. 3 would be something like a high speed quad to provide lapping service to most of Crescent’s pod in conjunction with Opt. 1?
Opt. 4: A fixed grip out of Miner’s Camp to take some traffic off of SIlverlode is practical, but I’d probably align it to end at the top of Crescent to reach more trails, rather than end it at the top of King Con.
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Option 1: I think it is a good idea presuming it is has a mid/angle station for offloading where Crescent’s top terminal currently resides to allow easier access to the Crescent pod. They could also then expand Summit House to use it during the summer, as it has pretty good views.
Option 2: I think this lift is pretty unnecessary because it is pretty easy to get in and out of Miner’s Camp and it would require tall towers to cross a number of lifts. This looks like a replacement for Eagle, which isn’t really necessary by itself but…
Option 3: I think this lift could make a lot of sense as a replacement for Eagle & Eaglet & 3 Kings if Park City wanted to create a mega-terrain park serviced by a high-speed lift.
Option 4: I think a fixed-grip lift to help alleviate the Silverlode traffic and get people back to the main base, similar to the new Over and Out across the mountain, would be useful.
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Would a lift from Park City Village to the top of King Kong work? Assuming that they would have to move Eagles base a little bit North East.
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It is absolutely practical. However, it would only serve terrain already accessible from Crescent and force skiers to go to either King Con or Miner’s Camp if they wish to use it as an out of base lift. These two areas are already very crowded. A Crescent upgrade would make more sense as it would provide the same out of base capacity increase but better distribute skiers across the mountain.
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Anybody know more info about the old mining gondola that used to run at the present park city? The towers still remain.
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The tram was built by riblet in 1901 last ran in 1952 the ore bins sat on the line until 1963 were they were Soto red in the bottom terminal in 1978or1979 the bottom terminal burnt down. Then in 1989 the top terminal and parts of the mill structures were torn down for the new lifts and runs the mine last operated in 1977-1978
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What about the proposed expansion above Flat Iron and Dreamcatcher?
It was mentioned in Peter’s “One Park City” article.
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Wasn’t that the proposal to build a lift that would make it possible to get from Day Break over to 9990 without using Tombstone?
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No. A lift from the base of Day Break/Dreamscape to bypass Tombstone was a separate earlier proposal years ago by WPC. It was to go from the base of Day Break to the top of Peak 5. Even though the proposal has been withdrawn, it would still be possible to build because the property lines were designed to accommodate the lift.
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The proposed expansion is tied up in Colony real estate. They are the landowners and will start building when their house construction moves that far up the canyon. Currently, they are entering phase 5F, which is likely the farthest they can get without needing to build a lift right above Flat Iron to keep ski-in/ski-out access. Phase 5H will likely require another lift up to pinecone ridge, roughly to the top of Half Moon/Quarter Moon. These two lifts are both accounted for in their master plan.
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they should build a lift from quicksliver canyons to top of iron mountain xpress
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That would be a bit of a redundant lift.
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Most skiers/boarders that are coming from Park City back to Canyons use Dreamcatcher to get to the Tombstone base. Also, most skiers/boarders want to ski down rather than riding Timberline across the Canyon. Since Park City is probably going to replace Dreamcatcher soon, that would make less of a demand for this lift to the top of Iron Mountain. If this lift were to be built, it would probably be used as more of a housing access lift, considering its proximity to the housing near there.
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Could it be that Crescent in 1989 was a relocation and not a new installation?
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is there any special reason of excluding “Rip Cord”? (revolving continuous rope at the bottom of Super Condor)
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I will add Silver Lining, the same thing at White Pine Lake near the Canyons base of Quicksilver.
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There’s also a private ski lift off the Upper White Pine trail thats some sort of lift on a track. Peter doesn’t include rope tows, pony tows, or carpets.
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Where exactly was the Poma platter at Park City? This lift doesn’t show up on any of the trail maps at the time. Was the lift private or for race training?
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There was a Poma lift at the Red Pine lodge on the Canyons side, just to the north of the gondola terminal originally in a learning area. I think there’s a carpet lift there now
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Does anyone else find it odd that Canyons did not re-use the original Tombstone High Speed quad to install Dreamcatcher? I feel like it would have cost them the same or even less to re-install it there. Was maintenance costs a concern? If the lift was bottom drive, how hard would it have been to convert ti to a top drive? Also I do know that at the time that Dreamcatcher was constructed, it was in the middle of nowhere. The Tombstone Quad had more than enough length to be re-installed over there and if they wanted to reduce capacity they could have always just not used some of the chairs.
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Tombstone was relocated to Steamboat where it replaced Sunshine. Back in 2006, Sunshine at Steamboat was much more heavily used than Dreamcatcher and in need of an upgrade. Honestly, it still may be more heavily used to this day, even after the Park City/Canyons connection.
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Steamboat more urgently needed a high speed quad for the Sunshine Express lift. The original Tombstone wasn’t such a bottleneck back at a time when most of the Canyons traffic stayed closer to the area around Saddleback and Super Condor.
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Remember at the time Dreamcatcher was built in 2006 there was no plan on the table to ever link up the Canyons and PCMR. When it was built it was the end of the earth miles away from the base area and was never expected to have any crowds, much less be the centrally located lift in a 7000-acre resort with a crowded restaurant at the top. Everything south of 9990 was built with the purpose of selling houses in the Colony, and American Skiing Company had long since run out of money to build out their master plan as they originally intended in the late 1990s, with every one of those south side lifts being detachables. Peak 5, Dreamscape, Dreamcatcher, and Day Break were all supposed to be HSQs in more interesting locations, with three more lifts that would have helped a ton with traffic flow if they’d ever been built. Too late now with all the houses in the way.
