Lower terminal adjacent to the Colorado SuperChair at the base of Peak 8.Return station loading area.Leaving the base.View up the line.Looking back down.Nearing the top.Unload zone and operator house.Side view of the drive.Terminal underskin.View down the lift line.Lower lift line view.Another look at the line.
What I would like to see if for Breckenridge to move the base of the Rocky Mountain Super Chair up to confluence of Little Johnny, Duke’s Run, Northstar, and the Peak 7 Road. Then extend the chair to the top of Horseshoe Bowl to replace the T-Bar. That would open up so great round trip, fall line skiing.
Independence is always so busy, I think the need 4000P/H there and should install a bubble-8. Then move the existing Independence to Rocky Mountain and extend in up to the top of Horseshoe bowl. Rocky could replace 6 chair starting beside the existing E chair base.
Besides, the Rocky Mountain and Independence SuperChairs are fine as is. Independence will be getting some relief thanks to the infill lift next season. While Rocky Mountain functions as a bit of a reliever lift for the Colorado SuperChair.
They’re building a high speed quad to supplement the Independence SuperChair next winter, which will alleviate a lot of the crowds. I think it was an oversight on Breck’s part seven years ago when they expanded onto Peak 6 to not realize that the lack of a route to bypass Peak 7 base going south would be a problem.
“Then move the existing Independence to Rocky Mountain and extend in up to the top of Horseshoe bowl.”
That would be a bad idea, as such a lift would be heavily exposed to wind on the upper part in Contest Bowl. Not to mention it wouldn’t be able to service Little Johnny and Duke’s Run.
And you’re probably never going to see a bubble lift at Breck because a lot of the mountain has heavy wind exposure. Admittedly, Quicksilver is proably the only one of the detachables where bubbles might work, but Okemo’s issues with Quantum Four demonstrate what happens when you try to outfit bubbles on a lift that wasn’t built with them in mind.
In order to prevent wind closures at the top, would it be possible for Breck something to do something like Whistler does with their gondolas where they can close the top section of the lift, and just run the lower section?
That would be a capacity downgrade. The Independence SuperChair has to be a high capacity lift because it’s a lapping and transit lift. Even with the Freedom SuperChair now there to siphon away some of the crowds, lines can still be long at Peak 7 base at times.
It’s fine starting where it is, since it takes crowding off the Colorado SuperChair (this lift is essential in getting to north Peak 8, plus Peaks 7 and 6, and even is part of the transiting route from Peaks 9 and 10 to 7 and 6 if you decide to skip the first half of the Columbine catwalk).
Breck’s 2007 Master Plan had originally called for the Rocky Mountain SuperChair to be shortened by 1,700 feet, by moving the bottom terminal uphill to about where tower 5 is. Taking its place out of the base area would be a high speed six pack, starting next to the Colorado SuperChair but running up Northstar and ending where Claimjumper diverges from Lower Forget Me Not. At the time, the idea was that this would allow Peak 8 guests a direct means to Peak 6, which was proposed to have two high speed six packs: the Kensho SuperChair, and a second six pack starting in the Ore Bucket glades servicing blue trails on Peak 6.5 that would also be for access to the Kensho SuperChair.
Personally, I think it’s for the best that Breck didn’t implement these plans. The Peak 6 configuration of Zendo and the Kensho SuperChair works better than the 2007 proposal as Zendo is actually accessible from Peak 8’s chairlifts without needing to go through Peak 7 base (and the infill high speed quad being built this summer will allow southbound guests to bypass the Peak 7 base). Whereas the Peak 6 1/2 high speed six pack would’ve put too much strain on the Independence SuperChair, which was already going to receive a new influx of traffic with the Peak 7 base project.
Retaining the Rocky Mountain SuperChair as is was also a good call. The north Peak 8 high speed six pack wouldn’t have had much terrain for lapping outside of Northstar and Claimjumper, whereas you can lap five runs (Rounder’s, Little Johnny, Duke’s, Northstar and Claimjumper) from the Rocky Mountain SuperChair thanks to where it ends.
