This little pulley system has been closed this season. Unless for once or twice possibly for the holidays but every time I’ve checked the Steamboat website it has been listed as closed. It ran somewhat regularly last year but is still considered a secondary lift.
It will probably be removed with the installation of the Wild Blue gondola because there will probably be a new quad chair that is maybe slightly longer to replace this platter.
looks like this lift is going to be used to reopen Dutch Hill Ski Area in Leadville. It’ll be used by Colorado Mountain College for training as well. Colorado Sun posted a story on it today.
I was waiting to see when someone would notice this.
You have it sort of backwards- we will utilise it first and foremost as a training lift, and the local ski teams will be able to spin laps on it as well. The possibility of having it open to the public is there, but we need to work with the county before we can do that. I’m looking forward to having a lift that I can just take my students to and work on it. I enjoy the partnerships we have with other ski areas but it’s difficult to do true hands-on work at someone else’s place (we mechanics get territorial).
Regardless of how it works out we’ll have a huge new piece of the programme here on campus. I’m really excited. I’ve already been going over the lift and its components, and I have next spring’s maintenance class outline already. Hope my students are prepared to get dirty :)
Article is a bit confusing. Headline mentioned “small chairlift” then says “platter chairs” and “surface chairlift” in the article. I had to look it up on here because I remember this lift being a poma and not a chairlift. Anyway good to see it used to reopen a small area for training, racing, and maybe general skiing!
Greenhorn Ranch was developed in 2021/22 simply to get the beginner’s area away from the base and eliminate the former Headwall slope tangle of chairlifts and conveyor belts. (In 2007 Headwall underwent some grading to eliminate its double fall-line.) Getting beginners used to dealing with chairlifts, with safety uppermost, was the most likely reason for the Greenhorn Ranch Express with its automatic safety bars. And yes, it replaced the Rough Rider Basin Doppelmayr platter (“poma”) lift, which appears to have gotten a new lease on life. Steamboat now just has three lifts to get passengers out of the base area and bring them back if desired.
It was my hope to be healthy enough to make it up to Steamboat this past season but I had to settle for watching the webcams daily instead. From what I could see, The Gondola, CPE, and Wild Blue handled things BEAUTIFULLY for keeping the base area less congested. A good testament to the workers there.
Steamboat might be the only major ski area with just one base area. Others such as Aspen, Keystone, and Breckenridge have two or more where one can buy tickets and board a lift. We didn’t start out that way. We had the Christie base, with one, later two fixed-grip chairlifts, to be followed in 1970 by the gondola base. In 2001 the Christie ticket office/ski patrol building was razed to allow expansion of the Christie Club condominium units. The Christie Peak Express was installed in 2007. The Christie III triple-chair (Lift Engineering (YAN 1979)) would hang on till its removal in 2022. That’s how we lost our first base area.
Not a criticism here. . .genuinely curious what your threshold is for “major”? In thinking this through, I bet there aren’t many, but I can think of Crystal, Mission (for now), Timberline Lodge, A Basin, Bridger, Snowbasin (despite attempts, they still aren’t a true multi-base area joint), and Targhee off the top of my head. Mission is 2000+ acres, TLine not so big but super important in the scheme of things, et cetera.
I’ve come to define a major ski area by not so much the number of lifts, runs, and acreage but it’s where the base area, where you board lifts, has been completely walled off by hotels, condos, restaurants, shops, office buildings, etc. You don’t really encounter any snow, what you plan to ski/ride on, until you’re walking on it.
Most large Canadian ski resorts also have one base, such as Lake Louise, Sunshine, Revelstoke, Kicking Horse, Fernie, Panorama, Castle, Silverstar…etc Lots of US ski resorts too.
Lift Blog 
I love this lift, Me, and my sister ride it all day!
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This lift is really fun!
