Do you know anything about the status of new lifts at Stevens Pass? It seems like they are due for quite the upgrade in the lift department. Now that their lift tickets are almost the same price as Crystal, you would think that they would invest that money into lift infrastructure.
I’m aware of the link you provided, thanks though. I was more curious about the timeline of these new lifts. Will these new lifts be 5, 10, even 20 years down the line?
Stevens Pass’ assets are owned by EPR Properties (a hedge fund) and they are the ones responsible for any capital improvements. The difference between Stevens Pass Ski Area and EPR Properties is that Stevens Pass is the operator and EPR the owner and if EPR doesn’t feel capital improvements will increase its bottom line, no new lifts are on the horizon. The best part is that if the USFS permit expires for an expansion or new lift, the resort has to refile and do a complete new environmental protection study which is not cheap. Usually a permit is good for 10 years, but before you can get final approval, you have to meet a certain amount of skier visits.
That’s a shame. Brooks being turquoise and Daisy being purple was one of the cool things about Stevens. I suppose now that VR owns them everything will be that same nondescript shade of grey.
It should also be noted that the Skyline Express and Hogsback Express chairlifts were repainted to have the same color scheme as Jupiter Express, and also have new, larger lift shacks that are also painted in that color scheme.
I was just at Steven’s Pass. I was told they usually run Kehr’s between 440-470, and more frequently on the low end. I suspect 450 should be a reasonable average.
Does anyone recall which double riblet was yellow in the past at Stevens? I purchased one of the surplus Brooks chairs and under the black paint is yellow. Trying to figure out where it cam from, as Brooks was not yellow as far as I remember.
I was trying to find old Stevens Pass pictures and I came across a forum on skilifts.org. Even though I logged in, I was unable to view the images. If someone has access to the forum, would they please reupload the images to Imgur or something so they are more accessible? Thanks. Here is the link.
There are quite a few older forum posts on skilifts that we have not been able to recover attachments from. The site went through lot over the years, some of which I don’t know all the details, but unfortunately some of the data are lost. I tried accessing it through my admin account but no joy.
If you didn’t create an account before it died, you’re pretty much out of luck, as it will never send the verification email. Apparently the site was run by a guy named Bill, but another guy named Cameron took all the pics and coded the site. It got super popular, but in 2009 Bill got in trouble with the law and sold the website to pay for a lawyer. The new owner locked Cameron out of the site and it hasn’t been updated since.
You can still create an account. The new owner is super busy with his real job, as are the rest of the administrative staff (of which, full disclosure, I’m one) but eventually a new account will be approved. The approval process is still manual as well, hence the delay. The forum has really transitioned to a maintenance and operations discussion- seems most of the folks not directly involved in the industry have come here instead. I’m not sure how much longer the site will operate as it has in the past because of that. There has been talk of pulling the plug on the public-access side and making the industry side the focus- at which point the name will change and skilifts.org will probably cease to exist. We’ll see.
Since there isn’t another relevant place to talk about skilifts.org account problems, I’m bringing it up here. I was able to create an account, but it doesn’t allow me to do anything with it. It will say on every forum that “You cannot reply to this topic” on forums that are clearly still going on and aren’t shut down. Is this an issue on by end, or skilifts.org’s end?
I see value in the forums, just since a ton of people know about the insider-y bits about the industry. Virtually all of my info on small, more local lift brands come from those forums, and I’ve been able to piece together info to make some pretty good biographies on plenty of lift brands. I happen to know the chairlift.org owner (Friend of my dad’s high school friend) and I’ve been giving him some info over the years, he’s got his own life and job and therefore can’t contribute much time to the site. I wrote up ~16 completely rewritten resort profiles for him and tons of pictures, planning to include rewritten brand info as well.
Sounds a lot like Vail is planning on axing Steven Pass’ mountain bike park. They won’t be operating again this summer despite dramatically reduced COVID-19 regulations. Stevens Pass is (was?) the only lift-served mountain biking in Washington State.
Sounds like they’re still waiting on permits so it could be an abbreviated season if they get the go-ahead.