I would actually support a detachable six-pack replacing this lift that instead ended at Pioneer Crossing next to Independence. Yes, it would only have had two trails to lap (Clamjumper and Northstar), but it would have eliminated the catwalk over on Columbine to get over to Peak 7, made it possible to bypass Peak 7 (and Independence) on the way to Peak 6 (it can be done now but with a ton of catwalking), and Colorado already serves the terrain on Peak 8 very well. The current configuration reminds me of Sky and Canyon at Heavenly, where Sky (Colorado) serves everything Canyon (Rocky Mountain) does and then some, making it always have a longer line.
That would only make longer lines for the Colorado SuperChair because people would look at the map and view that lift as the only lift for lapping the lower Peak 8 trails from Springmeier through Claimjumper, and see this lift merely as an access lift to reach Peak 7. Not to mention it would make it more of a hassle to lap Duke’s Run, because you’d still have to traverse over to it from the Vista Haus via Columbine,. .
The current setup works just fine, because it means that, although you can reach all of the Rocky Mountain SuperChair’s terrain from the Colorado SuperChair, Breck regards the lifts as serving different purposes (judging from the signs at the entrances to their mazes): take the Colorado SuperChair for Peak 8 trails south of Rounders and north of Springmeier, the Vista Haus, and access to Imperial (via Lift 6) and Peak 9 (via Lifts C and E); take the Rocky Mountain SuperChair for Peak 8 trails north of Rounders, as well as access to the T-Bar, Peak 7, and Peak 6 (via the Zendo Chair).
You’re gonna see something like this next year on Peak 7 once the infill lift is built: the infill high speed quad will be primarily for guests transiting south from Peak 6 to Peak 8 to bypass the Peak 7 base area, as well as to do laps on Monte Cristo, Angel’s Rest and Lincoln Meadows. The Independence SuperChair already services these trails, but you’ll have now the option not to have to take the congested runout back to Peak 7 base area after each run. You’ll still need to use the Independence SuperChair, though, to get out of the base area, as well as for lapping Wirepatch, Pioneer and Swan City, but it won’t be so slammed with people since the traffic transiting south has been rerouted to a different lift.
Using Pathfinder at the top of Colorado already allows every trail between Colorado and Rocky Mountain to be lapped without the Columbine catwalk. As it is, the small drop at the top of Duke’s Run between Columbine and Pathfinder is steep enough where Breck gives it a single diamond, leading unfamiliar intermediate skiers/riders to skip it and head over to Northstar if they are coming from Rocky Mountain anyway. Again, Colorado typically has lines much longer than Rocky Mountain for a reason: because it gives more options, and people know that it can access everything Rocky Mountain can just as easily. Moving the top terminal of Rocky Mountain will at least allow it to have two unique trails to be lapped and make accessing Peak 6 and Peak 7 easier compared to Colorado, giving skiers more of an incentive to actually use the lift.
The reason the Peak 7 Infill chair will work next year is because skiers/riders will be able to avoid the runout on Monte Cristo and still get to the top of Independence. If they had instead planned to mimic Rocky Mountain on Peak 7, it would have been from the same base as Independence to the top of either Angel’s Rest or Clamjumper.
I highly doubt any change to the alignment/location of Rocky Mountain and the addition of the Rocky Mountain II lift that would start at Peak 8 base and end uphill from the T-Bar lower terminal is going to happen until the current Rocky Mountain chair reaches its natural replacement cycle, which is at least a decade out. Far too many higher priority replacements / upgrades in the queue before its even up for serious consideration.
The biggest changes since that plan was conceived was that change in location of the Peak 7 restaurant that was originally planned to be mid-mountain on Peak 7 on Pioneer (with a mid-station) on Independence, and secondly, the In-Fill Lift of Peak 7.
Both of those change skier circulation patterns.
having a lift from the most popular base at Breck go all the way up to strictly double black skiing would not be a great idea, which is why the T bar is a tbar- if a beginner is skiing on the catwalk by it they’d probably think “oh, a tbar, no way” which helps cut down on injurys majorly, which is the same reason 6, and E haven’t gotten upgraded yet, so beginners don’t get way over their head.
