Lift line.Garaventa six-passenger chair.Tower 22 looking up.Bottom terminal and towers.Garaventa CTEC Stealth top terminal.Arriving up top.Bottom station and lift line.Top terminal, lift shack and maintenance rail.Another view of the bottom return station.Top terminal from below.Looking down the very long lift line.In this photo taken from The Headwaters, the turn is obvious.Doppelmayr Worldbook entry.
Because it’s not a Doppelmayr. It was built during the short period when the two companies were under the same name but operating separately. Doppelmayr and CTEC built their own products at their own facility but both were sold as Doppelmayr-CTEC.
Thank you for clearing that up, and I apologize for the misinformation. Their must have been a communication error between myself and a friend who was there at the time of it.
I really like the idea of the second lift. It would really leave Lone Tree to only be a lift to lap the steeps off of. It will be REALLY nice to have a second lift out of that base area. Six Shooter just isn’t enough. I wonder what they’d do about the current 6er though.
But if you do that you only get the benefits of a new lift on that side, you still have to ride the freezing and long six shooter to get back to big sky. If you do the mid station you pay more for the one lift but you effectively removed the need for a second lift and all the terrain has bubble coverage. Six shooter right now only does 1800 pph and it never runs full speed so a 3000-3200 six pack bubble would cover that side just fine, plus you could re-align Lone tree and keep it there so you could still lap Obsidian and Dont tell mama.
Detachable midstations are incredibly expensive; it’s rare to see non-gondola lifts with one of them, let alone multiple. A midstation is essentially the line equipment of an entire terminal (minus bullwheels) per side direction of lift – if both the uphill and downhill side goes through there (as is usually necessary for a significant direction change) the station needs two sets of acceleration/deceleration equipment. By the time you’re having multiple midstations it almost always makes more sense to just build multiple lifts, even if those lifts are all detachable.
They desperately need to increase capacity on this lift, whether that’s adding more chairs or replacing it. There was a 45 minute line for this lift this morning and they weren’t even running this lift at full speed. There was 14 second chair spacing making the capacity 1540 pph which, as the only lift out of Moonlight Basin and for the amount of terrain it serves, is just way too low.
The 5 minute line has been a myth this weekend. Today I waited a long time for Six Shooter and yesterday I waited 10 for Ramcharger and I’ve waited 15-20 several times for Swift Current (although since as you said that’s being replaced it doesn’t really count). Covid wasn’t reducing capacity either; they were fully loading every chair.
I was at big sky yesterday and they were definitely not loading every chair to capacity. Ramcharger was loading 3-5 per chair and swifty had loads of 2s and 3s. Didn’t get over to six shooter but that lift often doesn’t run full speed so I wouldn’t be surprised if it had a huge line, especially with how they are loading chairs these days.
Really? Every time I’ve been over there they’ve been loading 4 on every single Swift Current chair, and they were fully loading ramcharger when the lines were bad on Saturday.
I know from various sources within the resort that BS will replace this lift with a D-line six moving 3200pph at some point in the future as this lift is the definition of a mainline lift and is critical to the product on the north side and future expansions on Moonlight. I expect they will reuse the existing lift in a shorter peripheral location such as on Flatiron mountain or in the Ice house area of moonlight as these Stealth 3 detachables are solid machines, but there is some debate as this lift could also be sent east to a boyne resort that has similar Garaventa Ctec equipment…. I just hope the replacement is moving to up in priority as the last two seasons the lines have been getting ridiculous even when they stack 5-6 a chair and keep the wheel turning.
I believe this lift is a bottom drive.
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It is. All the lifts at Moonlight are bottom drive except for Pony.
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Why did Doppelmayr use Stealth terminals on this?
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Because it’s not a Doppelmayr. It was built during the short period when the two companies were under the same name but operating separately. Doppelmayr and CTEC built their own products at their own facility but both were sold as Doppelmayr-CTEC.
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I heard that patrol had to perform a rope evac off of Six Shooter yesterday, over a mechanical issue. Has anyone else heard anything about this?