Sure seems like Vail is just completely ceding summer operations in the PNW to Alterra and Boyne. And more than anything else, our regional resorts like Bachelor, Timberline, Mission Ridge, and Schweitzer. (Not that I’m complaining about that.)
It seems like another point locals are holding against Vail. They aren’t really loved anywhere, but no one seems to hate them quite like PNW locals. It feels like something needs to give; either Vail caves to the local demands at Stevens, they lose the core skier group to other mountains (Crystal), or Vail sells Stevens. The current situation seems a bit untenable to me.
The thing about Vail is that they put non-skiers/snowboarders run the mountain and those guys just mess things up. Vail does spend a fortune upgrading lifts but it isn’t that worth it if they just ruined the mountain. Alterra doesn’t spend as much money on their ski resorts but they actually care about you and they want the resorts to be how they were when Alterra didn’t own them. The best thing for us is that Vail sells Stevens and Alterra picks it up because then with the Ikon Pass you can visit Crystal, Stevens, and Snoqualmie.
Vail hasn’t exactly developed Stevens either. Sure they upgraded Brooks and Daisy but Stevens desperately needs an updated lodge, expanded parking, more terrain (Northern Exposure and Grace Lakes in their master plan for example), and improved road situation (that’s on WSDOT but they can advocate for it).
I agree that the situation seems untenable. They’re really alienating a passionate base and are going to have to either recommit or accept that they’re going to get terrible overall performance out of this purchase. I think it’s extremely unlikely that they sell, but the current situation is really hurting their brand in the PNW. Some of the changes and ops challenges at Whistler certainly haven’t helped.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen an individual Vail-owned resort do anything like this. Acknowledging serious issues with operations so far this season. Of course, they don’t offer any solutions or proactive next steps, but it’s telling that they felt they needed to do this.
Just when you thought it was a resort doing something individually, they post a very similar statements for multiple resorts on the other side of the country :)
I should have known with Vail it would be a form-apology thing. It’s especially hard for me to see how this is sustainable in the PNW when all the other resorts aren’t having anywhere close to the same level of problems.
Stevens Pass is just a dumpster fire at this point. 2 of 4 lifts get evacuated due to power outages and Brooks is closed for “COVID restrictions” what a joke.
Anybody that’s familiar with the EPIC demise (detached corporate management with to many decisions made remotely at Broomfield and not at an individual resort) should not be surprised by Vail operations going from bad to worse
Kirk – “Act of God” is an insurance term; it just means unexplained. If Donald believes in God, well, that’s fine, too. Not dissing your take on Vail, they can take a flying f at a rolling doughnut. Alterra, too. Hadn’t been to CM since JK sold…uff da.
Found a circa late ‘50s photo of the old Barrier double. Riblet must have replaced the wooden portals at some point right? Hard to believe it lasted in this state into the ‘90s. https://ibb.co/Z2KVSSX
Great picture, interesting to see that Skyline lake & Yodelin are clear cut.
iirc, The portals were carryover from the T-bar. I think we can date this as 54-68 as Brooks doesn’t exist yet, very hard to tell it Big Chief is in the distance but I don’t think so (1964). With the amount of wear in the snow above the ramp, I think this is after 7th heaven was built (1960) as you would need to sidestep up to the rope tow from the top of Barrier. So my guess is 1960-1963
I have mentioned this on here before, but after this weekend’s mess it needs to be stated again: Stevens Pass needs to fix its transportation plan. Having free parking encourages people to drive, and the pass is not well suited for the amount of traffic this brings. Plus, with no on-site lodging, arrival and departure times are bunched and not spread out.
Take a lesson from Winter Park and run a ski train using the infrastructure that is already right there! Trains have a much higher capacity, do not cause congestion, and do not run into issues during bad weather. It could go from Seattle to Everett to the existing rail siding right before the tunnel in under 3 hours, with free resort shuttles able to take people the last mile (similar to Wachusett), for very minimal startup costs.
When they built the 2nd Cascade Tunnel there was a proposal for a station *inside* the tunnel at the Mill Creek access hole serving a winter resort. Imagine if they would have built that, the backside would have direct train access!