The issue with that is that the T-bar is VERY exposed, meaning that Rocky Mountain would almost NEVER be open, creating issues on windy days. This lift serves very solid intermediate terrain, but extending it up to replace the T-bar would mean this terrain would be VERY difficult to lap. The T-bar should stay a T-bar
This lift was built as setup for the Peak 7 expansion. I don’t see any reason to replace it with something higher capacity. Independence now gets slammed with all the people going in and out of Peak 6, so that could become a bubble-8 at some point.
That certainly explains why the Rocky Mountain SuperChair was built, since at the time of the lift’s construction, the northernmost trail was Claimjumper, and it would seem pointless to install the lift just to ease access to Duke’s Run, Northstar and Claimjumper. Building it in anticipation of Peak 7 (and later, Peak 6) makes more sense.
vail despises bubble lifts, and having one built at breckenfridge (because it’s so windy) probably won’t happen, however, pk 7 does need a major out of base capacity upgrade, so maybe vail would build a 8 pack, just not a bubble 8.
Going off the chair spacing on the Rocky Mountain SuperChair when compared to the Mercury SuperChair, I think the Rocky Mountain SuperChair is more like 2,600 pph and not 2,800 pph. On the Rocky Mountain SuperChair, the intervals in normal operations are 7 seconds between chairs, compared to the 6 second intervals of the Mercury SuperChair (I’m using the Mercury SuperChair as a base because these two lifts were built in the same year, and are the only two high speed quads on the mountain that are identical as far as infrastructure is concerned).
They don’t run either lift at the design speed of 1100 feet per minute, so that would make the chair interval longer than it should be. The interval is 6 seconds for 2400, 5.54 for 2600, and 5.14 for 2800.
Even so, the difference in intervals is still apparent when they’re both running at 1,000 fpm. (And on the Mercury SuperChair, 5 second intervals is not something doable when that one gets a fair amount of beginner traffic that are just starting on blue runs; so running it at a lower speed makes sense)
And it kinda makes sense for the Rocky Mountain SuperChair to have been built with slightly larger chair intervals: when it was initially built, the mountain only went as far north as Claimjumper, so the only real use the lift had for the first five years was to eliminate part of the traverse from the Colorado SuperChair when headed to Duke’s Run, Northstar, Claimjumper and the T-Bar. It didn’t have many trails to lap from it, so didn’t need as much capacity as say, the Mercury SuperChair (which has about a dozen plus runs on upper Peak 9, plus the Chutes on the Peak 9 north face).
The Mercury SuperChair’s chairs appear to be spaced about 95 feet apart. The Rocky Mountain SuperChair’s chairs are spaced about 109.7 feet apart, meaning they’re spaced about the same as the chairs on the Kensho SuperChair. If the Rocky Mountain SuperChair had 95 foot spacing between chairs, I think that would come out around 115 chairs.
While the Mercury SuperChair’s terminal masts are still painted gray, the Rocky Mountain SuperChair’s masts were repainted brown in 2014, ostensibly to match with the neighboring Colorado SuperChair.
Probably there by law or something. Even though this is a lift that wouldn’t have any reason to be downloading people, if you look at the videos I link above that show the unload area.
I have to admit, sometimes I wish Breck had kept this and the Mercury SuperChair in their original 1997-2008 paint schemes, with the lift name painted on the sides of the terminals in big white letters flanked by the Breckenridge ‘B’ and the Poma logos.
It’s interesting to think that in 1997, this was the newest lift out of Peak 8 base. Now in 2023, it’s the oldest as all of the other lifts out of the base have been replaced: the Colorado SuperChair with a six pack in 2014, Rip’s Ride and Lift 5 with high speed quads in 2022 and 2023. (And the addition of BreckConnect in 2006)
Lift Blog 
This lift could be a detach 6
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There’s already enough uphill capacity with the Colorado SuperChair being a high speed six pack.
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What I would like to see if for Breckenridge to move the base of the Rocky Mountain Super Chair up to confluence of Little Johnny, Duke’s Run, Northstar, and the Peak 7 Road. Then extend the chair to the top of Horseshoe Bowl to replace the T-Bar. That would open up so great round trip, fall line skiing.
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Independence is always so busy, I think the need 4000P/H there and should install a bubble-8. Then move the existing Independence to Rocky Mountain and extend in up to the top of Horseshoe bowl. Rocky could replace 6 chair starting beside the existing E chair base.