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I get the feeling that had ASC not run out of money while expanding southwards that some of the projects that have been done to the Canyons since then would’ve eventually been built as they are today: Tombstone would’ve eventually needed to become a six-pack due to being the only way to get to everything on the south side and the only way back to Red Pine Lodge. They probably would’ve still built Over And Out to ensure that everything south of Red Pine had a direct way back to the base at the end of the day or if Tombstone went down.
Just from this map, I think they would’ve still needed to build Timberline to provide a direct link from Tombstone to Iron Mountain since otherwise, the only way there would be via a trail down from Peak 5. And Timberline would also be necessary since otherwise, the only way back to Tombstone and Over and out from Iron Mountain, Dreamscape, Dreamcatcher, and Daybreak would be via that one egress high speed quad. I also think that Orange Bubble probably would’ve still been built in its current form at some point, with Raptor being repurposed elsewhere (although not being used for Dreamscape).
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Old Prospector express:
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It seems like the list is missing Treasure Mountain’s lifts that were built in 1963 with the PHB gondola: the original Prospector double chair (https://exhibits.lib.utah.edu/s/ski-archives/item/139960) and two J-Bar (Silver King Novice, Tenderfoot). Source: The Wasatch Wave, 8/15/63). Also missing is the Skiers’ Subway that was opened with the Thaynes Canyon double on 12/15/64 (source: The New York Times, 12/13/64).
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Prospector (was also called C-1), double, 1963-1974, likely a Stearns-Roger, 1307 ft vert., 5940 ft long, 550 ft/m, 174 chairs, 24 towers, 900 p/h, drive and tensioning at the bottom
Tenderfoot, J-Bar, 1963-????, Stearns-Roger, 1500 ft long, 150 ft vert.
Silver King, J-Bar, 1963-????, Stearns-Roger, 1600 ft long, 100 ft vert.
The PHB gondola only had a capacity of 300 p/h for opening day as the manufacturer out of SLC couldn’t deliver all cabins on time (they weren’t allowed to get them from Europe). They were able to deliver more cabins a few weeks later (cap. was raised to 500 p/h), but the full capacity was not reached until the 64/65 season.
Thaynes Canyon (C-2), double, 1964-1975, Stearns-Roger, 2760 ft long, 887 ft vert.
Skiers’ Subway, 1964-1969 (opening might have been delayed until 01/09/65), train/trolley, approx. 3 miles long, speed: 7 mph
Elevator (“Thaynes hoist”), 1964-1969, 1770 ft vert.
Source: various newspapers like The Wasatch Wave.
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Silver King either wasn’t a J-bar or was converted to a similar setup to Alta’s Transfer tow. I read somewhere that Park City opened with one J-bar and one rope tow. I wound think Silver King was the rope tow the article mentioned.
https://mountainscholar.org/bitstream/handle/11124/8393/R1785.jpg?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
Tenderfoot was a regular J-bar.
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Even in the ads that were placed by the United Park City Mines Co. in 1963, they were talking about two J-bars resp. J-bar “Tows”. A drawing shows the Js hanging on a rope. I would not be surprised if both the illustrator and the marketing dept. wasn’t informed about the actual appearance of the lift. But I should receive a scan of another photograph shortly, that may help to compare it with the one you found.
How do you know Tenderfoot was a regular J-bar?
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This could be Tenderfoot:
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Tenderfoot J-bar:
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRMQmclg9zmuR_UQPUlsT8p1sPF6gUw8wLH-prjCF4zqdit7axBAlpTz__Fj3K_1z8vc8M&usqp=CAU
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It would have to be Tenderfoot with the gondola in the background. Looking at a trail map from when Treasure Mountain opened, there’s only one lift Tenderfoot could be.
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Why does the Stearns-Roger Double look so much like Roebling? Did Stearns-Roger buy parts from Roebling and market them in the west, or did the old Prospector double get a major retrofit?
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Some of the chairs from those lifts are still hanging around at the old PCMR base area. There’s also a couple of center pole Yan chairs which I’m not sure where they came from.
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Is the chair next the SLI chair near the main parking lot at the Park City Base from one of the Stearns-Roger lifts? It’s near the base of First Time by where the shops end the parking lot starts.
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Is this near the ticket hut or on the other side at the village?
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It’s right where the beginner carpet lifts are. I don’t know if it’s still there.
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They are scattered throughout the base village. There’s some stearns-roger chairs by rocky mountain chocolate factory as an example. The Yan center pole chair I believe was last located near by Jackson’s base camp, but it may have moved. As you mentioned there’s also some chairs over by the beginner carpet lifts.
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Blue sky Park City lift ideas:
Gondolas: Two stages and out of the Park City base, with the first stage replacing Crescent and the second going up to Summit House.
Upgrade to detachable eight packs: Silverlode
Upgrade to detachable quads: Town (realigned to the top of Payday), Day Break (extended to the top of the ridge), Pioneer, Dreamcatcher, Dreamscape, Sunrise (extended to Orange Bubble mid-station)
Infill/bypass lifts: Base of Day Break to top of Peak 5 (bypass Tombstone), Red Pine Lodge to top of Tombstone (bypass Tombstone), Something up Fantasy Ridge
Expert fixed-grips to eliminate some hiking: Base of Jupiter to top of Jupiter Peak, Base of Thaynes to top of Pinecone Ridge, Upper Boa to top of Murdock Bowl, Upper Boa to top of Junipers
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Crescent is a relatively new lift. It was built in 2008 so it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.