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This little pulley system has been closed this season. Unless for once or twice possibly for the holidays but every time I’ve checked the Steamboat website it has been listed as closed. It ran somewhat regularly last year but is still considered a secondary lift.
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It will probably be removed with the installation of the Wild Blue gondola because there will probably be a new quad chair that is maybe slightly longer to replace this platter.
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This is going to be pretty short for a high speed quad. Then again, this map suggests the Rough Rider Express will be on a slightly longer alignment.
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looks like this lift is going to be used to reopen Dutch Hill Ski Area in Leadville. It’ll be used by Colorado Mountain College for training as well. Colorado Sun posted a story on it today.
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I was waiting to see when someone would notice this.
You have it sort of backwards- we will utilise it first and foremost as a training lift, and the local ski teams will be able to spin laps on it as well. The possibility of having it open to the public is there, but we need to work with the county before we can do that. I’m looking forward to having a lift that I can just take my students to and work on it. I enjoy the partnerships we have with other ski areas but it’s difficult to do true hands-on work at someone else’s place (we mechanics get territorial).
Regardless of how it works out we’ll have a huge new piece of the programme here on campus. I’m really excited. I’ve already been going over the lift and its components, and I have next spring’s maintenance class outline already. Hope my students are prepared to get dirty :)
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Article is a bit confusing. Headline mentioned “small chairlift” then says “platter chairs” and “surface chairlift” in the article. I had to look it up on here because I remember this lift being a poma and not a chairlift. Anyway good to see it used to reopen a small area for training, racing, and maybe general skiing!
LikeLike
Greenhorn Ranch was developed in 2021/22 simply to get the beginner’s area away from the base and eliminate the former Headwall slope tangle of chairlifts and conveyor belts. (In 2007 Headwall underwent some grading to eliminate its double fall-line.) Getting beginners used to dealing with chairlifts, with safety uppermost, was the most likely reason for the Greenhorn Ranch Express with its automatic safety bars. And yes, it replaced the Rough Rider Basin Doppelmayr platter (“poma”) lift, which appears to have gotten a new lease on life. Steamboat now just has three lifts to get passengers out of the base area and bring them back if desired.
Bill Fetcher
Steamboat Springs
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It was my hope to be healthy enough to make it up to Steamboat this past season but I had to settle for watching the webcams daily instead. From what I could see, The Gondola, CPE, and Wild Blue handled things BEAUTIFULLY for keeping the base area less congested. A good testament to the workers there.
LikeLike
Steamboat might be the only major ski area with just one base area. Others such as Aspen, Keystone, and Breckenridge have two or more where one can buy tickets and board a lift. We didn’t start out that way. We had the Christie base, with one, later two fixed-grip chairlifts, to be followed in 1970 by the gondola base. In 2001 the Christie ticket office/ski patrol building was razed to allow expansion of the Christie Club condominium units. The Christie Peak Express was installed in 2007. The Christie III triple-chair (Lift Engineering (YAN 1979)) would hang on till its removal in 2022. That’s how we lost our first base area.
Bill Fetcher
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Not a criticism here. . .genuinely curious what your threshold is for “major”? In thinking this through, I bet there aren’t many, but I can think of Crystal, Mission (for now), Timberline Lodge, A Basin, Bridger, Snowbasin (despite attempts, they still aren’t a true multi-base area joint), and Targhee off the top of my head. Mission is 2000+ acres, TLine not so big but super important in the scheme of things, et cetera.
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Joe:
I’ve come to define a major ski area by not so much the number of lifts, runs, and acreage but it’s where the base area, where you board lifts, has been completely walled off by hotels, condos, restaurants, shops, office buildings, etc. You don’t really encounter any snow, what you plan to ski/ride on, until you’re walking on it.
Bill
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Most large Canadian ski resorts also have one base, such as Lake Louise, Sunshine, Revelstoke, Kicking Horse, Fernie, Panorama, Castle, Silverstar…etc Lots of US ski resorts too.
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