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Vail despises bubble lifts for some reason though. They’d be much more likely to install a 10 person MCG than a bubble lift.
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Besides, the Rocky Mountain and Independence SuperChairs are fine as is. Independence will be getting some relief thanks to the infill lift next season. While Rocky Mountain functions as a bit of a reliever lift for the Colorado SuperChair.
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I may be wrong, but I think Vail dislikes bubbles because the bubbles on Vista Bahn got scratched a lot.
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They’re building a high speed quad to supplement the Independence SuperChair next winter, which will alleviate a lot of the crowds. I think it was an oversight on Breck’s part seven years ago when they expanded onto Peak 6 to not realize that the lack of a route to bypass Peak 7 base going south would be a problem.
“Then move the existing Independence to Rocky Mountain and extend in up to the top of Horseshoe bowl.”
That would be a bad idea, as such a lift would be heavily exposed to wind on the upper part in Contest Bowl. Not to mention it wouldn’t be able to service Little Johnny and Duke’s Run.
And you’re probably never going to see a bubble lift at Breck because a lot of the mountain has heavy wind exposure. Admittedly, Quicksilver is proably the only one of the detachables where bubbles might work, but Okemo’s issues with Quantum Four demonstrate what happens when you try to outfit bubbles on a lift that wasn’t built with them in mind.
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In order to prevent wind closures at the top, would it be possible for Breck something to do something like Whistler does with their gondolas where they can close the top section of the lift, and just run the lower section?
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None of the lifts with midstations were built with that in mind.
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if they are going to move Independence they should rebuild it because it is a 22 year-old lift. they should replace it with a high-speed quad.
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That would be a capacity downgrade. The Independence SuperChair has to be a high capacity lift because it’s a lapping and transit lift. Even with the Freedom SuperChair now there to siphon away some of the crowds, lines can still be long at Peak 7 base at times.
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It’s fine starting where it is, since it takes crowding off the Colorado SuperChair (this lift is essential in getting to north Peak 8, plus Peaks 7 and 6, and even is part of the transiting route from Peaks 9 and 10 to 7 and 6 if you decide to skip the first half of the Columbine catwalk).
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Breck’s 2007 Master Plan had originally called for the Rocky Mountain SuperChair to be shortened by 1,700 feet, by moving the bottom terminal uphill to about where tower 5 is. Taking its place out of the base area would be a high speed six pack, starting next to the Colorado SuperChair but running up Northstar and ending where Claimjumper diverges from Lower Forget Me Not. At the time, the idea was that this would allow Peak 8 guests a direct means to Peak 6, which was proposed to have two high speed six packs: the Kensho SuperChair, and a second six pack starting in the Ore Bucket glades servicing blue trails on Peak 6.5 that would also be for access to the Kensho SuperChair.
Personally, I think it’s for the best that Breck didn’t implement these plans. The Peak 6 configuration of Zendo and the Kensho SuperChair works better than the 2007 proposal as Zendo is actually accessible from Peak 8’s chairlifts without needing to go through Peak 7 base (and the infill high speed quad being built this summer will allow southbound guests to bypass the Peak 7 base). Whereas the Peak 6 1/2 high speed six pack would’ve put too much strain on the Independence SuperChair, which was already going to receive a new influx of traffic with the Peak 7 base project.
Retaining the Rocky Mountain SuperChair as is was also a good call. The north Peak 8 high speed six pack wouldn’t have had much terrain for lapping outside of Northstar and Claimjumper, whereas you can lap five runs (Rounder’s, Little Johnny, Duke’s, Northstar and Claimjumper) from the Rocky Mountain SuperChair thanks to where it ends.
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I would actually support a detachable six-pack replacing this lift that instead ended at Pioneer Crossing next to Independence. Yes, it would only have had two trails to lap (Clamjumper and Northstar), but it would have eliminated the catwalk over on Columbine to get over to Peak 7, made it possible to bypass Peak 7 (and Independence) on the way to Peak 6 (it can be done now but with a ton of catwalking), and Colorado already serves the terrain on Peak 8 very well. The current configuration reminds me of Sky and Canyon at Heavenly, where Sky (Colorado) serves everything Canyon (Rocky Mountain) does and then some, making it always have a longer line.