While Silverlode is definitely getting up there in age, what’s more likely is that it’s replaced with another high speed six pack, and it’s supplemented with a high speed quad running from Miners Camp to the top of Crescent.
Town is unlikely to go detachable or be realigned.
Your idea of what do with Sunrise is impossible because that would entail it having to cross over or under the Red Pine Gondola, leaving one of them increasingly vulnerable to wind exposure.
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I 100% agree that a two stage gondola is needed for out of base capacity. The layout of Park City has never been the same since the old gondola’s removal. With a one lift ride to the summit, Park City can open more terrain earlier, like they used to prior to 1997. As for Crescent, Crescent was designed to be a lapping lift to begin with. Its base is bit of a hike from the main base area, not to mention that the parking lot isn’t at the main base area. It requires riding First Time if you don’t want to hike. As for Canyons, I agree that Dreamcatcher needs an upgrade. It has good terrain, but it being fixed grip and crowded doesn’t help.
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These all seem like amazing ideas cost aside.
I think a gondola going out of the Base Area would be a great idea and would somewhat help relieve the insane lift lines that Park City gets in the base area. The only thing is Crescent is on the newer side, and isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. The only way I think they will put in a Gondola is if they replace Payday with a gondola with a mid station where the current upper terminal is to Payday, then make that extend up to the Summit House, even with that though, they will have to somehow get around Bonanza, which is sort of in the way of if they wanted to make it end at Summit House.
I do think that an eight pack at Silverlode is needed, but would be somewhat unlikely, as eight packs at the time in the United States are not common at all. After all, there is only one at the moment in the United States. I also think it would be difficult and expensive to manufacture.
Town doesn’t really need an upgrade, but I think Pioneer, Dreamcatcher, Dreamscape, and Sunrise would be great as detachable quads. However, it would be very hard to make Sunrise extend up to the mid-station of Orange Bubble, as Red Pine doesn’t run high enough where it would have to pass under, and if they were to make it pass over Red Pine, that would be very hard to make and be very expensive.
I like the idea of bypassing tombstone, as it does get busy.
Also like the idea of making fixed grips to the top of Jupiter, as that would eliminate a hike, as well as the other fixed grips you mentioned.
Overall, these would be great ideas, but I just don’t think the resort/Vail would take the time and money to do all of this. I would love to see something like these ideas you mentioned though, especially a gondola from the base of Park City to Summit House.
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I disagree that Vail won’t put money into Park City/Canyons. This mountain usually has about one new lift per year. I don’t think Vail will upgrade Pioneer, unfortunately. What Park City really needs is an out of parking lot lift. I don’t know is there’s enough room for a gondola at the parking lot area, but it would be useful. As for Silverlode, I think the most Vail would do is take a used detachable (Possibly Saddleback, which could receive the old Bonanza lift) and have it run on the other side of Prospector run in the location of the old Prospector lift.
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tbh murdock peak shouldn’t have a lift, if someone isn’t willing to do the hike they don’t deserve the good snow up there
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There are thousands of acres of terrain in the Wasatch Range that one can hike and ski that is superior to Murdock Peak (and anywhere else in PCMR). Plus, it can be done without paying $200 for a single day’s access.
If Park City was run like PowMow, perhaps I would think differently. However, Park City is run by Vail, and the experience I expect from a Vail resort includes limited to no hiking.
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What about a multi stage gondola replacing Sunrise from Canyons Village to with a loading/unloading turn to replace Over and Out. Then replace Timber Line and Iron Mountain with Gondola that unloads at top of Iron Mountain but continues to QuickSilver Gondola. From Park City QuickSilver base replace Silverlode Express and Bonanza Express with gondola and continue same line or replace Town Lift. Expensive, yes. Rationale is this would be more than ski lift but become year-round tourist attraction, relieve some traffic into and out Old Town, drive pedestrians to Canyons Village base and Old Town and offer many other on mountain year-around options for Vail.
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That is very very unlikely to ever happen.
1. On the Canyons side, Over and Out is a brand new lift that was just installed last year. While Iron Mountain and Timberline are relatively new (at ten years old). Not to mention, Iron Mountain acts as a lapping lift.
2. On the Park City side, the same thing: SIlverlode and Bonanza are both lapping lifts, so any replacements for them are going to stay as chairlifts.
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Why does Canyons need another gondola? The existing could need a capacity boost to 3600 pph, but the Orange Bubble rarely has big lines. Also, the last thing Canyons needs is more traffic on Tombstone. It’s already crazy without being directly fed by a gondola. As for Timberline, I do think it makes more sense as a gondola for bidirectional loading, along with it being the main access to Iron Mountain. Replacing Silverlode with a gondola makes no sense. As Donald said, it’s a lapping lift but also, a monocable gondola can only reach 3600 pph. A detachable eight can reach 4000-4500 pph. I could see Bonanza being replaced by a 2 stage gondola going up the old gondola alignment for easier access to the Summit. It would make sense use the old Bonanza to replace Pioneer and have its base start where Bonanza’s base is currently. Bonanza isn’t really much of a lapping lift and a Pioneer extension makes more sense for lapping that pod.
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Park City has some amazing lifts, but I think an upgrade of pre-existing lifts or just new lifts all together should still be taking place on the ever-so-growing-popular mountain.