That would be a cool station, but from an engineering perspective, I understand why it was never built. I am not sure where that would be inside the tunnel, but getting people from tunnel level at ~2880 feet to the resort’s base at ~4060 feet entirely under a mountain would be a major challenge. Plus, having passengers embark and disembark a diesel train in a tunneled station like that would violate a number of health laws, so the entire line would need to be electrified.
Very cool, very complicated. Tunnel was electric trains until 1956 and there was an elevator system in place during construction. Elevation for the Mill Creek shaft is only 3400ft, so not too bad of an elevator. Would have probably led to a mega-resort spanning from Stevens Pass to Yodelin. One my favorite “could have been”s for the area.
There is a station in Japan called Doai that is mainly above-ground for regional trains, but there is an abominably long staircase (yes, no elevator) leading down into a tunnel. I think there may be some ski areas near it too. https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/doai-train-station
Also, there is a special Shinkansen station just for a ski area called Gala Yuzawa.
Today I noticed the Stevens Pass website uses some old, old pics of lifts long gone: Barrier Mountain, Blue Jay, and the ropes on Cowboy Mountain that pre-date Kehr’s Chair. I’d post them, but I can’t figure out how to attach a file (the “login” buttons don’t work. Email me if you’d like copies.
Because I have no life, I am going to be rating Stevens Pass. (This is peters job but whatever)
Snow. Stevens gets an insane amount of snowfall. Just insane. Its high elevation makes it even better, and in freezing temperatures, that snow sticks. I’m talking weeks after a massive snowstorm, you’re going to find some powder. All the east coasters complain “The pnw snow isn’t as good, it’s not as fluffy”. Yeah, whatever guys. Major exaggeration. You live in Seattle, you come to Stevens every weekend, you get used to it, and thats a good thing. 10/10 for snow.
Size. Stevens isn’t the biggest resort, and that’s for sure. But it doesn’t really matter, as the runs are nice and addicting. And unlike a resort like Whistler, Stevens actually uses most of its terrain as a skiable area, so Stevens is a lot bigger on the inside. Unfortunately, Stevens isn’t big enough to attract people outside of Washington, making Stevens a 6/10 for size.
Lifts. Steven’s pass does a decent job of covering all the terrain they need to with some lifts, unlike some certain resort I could mention (Whistler. They should probably be adding a Spanky’s lift or a Flute bowl lift, but what is vail coming up with ideas to reduce physical effort and training on the human body?”. Unfortunately, only 4 lifts in the resort enjoy high-speed lift service, with 1 of them having crowds so long you’d be better or taking slow, detachable lifts to get you to your destination (talking about hogsback – tye mill for backside, kehrs + double diamond is far superior in that regard). And personally, I don’t think Steven’s is giving the right lifts high-speed lift service. Kehr’s Chair was for the longest time an old double, and they recently made it a quad but as the main lift on the Big Chief Side, Kehr’s should be detachable. Hogsback at this point needs to be a high-speed 6, and tye mill could use an upgrade, possibly joining with Jupiter for an up and over chairlift like Double Diamond and Southern Cross. Speaking of which, those two should probably be a high-speed quad, given how long it takes to ride Southern Cross. All in all, Steven’s lifts arent the greatest, but they do their job and I am not forced to walk everywhere for legendary terrain (*cough* whistler *cough*). So… 5/10 for lifts
Size (People). I love Stevens Pass, but in no way can I claim that Stevens Pass is a tourist destination. It’s in a highway in Washington, and being real, who comes to Washington state for skiing? As someone who resides here (in Washington State), I can say however that for a casual local skier, the crowd’s Stevens Pass experience is interesting. Steven’s Pass has 8 main parking lots with some off to the side, and each parking lot is massive. However, they get filled up really quickly. But, if you visit on a weekday, you find little to no crowds. Strangely enough, Steven’s Pass is far more crowded on Saturdays than on Sundays’. If you want to ski at Stevens, Sunday is your best bet. But when you’re on the mountain, Steven’s becomes even more interesting. There will always be some lifts that are high in crowds and others with little-no crowds. All of the high-speed lifts have long lines, plus the Southern Cross lift. However, Double Diamond has no crowds whatsoever, and Kehr’s a really fun lift, also has no crowds. Thankfully, this makes for a good and enjoyable ski trip almost any time you go. Just not Saturday, please. Rating: 9/10