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https://twitter.com/bigskyresort/status/1081282963369672704
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Didn’t they rope evac Six Shooter last March too?
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I believe so
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No. There was no rope evac. They were able to get everyone off of it. I was there.
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Thank you for clearing that up, and I apologize for the misinformation. Their must have been a communication error between myself and a friend who was there at the time of it.
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Are they going to put bubble chairs on this?
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Not without some major infrastructure overhaul and maybe complete replacement of the terminals and sheaves.
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I Beleive That That Lift is Slated To Be Replaced With D-Line Technology 6 Pack.
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Come on Paul, you’re not fooling anyone.
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opt 1
build second lift where moonlight wanted to build before bankruptcy
opt 2
replace 6 shooter, bubbles and heated seats, and mid at top of current then extend to the top of lone tree
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I really like the idea of the second lift. It would really leave Lone Tree to only be a lift to lap the steeps off of. It will be REALLY nice to have a second lift out of that base area. Six Shooter just isn’t enough. I wonder what they’d do about the current 6er though.
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The midstation route seems impractical. It would be more practical to just build a new lift and keep the others as is.
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But if you do that you only get the benefits of a new lift on that side, you still have to ride the freezing and long six shooter to get back to big sky. If you do the mid station you pay more for the one lift but you effectively removed the need for a second lift and all the terrain has bubble coverage. Six shooter right now only does 1800 pph and it never runs full speed so a 3000-3200 six pack bubble would cover that side just fine, plus you could re-align Lone tree and keep it there so you could still lap Obsidian and Dont tell mama.
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A two lift option would increase flexibility in the event Six Shooter goes down or whatever.
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That is true, however it would still leave skiers stranded on that side of the mountain.
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If they could find a way to get it to the base of the tram, like going over the ridge or multiple midstations.
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Maybe another lift going to the base of the Horseshoe Bowl.
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Detachable midstations are incredibly expensive; it’s rare to see non-gondola lifts with one of them, let alone multiple. A midstation is essentially the line equipment of an entire terminal (minus bullwheels) per side direction of lift – if both the uphill and downhill side goes through there (as is usually necessary for a significant direction change) the station needs two sets of acceleration/deceleration equipment. By the time you’re having multiple midstations it almost always makes more sense to just build multiple lifts, even if those lifts are all detachable.
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They desperately need to increase capacity on this lift, whether that’s adding more chairs or replacing it. There was a 45 minute line for this lift this morning and they weren’t even running this lift at full speed. There was 14 second chair spacing making the capacity 1540 pph which, as the only lift out of Moonlight Basin and for the amount of terrain it serves, is just way too low.
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So much for Big Sky advertising no lines for lifts. They were replacing Swift Current because the line exceeded 5 minutes!
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The 5 minute line has been a myth this weekend. Today I waited a long time for Six Shooter and yesterday I waited 10 for Ramcharger and I’ve waited 15-20 several times for Swift Current (although since as you said that’s being replaced it doesn’t really count). Covid wasn’t reducing capacity either; they were fully loading every chair.
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I was at big sky yesterday and they were definitely not loading every chair to capacity. Ramcharger was loading 3-5 per chair and swifty had loads of 2s and 3s. Didn’t get over to six shooter but that lift often doesn’t run full speed so I wouldn’t be surprised if it had a huge line, especially with how they are loading chairs these days.
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Really? Every time I’ve been over there they’ve been loading 4 on every single Swift Current chair, and they were fully loading ramcharger when the lines were bad on Saturday.
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I know from various sources within the resort that BS will replace this lift with a D-line six moving 3200pph at some point in the future as this lift is the definition of a mainline lift and is critical to the product on the north side and future expansions on Moonlight. I expect they will reuse the existing lift in a shorter peripheral location such as on Flatiron mountain or in the Ice house area of moonlight as these Stealth 3 detachables are solid machines, but there is some debate as this lift could also be sent east to a boyne resort that has similar Garaventa Ctec equipment…. I just hope the replacement is moving to up in priority as the last two seasons the lines have been getting ridiculous even when they stack 5-6 a chair and keep the wheel turning.
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