1st lift: Tombstone Express; Tombstone Express itself is a great lift, but still doesn’t seem to handle capacity well on busy days, and can be prone to sometimes long lift lines. Even though the lift is relatively new, it can be better used elsewhere on the mountain. I think a good idea for Tombstone is for it to become a 8 Person detachable with a loading carpet. A 8 person detachable especially with a loading carpet could help prevent a lot of misloads and slowdowns of the lift, which could make it get people up the mountain somewhat safer and quicker. I also think a bubble could also could be a good idea, and it could help the mountain get on a lot of news sources with the headline “First 8 Person Bubble Chairlift to come to Utah.” I think just with this lift becoming an eight person chair would bring a lot of headlines to Park City Mountain.
2nd lift: Iron Mountain Express; While Iron Mountain Express overall handles capacity well, with a perfectly working 6 person chair right across the ridge, I think it would be a good move to not sell the Tombstone Six but instead replace Iron Mountain Express with the Tombstone Express Six. You may think this might be overkill, but I generally would think it would be a better idea to increase uphill capacity at the mountain rather than sell it to a competitor resort.
3rd lift: Dreamcatcher; Dreamcatcher is again a good lift, but is a popular lift choice when coming off of Quicksilver. Again, why sell a brand new lift to a competitor resort when it can be used elsewhere on the mountain? I think a good idea for Dreamcatcher would for it to be replaced by the HS4 Iron Mountain Express, and since the Iron Mountain Express would be replaced by Tombstone Express, the resort overall would be saving a good amount of money by not spending money on two extra brand new lifts.
4th lift: A gondola; There was once a gondola going from where PayDay Express currently starts to Summit House, and I think something similar to that would be great again. Following a similar alignment as the previous Park City Gondola, this new Gondola would start at the lower PayDay terminal, and head up to the current PayDay upper terminal. At the current upper terminal of PayDay, there would then be a mid angle station which could be used to offload or onload onto the lift. The gondola would then come out of the angle station and make its way up to the Summit House, which it would then end. I think this would give some of that original Park City Mountain charm back onto the mountain but also alleviate some of the horrendous lines at the base of Park City Mountain.
Overall, I think this with these lifts Park City lines can maybe be * a little * shorter.
Anyways, here is a custom Google Map I made of what I just said If you don’t feel like reading it: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1zffotwiHJ-qde_jVULUhHaIt-7q5_eci&usp=sharing
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I like your ideas but unfortunately dreamcatcher is doomed to remain a fixed grip for a long time. The reason being is that the lift goes right through a millionaire neighborhood. High speed chairlifts are noisy as hell particularly the older ones. The towers alone are prone to vibrate/rattle and bang. Yes i think its a little dumb that some people cant handle a little noise. But you cant really change that. Best to leave them alone. I also doubt vail will ever build another bubble chairlift as they grab a lot of wind.
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I do not believe that there is any clause from WPC about detachable lifts. Tombstone and Iron Mountain are both on WPC property and in decently close proximity to houses. Additionally, Quicksilver being a gondola is noisier than a detachable quad and it passes right next to some very nice houses. There has also been talk of the future Scott Hill lift being detachable, which will go right by houses. The reason the lifts around Cloud Dine are fixed-grip is that there was no reason for them to be detachable when they were built. Before the PC-Canyons connection, they were almost entirely real estate lifts.
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The only one of those I agree with is Dreamcatcher. The others, not so much.
1. Vail Resorts doesn’t do eight packs. Six packs are the most they’ll do. Not to mention, they built Over and Out last year so that traffic headed north can bypass Tombstone. Instead of replacing Tombstone, build a lift from Red Pine Lodge to the top of Tombstone.
2. Iron Mountain is fine as is.
4. Payday is a lapping lift, so not ideal for a gondola replacement. It’s more likely that you’d see a two-stage gondola replace Town with an extension to the Summit House.
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I think how you said instead of replacing Tombstone they would build a lift going from Red Pine going to the upper terminal of Tombstone would be a great idea. Most of the reason it gets busy is just simply because people are trying to get from the Red Pine Lodge area over to the Iron Mountain Express/Quicksilver area. That large pod of blues that feed into Tombstone make it real busy and they are hard to navigate.
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What Canyons really needs is a lift from the base of Tombstone to the bottom of Dreamscape. I was thinking a 2400 pph detachable quad would do. It would help reduce crowds on Tombstone and Timberline, along with an easier way to get to Dreamcatcher and Dreamscape. I would think this lift would be good with a Dreamcatcher upgrade to make it easier to get to Quicksilver. As for the noise, the rich people agreed to live at a ski resort, which means that hey should be able to tolerate the noise. They probably only stay there for 10 days per year anyway. If you make it a top drive, along with one of those sound barriers they’re putting on the new Highway 89, they wouldn’t hear anything.
As for a gondola from the Park City base, why make it go up Payday? Why not use the old gondola alignment? It might interfere with the alpine coaster though. They could add the four cabins from the old gondola (the ones from the 80s) to the line for some of the old feel. They’re not doing any good at the base of 3 Kings. I was thinking for capacity a 3000 pph 8 person gondola and make it capable for 3600 pph. It would also replace Bonanza, which could be realigned to the top of Pioneer to replace Pioneer.
I was also thinking that Silverlode could use some chairs from Payday, which wouldn’t need the capacity with a gondola nearby. I would try that and then see if Silverlode is still a mess.
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At 3600 pph, Silverlode is maxed out on capacity. At this point, it needs a high speed quad running from Miners Camp to the top of Crescent to supplement it.
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The top of Crescent only allows you to access Pioneer and Bonanza to get to the summit. What really needs to happen is a lift on the other side of Prospector run, I was thinking a used lift would do fine. The King Con upgrade didn’t really help anything. All it did was feed Silverlode more. And if the lift ends at the top of Crescent, it would have to be fixed grip.