Facilities & Bases. This is quite self-explanatory. Steven’s has one main base area, with no sort of base anywhere else on the mountain whatsoever (Unless you count the tiny bathroom at the base of Jupiter & Southern Cross). I feel Steven’s one main base area provides more than enough considering Steven’s not massive size, but if you want a break mid-mountain, you’re out of luck. However, the one main base it does have has three seperate lodges: Tye Creek Lodge, Granite Peaks Lodge, and Pacific Crest Lodge. All of these lodges have shops and restaurants. Après ski is limited, but in the whole, it is sufficient for average skiers. Rating: 6/10
Mountain Aesthetics / Vibe: I just love Steven’s vibe. It provides everything you need for a ski resort, in a cozy area. It has a decent number of lifts and technologically advanced equipment, but still, it maintains its local and non-corporate vibe. Rating: 10/10
Navigation & Trail Markings: This is an interesting one. Major runs are properly marked with decent signals making the route clear, however insignificant and minor runs that show up on the map might not appear on trail markings, or frankly, not exist at all. Ex), Waterfall appears to be quite a long run under Brooks, but I have spent way too long trying to find it, and have still failed. Rating: 6/10.
Grooming Status. I love this about Stevens. They follow a strict schedule and live up to it. They maintain 1 or 2 groomed black runs, and have specific groomers on the mountain that are easy to rip down, but have mogul bowls higher up in the mountain that are ungroomed for that designated purpose. Rating: 10/10.
Variety in runs. Again, perfect. Want a nice, clean groomer? Skyline. Want a long, cruisy run with steep sections? Gemini. Want a steep, mogully run? Marmot Meadows. Want an open face? Aquarius. Want a nice and Easy run? Promenade. Want a really steep run? Wild Katz. Want a narrow tree run? South face on Mill Valley. Want a mogully run? Pegasus. Plenty of options to keep you entertained no matter what type of skier you are, or what type of difficulty you enjoy. Rating : 10/10.
Challenge. Solid job on this one, Stevens. You maintain some really hard double-black terrain, while always having some transitional runs between levels. Wild Katz is the hardest listed run on the resort, while Polaris Bowl is the hardest named one. However, you have runs like Double Diamond to get skiers transitioning from blacks to double-blacks. Unfortunately, you don’t have those crazy insane steeps that some people need for a good time, but you have more than enough. Rating:9/10.
So when you add everything up, Stevens comes to an 81%, giving you the #1 in washington. Solid job!
Lift Blog 
When you try to access the skyline express pictures it redirects you to a wordpress login.
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Should be fixed now, thanks.
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Do you know anything about the status of new lifts at Stevens Pass? It seems like they are due for quite the upgrade in the lift department. Now that their lift tickets are almost the same price as Crystal, you would think that they would invest that money into lift infrastructure.
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It’s true Crystal has built ~$30 million in new lifts since 1997 while Stevens has trailed that considerably. The approved master plan has fixed-grip quads replacing the Kehr’s and Brooks Riblets along with new lifts called Grace Lake, Northern Exposure and Katz. https://www.stevenspass.com/site/mountain/info/future-plans/MDP_Fig4-1_MountainMasterPlan_Existing%26Builtout%28100%29.pdf
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I’m aware of the link you provided, thanks though. I was more curious about the timeline of these new lifts. Will these new lifts be 5, 10, even 20 years down the line?
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Stevens Pass’ assets are owned by EPR Properties (a hedge fund) and they are the ones responsible for any capital improvements. The difference between Stevens Pass Ski Area and EPR Properties is that Stevens Pass is the operator and EPR the owner and if EPR doesn’t feel capital improvements will increase its bottom line, no new lifts are on the horizon. The best part is that if the USFS permit expires for an expansion or new lift, the resort has to refile and do a complete new environmental protection study which is not cheap. Usually a permit is good for 10 years, but before you can get final approval, you have to meet a certain amount of skier visits.