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That would only make longer lines for the Colorado SuperChair because people would look at the map and view that lift as the only lift for lapping the lower Peak 8 trails from Springmeier through Claimjumper, and see this lift merely as an access lift to reach Peak 7. Not to mention it would make it more of a hassle to lap Duke’s Run, because you’d still have to traverse over to it from the Vista Haus via Columbine,. .
The current setup works just fine, because it means that, although you can reach all of the Rocky Mountain SuperChair’s terrain from the Colorado SuperChair, Breck regards the lifts as serving different purposes (judging from the signs at the entrances to their mazes): take the Colorado SuperChair for Peak 8 trails south of Rounders and north of Springmeier, the Vista Haus, and access to Imperial (via Lift 6) and Peak 9 (via Lifts C and E); take the Rocky Mountain SuperChair for Peak 8 trails north of Rounders, as well as access to the T-Bar, Peak 7, and Peak 6 (via the Zendo Chair).
You’re gonna see something like this next year on Peak 7 once the infill lift is built: the infill high speed quad will be primarily for guests transiting south from Peak 6 to Peak 8 to bypass the Peak 7 base area, as well as to do laps on Monte Cristo, Angel’s Rest and Lincoln Meadows. The Independence SuperChair already services these trails, but you’ll have now the option not to have to take the congested runout back to Peak 7 base area after each run. You’ll still need to use the Independence SuperChair, though, to get out of the base area, as well as for lapping Wirepatch, Pioneer and Swan City, but it won’t be so slammed with people since the traffic transiting south has been rerouted to a different lift.
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Using Pathfinder at the top of Colorado already allows every trail between Colorado and Rocky Mountain to be lapped without the Columbine catwalk. As it is, the small drop at the top of Duke’s Run between Columbine and Pathfinder is steep enough where Breck gives it a single diamond, leading unfamiliar intermediate skiers/riders to skip it and head over to Northstar if they are coming from Rocky Mountain anyway. Again, Colorado typically has lines much longer than Rocky Mountain for a reason: because it gives more options, and people know that it can access everything Rocky Mountain can just as easily. Moving the top terminal of Rocky Mountain will at least allow it to have two unique trails to be lapped and make accessing Peak 6 and Peak 7 easier compared to Colorado, giving skiers more of an incentive to actually use the lift.
The reason the Peak 7 Infill chair will work next year is because skiers/riders will be able to avoid the runout on Monte Cristo and still get to the top of Independence. If they had instead planned to mimic Rocky Mountain on Peak 7, it would have been from the same base as Independence to the top of either Angel’s Rest or Clamjumper.
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Pathfinder is not very well marked and easy to miss. (Source: my personal experience skiing High Anxiety when it’s been groomed)
Duke’s Run was rated as a blue black the whole way before Breckenridge got rid of blue-blacks in 2010.
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I highly doubt any change to the alignment/location of Rocky Mountain and the addition of the Rocky Mountain II lift that would start at Peak 8 base and end uphill from the T-Bar lower terminal is going to happen until the current Rocky Mountain chair reaches its natural replacement cycle, which is at least a decade out. Far too many higher priority replacements / upgrades in the queue before its even up for serious consideration.
The biggest changes since that plan was conceived was that change in location of the Peak 7 restaurant that was originally planned to be mid-mountain on Peak 7 on Pioneer (with a mid-station) on Independence, and secondly, the In-Fill Lift of Peak 7.
Both of those change skier circulation patterns.
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having a lift from the most popular base at Breck go all the way up to strictly double black skiing would not be a great idea, which is why the T bar is a tbar- if a beginner is skiing on the catwalk by it they’d probably think “oh, a tbar, no way” which helps cut down on injurys majorly, which is the same reason 6, and E haven’t gotten upgraded yet, so beginners don’t get way over their head.
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This arrangement also allows the lower and upper parts of Peak 8 to be effectively segregated.