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Honestly, Silverlode and King Con just have too many people, and the only real solution is to convince more people to lap elsewhere because there will always be a large number of skiers using the area just to transit over from Quicksilver. I think making Thanes and/or Pioneer detachable lifts would really help push a lot of Intermediate/Advanced skiers up the ridge away from Miners Camp and spread people out.
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Yes, Pioneer could really use a detachable upgrade, but Thaynes is too short for a detachable, not to mention that it’s never crowded even as a double. It does have some really nice terrain and runs at a reasonable speed. Pioneer is the main way to get out of the McConkey’s area and skiing down to Bonanza doesn’t really get you to the upper mountain without riding Thaynes, or hiking up a ski run. I would think a 2000 pph detachable quad would do.
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https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=12YXyliNY08Ixe9jZc6riMJDJT8xlN82A&usp=sharing
I think the ideal solution would be a high speed quad starting next to King Con and running to the top of Silverlode, possibly with a mid-load station at Miner’s Camp next to Silverlode. This would also ensure a way out of the King Con pod if King Con goes down for any reason.
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A Tombstone to Dreamscape lift is a cool idea that will never happen due to property boundaries.
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Lots of interesting ideas in this thread. I think we’d all agree that the main issues we’re trying to solve for are as follows:
1) Out of base capacity at Park City base
2) Crowding/capacity in Thaynes Canyon from King Con up to Motherlode
3) Capacity on the southern half of Canyons given new location in the center of the resort and the Quicksilver influx from legacy PCMR
4) Skier circulation between the north and south sides of the legacy Canyons terrain
I’ll take these one by one. First, I find Donald Reif’s thoughts on the base capacity issue to be most compelling. Given that Bonanza is much more of a transport lift than a lapping lift, it is the perfect candidate to be removed and replaced by the upper stage of a two-stage gondola beginning down near Crescent/Payday base terminals. Town Lift should be upgraded, but it’s hard to imagine that ever being a key out-of-base workhorse given location.
Second, I’m not sure I understand the logic of pushing to add massive amounts of new capacity to an area of the mountain that already sees more than its fair share of traffic. At some point, you’re simply inducing demand and making the problem worse, like adding new lanes to a crowded highway. While lift upgrades/additions may be part of the answer there, the bigger solution IMO is to try and make other pods more attractive to spread out the crowds in a more organic way. So for me, that has to start with making Pioneer detachable despite it’s relatively short length, though I don’t think forcing skiers to spend lots of time on a flat run out to a new base at the bottom of current Bonanza is going to help in that regard. That should be the new home for the Bonanza 6pack unless it’s used elsewhere like Dreamcatcher. Frankly I think they should try to pop a lift up to the top of Pioneer Ridge about halfway to Jupiter, but that seems less likely. In addition, while it’s hard for me to imagine them running a lift out of King Con up to the top of Crescent, Donald Reif’s configuration from Miner’s Camp to that location seems reasonable to me. Yes you still have no back up in the event of a failure at King Con, but get in line along with umpteen other resorts who have the same issue for one lift or another. PCMR still has major challenges, and adding an expensive lift whose primary purpose is redundancy seems like a luxury IMO.
Third, in terms of mid-resort capacity, Dreamcatcher has to be upgraded to an HS6. Full stop. That seems like a no brainer. Dreamscape likely comes along for the ride with a switch to a detachable lift at some point, but not an immediate need IMO. One other relief valve would be the implementation of the previously planned lift from somewhere between Dreamcatcher base and Iron Mtn base (perhaps near where White Water merges with Cascade) running up to where Sanctuary and Serenity break off from Power Alley. That would provide a much needed means of transiting over to Peak 5/9990 w/o having to go all the way down to Timberline. But that starts to merge into the solution for #4 above…
So that lift out of McDonald Draw is one piece of the puzzle – have to avoid the long slog to Timberline which just adds pressure on Tombstone, and ultimately results in a two lift process to transit what is a relatively short distance from the Dreamscape area to Peak 5/9990. Looking at the maps, there does appear to be room to make that work w/o impacting homeowners. Beyond that, if the most logical option of an HS6 or gondola from Tombstone base to Dreamscape isn’t feasible due to Colony home conflicts, then 1-2 upper mtn lifts need to be part of the solution. Donald Reif’s idea of a Sidewinder lift from Red Pine Lodge up to Tombstone summit is certainly one part of it. I would suggest that a new lift from 9990/Peak 5 base up to Fantasy Ridge is the other half of the solution. Sure I’d like to see them run lifts up to new points on the ridge line and do things like making Daybreak a usable/relevant lift that does something beside provide ski in/out access for poorly located McMansions at 9000′ in the Wasatch, but improving circulation and the existing skiing experience has to come first if they are smart (which they are).
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I like almost everything you said and appreciate the analysis. Just a couple of comments:
Unfortunately, they cannot add any lifts in the area between Dreamcatcher and Tombstone because of property lines. Even if they could find a liftline that does not go over a physical home, all of the plots of land were sold and are privately owned. The odds of it all coming together are extremely low. That means the odds of any more lifts out of Tombstone base or McDonald Draw is low. The only lift they planned out before selling WPC plots that they did not build is one from the base of Dreamscape/Day Break to the top of Peak 5, so there is still an eligible liftline there that would help bring people over to 9990 without utilizing Tombstone. A lift from 9990/Peak 5 Base up to the top of Fantasy Ridge is not possible because of property lines as well, although anything to the top of Fantasy Ridge from the Red Pine Lodge side should be fair game.