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Both Brooks and Daisy have both received new paint on the chairs. Both lifts now have gray colored chairs.
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That’s a shame. Brooks being turquoise and Daisy being purple was one of the cool things about Stevens. I suppose now that VR owns them everything will be that same nondescript shade of grey.
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It should also be noted that the Skyline Express and Hogsback Express chairlifts were repainted to have the same color scheme as Jupiter Express, and also have new, larger lift shacks that are also painted in that color scheme.
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Did the old Jupiter end up at another mountain?
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I think it is in storage for future use at Stevens. At least pre-Vail it was. Will need new tower tubes in its new home.
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I wonder if they’ll use that for the new Daisy quad, assuming they still have it.
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It might be going to Mission Ridge.
I’ve heard that Mission bought a lift from Stevens a few years ago for Windy Ridge.
At this point, it’s just a rumor, though.
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How much shorter is Skyline with the movement of the bottom terminal to accommodate the Brooks Express?
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I was just at Steven’s Pass. I was told they usually run Kehr’s between 440-470, and more frequently on the low end. I suspect 450 should be a reasonable average.
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Does anyone recall which double riblet was yellow in the past at Stevens? I purchased one of the surplus Brooks chairs and under the black paint is yellow. Trying to figure out where it cam from, as Brooks was not yellow as far as I remember.
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Big Chief as I recall. Barrier was red, Blue Jay was blue, Brooks was that teal color.
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I was trying to find old Stevens Pass pictures and I came across a forum on skilifts.org. Even though I logged in, I was unable to view the images. If someone has access to the forum, would they please reupload the images to Imgur or something so they are more accessible? Thanks. Here is the link.
http://www.skilifts.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=816
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There are quite a few older forum posts on skilifts that we have not been able to recover attachments from. The site went through lot over the years, some of which I don’t know all the details, but unfortunately some of the data are lost. I tried accessing it through my admin account but no joy.
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If you didn’t create an account before it died, you’re pretty much out of luck, as it will never send the verification email. Apparently the site was run by a guy named Bill, but another guy named Cameron took all the pics and coded the site. It got super popular, but in 2009 Bill got in trouble with the law and sold the website to pay for a lawyer. The new owner locked Cameron out of the site and it hasn’t been updated since.
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Fun fact: I made an offer to buy Skilifts.org in 2015 but it was declined and that’s when I started Lift Blog.
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I made an account in January and it worked for me somehow. I dont know how it took me multiple tries though.
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You can still create an account. The new owner is super busy with his real job, as are the rest of the administrative staff (of which, full disclosure, I’m one) but eventually a new account will be approved. The approval process is still manual as well, hence the delay. The forum has really transitioned to a maintenance and operations discussion- seems most of the folks not directly involved in the industry have come here instead. I’m not sure how much longer the site will operate as it has in the past because of that. There has been talk of pulling the plug on the public-access side and making the industry side the focus- at which point the name will change and skilifts.org will probably cease to exist. We’ll see.
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Also, Bill took many of the photos, and I had a few as well.
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skilifts.org claims I have an account and when I sign in with the right email and password it claims it’s wrong or the account does not exist.
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Since there isn’t another relevant place to talk about skilifts.org account problems, I’m bringing it up here. I was able to create an account, but it doesn’t allow me to do anything with it. It will say on every forum that “You cannot reply to this topic” on forums that are clearly still going on and aren’t shut down. Is this an issue on by end, or skilifts.org’s end?
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I see value in the forums, just since a ton of people know about the insider-y bits about the industry. Virtually all of my info on small, more local lift brands come from those forums, and I’ve been able to piece together info to make some pretty good biographies on plenty of lift brands. I happen to know the chairlift.org owner (Friend of my dad’s high school friend) and I’ve been giving him some info over the years, he’s got his own life and job and therefore can’t contribute much time to the site. I wrote up ~16 completely rewritten resort profiles for him and tons of pictures, planning to include rewritten brand info as well.
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Wheres the master plan? Cant find it
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Here
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Thanks
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Sounds a lot like Vail is planning on axing Steven Pass’ mountain bike park. They won’t be operating again this summer despite dramatically reduced COVID-19 regulations. Stevens Pass is (was?) the only lift-served mountain biking in Washington State.