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The issue with that is that the T-bar is VERY exposed, meaning that Rocky Mountain would almost NEVER be open, creating issues on windy days. This lift serves very solid intermediate terrain, but extending it up to replace the T-bar would mean this terrain would be VERY difficult to lap. The T-bar should stay a T-bar
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This lift was built as setup for the Peak 7 expansion. I don’t see any reason to replace it with something higher capacity. Independence now gets slammed with all the people going in and out of Peak 6, so that could become a bubble-8 at some point.
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That certainly explains why the Rocky Mountain SuperChair was built, since at the time of the lift’s construction, the northernmost trail was Claimjumper, and it would seem pointless to install the lift just to ease access to Duke’s Run, Northstar and Claimjumper. Building it in anticipation of Peak 7 (and later, Peak 6) makes more sense.
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vail despises bubble lifts, and having one built at breckenfridge (because it’s so windy) probably won’t happen, however, pk 7 does need a major out of base capacity upgrade, so maybe vail would build a 8 pack, just not a bubble 8.
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I don’t see an eight pack happening ever. Mostly because the infill high speed quad ought to be ample enough to redistribute traffic.
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Going off the chair spacing on the Rocky Mountain SuperChair when compared to the Mercury SuperChair, I think the Rocky Mountain SuperChair is more like 2,600 pph and not 2,800 pph. On the Rocky Mountain SuperChair, the intervals in normal operations are 7 seconds between chairs, compared to the 6 second intervals of the Mercury SuperChair (I’m using the Mercury SuperChair as a base because these two lifts were built in the same year, and are the only two high speed quads on the mountain that are identical as far as infrastructure is concerned).
For comparison, the Rocky Mountain SuperChair….
…and the Mercury SuperChair:
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They don’t run either lift at the design speed of 1100 feet per minute, so that would make the chair interval longer than it should be. The interval is 6 seconds for 2400, 5.54 for 2600, and 5.14 for 2800.
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Even so, the difference in intervals is still apparent when they’re both running at 1,000 fpm. (And on the Mercury SuperChair, 5 second intervals is not something doable when that one gets a fair amount of beginner traffic that are just starting on blue runs; so running it at a lower speed makes sense)
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And it kinda makes sense for the Rocky Mountain SuperChair to have been built with slightly larger chair intervals: when it was initially built, the mountain only went as far north as Claimjumper, so the only real use the lift had for the first five years was to eliminate part of the traverse from the Colorado SuperChair when headed to Duke’s Run, Northstar, Claimjumper and the T-Bar. It didn’t have many trails to lap from it, so didn’t need as much capacity as say, the Mercury SuperChair (which has about a dozen plus runs on upper Peak 9, plus the Chutes on the Peak 9 north face).
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Mercury is almost 2800 based on the number of chairs listed on this site. Rocky Mountain is about 20 chairs short, so it would be about 2400 now.
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The Mercury SuperChair’s chairs appear to be spaced about 95 feet apart. The Rocky Mountain SuperChair’s chairs are spaced about 109.7 feet apart, meaning they’re spaced about the same as the chairs on the Kensho SuperChair. If the Rocky Mountain SuperChair had 95 foot spacing between chairs, I think that would come out around 115 chairs.
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While the Mercury SuperChair’s terminal masts are still painted gray, the Rocky Mountain SuperChair’s masts were repainted brown in 2014, ostensibly to match with the neighboring Colorado SuperChair.
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Why does it say to prepare to unload in pic 3 when you are actually leaving the terminal?
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Downloading?
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Probably there by law or something. Even though this is a lift that wouldn’t have any reason to be downloading people, if you look at the videos I link above that show the unload area.
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I have to admit, sometimes I wish Breck had kept this and the Mercury SuperChair in their original 1997-2008 paint schemes, with the lift name painted on the sides of the terminals in big white letters flanked by the Breckenridge ‘B’ and the Poma logos.
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The lift has the 90’s Poma Challenger terminal. The line speed is 1100 fpm. Most Challenger’s run at 900. Is the terminal longer than usual.
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It’s interesting to think that in 1997, this was the newest lift out of Peak 8 base. Now in 2023, it’s the oldest as all of the other lifts out of the base have been replaced: the Colorado SuperChair with a six pack in 2014, Rip’s Ride and Lift 5 with high speed quads in 2022 and 2023. (And the addition of BreckConnect in 2006)
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