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@skitheeast – That’s good intel. If true, then what an incredible indictment of ASC and successor regimes to allow this to happen, effectively creating unsolvable bottlenecks at key points on the hill, specifically Dreamcatcher and Tombstone. To your point, the burden on Tombstone can be eased somewhat via the potential Dreamscape>Peak 5 and Red Pine>Fantasy Ridge/Tombstone summit lifts. But even then, for anyone moving north towards Red Pine Lodge and beyond, your options are either 9990 (for experts only, when open), an annoying 2 lift transfer via Over and Out, or Tombstone. No points for guessing where the traffic will congregate. And Dreamcatcher will be even worse, especially if/when they put in the Scott Hill lift(s).
Damn shame the real estate was the driver here instead of the skiing experience. Imagine how much more valuable those lots would have been had then been allowed to build the mountain the right way and then let the ski experience drive demand for the real estate (or at least find a better balance).
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Let’s not forget the earlier map showing what would’ve been built in the area between Tombstone and legacy Park City had ASC not run out of money.
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Even had the Colony not happened, Tombstone would’ve been a bottleneck and I imagine Over and Out and Timberline would’ve had to be built.
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WPC is both a blessing and a curse. It provided the funding that allowed the Canyons to be developed to the extent that it is today but also hampered its future potential through property sales.
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1) Yes
2) Iron Mountain does not need a capacity boost relative to other lifts. Under your plan, I would rather see them use the ex-Tombstone equipment to replace Town. It can get really congested in the morning, enough to warrant a six-pack. Plus, it does get used during the summer.
3) With step 2 changed, it could not reuse equipment, but it is a good idea to put a detachable lift here regardless.
4) I like a PC base gondola, but I would have it replace Crescent, with the first stage using its existing alignment and the second stage heading up to Summit House. Crescent is not as well utilized compared to Payday and your proposed liftline would have to cross back and forth over Town, which is obviously doable but not ideal.
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when tombstone was replaced there were no plans for pc and canyons to merge, so it wouldn’t have made very much sense to put a hsq in a more remote area very far away from the base
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Would a combined lift (chondola) be a good option to put in the alignment where the gondola used to run, or to replace Payday and Bonanza? I’m not sure if combined lifts are able to do mid stations, but if they can I think it would be a descent idea. I would think it would be a 6 person chair with a 8 person gondola, since Vail doesn’t do 8 person chairlifts. Even better, they can maybe make it similar to the Zinsberg combined lift (8 person chairs with 10 person cabins) at SkiWelt in Austria in a sense where there is a designated area to board a gondola cabin and a designated area to load onto a chair. I think a good chairs for cabins ratio would be 2 chairs for every cabin, but only if they incorporate the designated areas to board gondola cabins and chairs. If not, they should do a 4 chairs for every cabin. The only problem I could see if they were to do a combined lift would be the angled mid station if they make it so that it goes up by Bonanza/Payday and then continue it up to summit house, I don’t know how well that would work as I’ve never seen a combined lift with a mid/angle station.
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I feel like it’s trying much to replace Payday and Bonanza with one lift. Payday isn’t just an access lift, it actually has terrain that would be better served by a chairlift. I think the old gondola alignment would be best for a lift out of the village area.
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And seeing as Bonanza is the means of getting from Town or Payday to the Summit House and is a lapping lift too, a gondola would be supplementing the existing lifts without replacing them.
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I disagree that Bonanza is a lapping lift. The few runs you can lap off of Bonanza return to Pioneer, which is a lapping lift. Bonanza is more of an access lift from Payday and Crescent. The majority of the terrain served by Bonanza requires a runout on a narrow traverse. Pioneer allows you to completely avoid that runout and lap the terrain easier.
I do agree that Bonanza should supplement a lift (preferably a gondola) from Park City village to the summit. With a higher capacity lift taking the majority of skiers up the mountain, I think some chairs on Bonanza should be used to add capacity to Silverlode so it can have a full 3600 pph.
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And as others have been saying, the simplest solution for now to get people away from Silverlode would be if Dreamcatcher and Pioneer became high speed quads.
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This resort was so much better when talisker and powdr Corp ran it
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The number of lift improvements Vail Resorts has brought says otherwise.
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Most of those lift improvements from Vail would have only been necessary if Canyons and Park City weren’t connected.
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For openers, I reject this framing b/c it discounts entirely the value of Canyons and Park City now being connected and accessible on one pass. But even then, your statement really only applies to Quicksilver. The other main upgrades were needed anyway on a very busy part of the mountain.
I’m no fan of Vail, but the notion that Talisker than anything better than them is a joke.
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Greenhorn at Canyons was a Riblet, not a Thiokol. Skilifts.org lists the 1971 Thiokol as the beginner lift at Nordic Valley (http://www.skilifts.org/old/install_na1971.htm). The 1971 Thiokol was originally installed at Gorgoza (https://utahlostskiareaproject.wordpress.com/gorgoza-parleys-summit/) before being relocated to Nordic. From the photos I was able to find of Park West, laying it out on the map, the Riblet in the foreground must be Greenhorn. Here is the image I am referring to: https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=943105&page=2&q=Park+West+ski&fd=title_t%2Cdate_t%2Ctype_t%2Csetname_s
For reference, the SLI was Tumbleweed and the lift with the midstation was Arrowhead. Trail Map: https://skimap.org/data/218/7/1213162894.jpg
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I think I see the confusion here. Park West was called Wolf Mountain at one point. Wolf Mountain was also the former name of Nordic Valley. The Hall double at Nordic Valley was a new installation in 1970, not 1980. The 1980 installation was the lift at Parley’s Summit. It fits with the description of tripling the existing vertical. The existing lift at Parley’s Summit was less than 1000 feet long for reference. Summit Recreation would be a fitting entry for Parley’s Summit. I don’t know where the 1978 Hall double belongs, possibly Alta?
I was unable to find any reference to Greenhorn, but Greenhorn was for sure a Riblet. It would be safe to assume that Slaughterhouse was the other SLI double.
Here is what the former lifts at Park West should be:
Name Year Manufacturer Length
Ironhorse 1968 Riblet 6656
Golden Eagle 1968 Riblet 4975
Short Swing 1968 Riblet 3224
Tumbleweed 1969 SLI 1470
Arrowhead 1969 Riblet 2581
Greenhorn 197? Riblet
Slaughterhouse 1969 SLI 2581
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Slaughterhouse was a center bar Hall double, I rode it in 1990
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Also Arrowhead was a unique center bar CTEC double. All others were as listed however Golden Eagle was originally called Tomahawk and had center bar chairs which were charged to bail style maybe by ASC? For some reason Tomahawk ran very fast for a double chair, I guess that was one way to have a high speed lift.
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Indeed arrowhead was a very unique lift. It from what I was told and led to believe it was Albion double(the heron one) which was removed in 1976 and relocated here in 76 rather than 1968. It was rather odd to see photos of the lift with Ctec chairs but I’m thinking the chairs must of failed some test. As for green horn it was originally supposed to be installed as buckboard lift in 1976 it was realigned to green horn(before they finished it). But I do find it interesting that it was realigned to a different spot. For anyone who’s curious here’s a link to the map with buckboard and arrowhead in the process of being installed https://skimap.org/data/218/7/1214808142.jpg
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More photos of Greenhorn:
https://utahlostskiareaproject.wordpress.com/lift-greenhorn-park-west/
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https://utahlostskiareaproject.wordpress.com/gorgoza-parleys-summit/
A used Hunziker T-Bar from Solitude in 1960? Cal McPhie opened the area in 1960? A 1971 Thiokol when the area was about to close? Sounds more like lift fiction to me than a credible source.
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I don’t think the brand would be Hunziker as the only known lifts under the Name Hunziker Lift were Ponderosa double, Northwest Passage double, and Alphorn T-Bar at Mt Rose Nevada. It could be an unconfirmed Hunziker Lift but, it also could have been western lift and crane.
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That was a mistake, should be fixed now.
Here is the source on my Gorgoza page:
https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=828335&q=Cal+McPhie
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It makes sense that they bought the Pomalift from Solitude in 1968. Was the Rustler the original single chair, because he was talking about two double chairs in 1968 in another article? I will ask a former Thiokol employee if he knows about that sale in 1971.
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It says that Hunziker was involved at Solitude in this entry about Western Lift & Crane
Western Lift and Crane, Inc. (1967-1968): A new shop in Springville was bought and a new business started. It received various orders from Mammoth’s Dave McCoy incl. the construction of Chair 7. Around the same time, Hunziker became involved with Solitude. Chair 7 was eventually delivered in spring 1968.
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@Mountaineer: I believe Rustler was the single chair that was taken out by the avalanche in the late 1950s. Collins was the original single chair.
https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=947228&q=greeley+alta&fd=title_t%2Cdate_t%2Ctype_t%2Csetname_s
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I was told from a source at Nordic Valley that their Thiokol came from Gorgoza. The tension terminal, towers, and top terminal could only be a 1971 Thiokol. The length happens to match up well. Either way, we know for sure that Greenhorn wasn’t that 1971 Thiokol installation.
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Part of me thinks that Vail resorts is going to have the same fate as the American ski company
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Not gonna happen.
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ASC had an incredible amount of debt, which is what ultimately drowned the company. Right before the turn of the century, before things even really went south, they had an interest coverage ratio of roughly 2. The general rule of thumb is that 3+ is good, 2-3 is okay as long as revenue is strong, and anything below 1 means the company is in poor financial health. They had to increase their revenue and EBITDA at a much faster rate than their interest expenses, but that did not happen.
Vail is sitting at 5.66 as of January, which is pretty good considering the economic realities of the pandemic for the travel industry.
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From a financial standpoint, I would disagree. However, from an operations standpoint, this year at PCMR seemed a little bit worse than previous years.
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Vail having the same fate? Boyne would be more likely. They’re buying very expensive lifts and resorts just like ASC.
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Anyone know if Park city is going to replace or refurbish the Red Pine Gondola cabins?
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They got a minor refresh when they painted them into Canyons orange around 2010, but definitely look old and beat up compared to the Quicksilver cabins (and not to mention very loud). Others from around that vintage are still in service though, they’ll have plenty of life left. Thinking of the Killington Skyeship and K-1, Bridger at Jackson, the Snowbasin gondolas, Lionshead at Vail, etc – most gondolas from the late 90s are still on their original cabins. I bet they get another 10 years out of them.
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I believe you forgot to add Lookout and Snow Canyon Express.
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Lookout is now called Short Cut and Snow Canyon Express now goes by Sun Peak Express.
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I’m not sure as to why the Crescent Yan quad was removed after only 9 years of service. Even though Bonanza was installed on a similar alignment, it didn’t entirely replace Crescent. With the lift being scrapped after 9 years doesn’t make sense either. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to keep Crescent as a backup lift for the 10 years prior to the Crescent detachable similar to Ski Team? With Prospector being scrapped, they would have had more than enough Yan parts to keep Crescent running.
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I feel like its weird starting and ending location had something to do with it.
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Anyone know what happened to the original High Meadow lift?
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I think it is in storage.
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What was The Canyons doing in 1997? How do you end up getting three lifts made by three different manufacturers?
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They might’ve had a split contract thing, and that’s why Saddleback and High Meadow were Garaventa CTEC lifts (with Raptor being a relocated Saddleback FGQ) while Poma got Tombstone and Red Pine.
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Even then, Doppelmayr also built 2 full lifts in 1997. I have never seen a split contract between three different manufacturers in the same year. I wonder if part of it was that Canyons had an order so large that none of the manufactures were able to deliver all of the lifts alone, hence 3 different lift manufactures building lifts the same year.
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I wouldn’t be surprised given the amount of work on hand to put in three high speed quads and a gondola while relocating a fixed grip quad. Then again, I’ve seen single manufacturers undertake similar sized projects with just one manufacturer (Keystone’s Outback expansion in 1991 involved three new Doppelmayr lifts; Whistler-Blackcomb’s 2018 projects saw the construction of the Blackcomb Gondola and Emerald 6, while relocating Emerald 4 to upgrade Catskinner, with Doppelmayr again doing everything). But those arguably could be viewed as small potatoes compared to The Canyons’ expansion.
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As the project manager for the lift we installed at the Canyons that season
For Doppelmayr, the reason all three of us were there is, quite simply, because ASC bought what was basically left in the capacity of the three manufacturers
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Pretty amazing to consider how The Canyons grew in a short burst, largely from 1997-2001 (five years!) under ASC. They ran out of money nearly as fast. But they took “ParkWest” from a small mountain with dated lifts to Utah’s largest resort.
Talisker added some big expansions/improvements too after the sale. By the time Vail came in, the current footprint was almost entirely built out.
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the old three kings double
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Old prospector hsq! https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=1749292&page=5&q=Park+city+ski+resort
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The old gondola top https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=938383&page=8&q=Park+city+ski+resort
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Any chance a lift (or gondola) gets built from tombstone base to the top of Peak 5?
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While such a lift is absolutely practical, it probably won’t ever happen due to such a lift running straight through WPC housing.
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Oh well. That lift would move a lot of congestion off the tombstone lift, but your right, safe for using a VERY specific line with multiple angle stations, it’s probably not possible
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Park west atrial view https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=1719039&q=Dana+Kent
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Park west golden eagle https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=1719028&q=Dana+Kent
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Park west again and condor lift https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=1719030&q=Dana+Kent
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Park west condor lift https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=1719030&q=Dana+Kent
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Park west iron horse lift https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=1719030&q=Dana+Kent
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Park west pelican lift https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=1719023&q=Dana+Kent
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Park west iron horse or condor lift https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=1719033&q=Dana+Kent
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Park west summit rec aka slaughterhouse https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=1719036&q=Dana+Kent just as some other info, slaughterhouse was installed in1980 being it’s on no other maps before then. From what I’m lead to believe is that it is from Alta originally. Also I didn’t see greenhorn/pelican on the removed lift spread sheet
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Ahhh Park West. Now that brings back memories. (Previously called Park City West until 1975) Spent many summers up in that area throughout the 80s.
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Park west looked like a fun mountain to me all double chairs long runs…. But those days are gone just like those double chairs. On another note here’s a photo of arrowhead lift https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=1719020&q=Dana+Kent
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Park west tumbleweed double https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=1719029&q=Dana+Kent
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I would guess Greenhorn/Pelican was a relocation from the 1969 Riblet double (which doesn’t appear to be listed on the spreadsheet). The spreadsheet has a lot of errors with lift identification, the most obvious being that the 2500 foot 1969 SLI should be assigned to Sundance, not Park City.
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The relocation of green horn was acually called buckboard it was a plan to be installed in 1976 with arrowhead https://skimap.org/data/218/7/1214808142.jpg from what I’ve been told and gathered is that buckboard (future greenhorn) was supposed to be a village lift but wasn’t finished due to little use of the lift and also park city was in a bad spot with the mines closing down. Which would make sense that the model of riblet lift would match up with the time line.
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Park west, greenhorn’s bottom terminal https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=1719031&q=Dana+Kent
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Park west, greenhorn double’s drive terminal https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=1719031&q=Dana+Kent
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Park west Tomahawk double https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=1719032&q=Dana+Kent
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I liked that color on those Ribs. Thanks for bringing back some memories from my childhood.
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My final photo of park west until new photos get uploaded. An aerial shot of from what I think is condor lift https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=1719038&q=Dana+Kent
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I think it might be Short Swing (roughly the same alignment as today’s Sun Peak Express):
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.6823004,-111.5809501,131a,35y,287.02h,77.83t/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en
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Not sure what lift this was on the park city side https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=938850&page=4&q=Ski+lift
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If I had to guess, the original Thaynes about 2/3 of the way up
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Same spot as this picture, looking the other way:
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Yah that looks like the spot! Also here’s another photo of what I assume is the same lift https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=938471&page=2&q=Ski+lift
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That one must be Prospector – the other Stearns-Roger lift if that’s what they looked like. Rotates the other direction from what must be Thaynes
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The gondola during construction https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=938654&page=3&q=Ski+lift
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Where did Prospector run, and what lift was it replaced by?
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Prospector ran up Prospector run, roughly the same alignment as Silverlode.
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