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I think Snoqualmie Pass is going to open this summer.
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Sounds like they’re still waiting on permits so it could be an abbreviated season if they get the go-ahead.
Sure seems like Vail is just completely ceding summer operations in the PNW to Alterra and Boyne. And more than anything else, our regional resorts like Bachelor, Timberline, Mission Ridge, and Schweitzer. (Not that I’m complaining about that.)
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It seems like another point locals are holding against Vail. They aren’t really loved anywhere, but no one seems to hate them quite like PNW locals. It feels like something needs to give; either Vail caves to the local demands at Stevens, they lose the core skier group to other mountains (Crystal), or Vail sells Stevens. The current situation seems a bit untenable to me.
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The thing about Vail is that they put non-skiers/snowboarders run the mountain and those guys just mess things up. Vail does spend a fortune upgrading lifts but it isn’t that worth it if they just ruined the mountain. Alterra doesn’t spend as much money on their ski resorts but they actually care about you and they want the resorts to be how they were when Alterra didn’t own them. The best thing for us is that Vail sells Stevens and Alterra picks it up because then with the Ikon Pass you can visit Crystal, Stevens, and Snoqualmie.
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Vail hasn’t exactly developed Stevens either. Sure they upgraded Brooks and Daisy but Stevens desperately needs an updated lodge, expanded parking, more terrain (Northern Exposure and Grace Lakes in their master plan for example), and improved road situation (that’s on WSDOT but they can advocate for it).
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I agree that the situation seems untenable. They’re really alienating a passionate base and are going to have to either recommit or accept that they’re going to get terrible overall performance out of this purchase. I think it’s extremely unlikely that they sell, but the current situation is really hurting their brand in the PNW. Some of the changes and ops challenges at Whistler certainly haven’t helped.
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New-ish (2020) comline on a skid at the top of Double Diamond/Southern Cross. Length of cable indicates a replacement for that combo-chair.
Didn’t take a photo, but half of Hogsback’s chairs were on the service rail too (as many as they can fit)
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I don’t think I’ve ever seen an individual Vail-owned resort do anything like this. Acknowledging serious issues with operations so far this season. Of course, they don’t offer any solutions or proactive next steps, but it’s telling that they felt they needed to do this.
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Just when you thought it was a resort doing something individually, they post a very similar statements for multiple resorts on the other side of the country :)
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I should have known with Vail it would be a form-apology thing. It’s especially hard for me to see how this is sustainable in the PNW when all the other resorts aren’t having anywhere close to the same level of problems.
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very telling this generic AF “apology” is only from competitive markets… nothing from the midwest where they have very strong market share.
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Obvious username is obvious.
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Seems like classic Corporate detached management from Broomfield.
Stevens Pass is going to be a tougher nut to crack from them.
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Stevens Pass is just a dumpster fire at this point. 2 of 4 lifts get evacuated due to power outages and Brooks is closed for “COVID restrictions” what a joke.
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Power outages caused by downed trees isn’t exactly something the resort can do much about.
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Rope evacuations caused by power failures are exactly the kinds of things the resort can do something about.
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There are only so many kinds of irregular operations they can have contingencies for.
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Anybody that’s familiar with the EPIC demise (detached corporate management with to many decisions made remotely at Broomfield and not at an individual resort) should not be surprised by Vail operations going from bad to worse
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Downed trees are not their fault because that’s more an act of God than anything.
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So you think GOD caused the tree to fall on the powerline? Would love to to know your reasoning or see some evidence of that.
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Kirk – “Act of God” is an insurance term; it just means unexplained. If Donald believes in God, well, that’s fine, too. Not dissing your take on Vail, they can take a flying f at a rolling doughnut. Alterra, too. Hadn’t been to CM since JK sold…uff da.
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Found a circa late ‘50s photo of the old Barrier double. Riblet must have replaced the wooden portals at some point right? Hard to believe it lasted in this state into the ‘90s. https://ibb.co/Z2KVSSX
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Great picture, interesting to see that Skyline lake & Yodelin are clear cut.
iirc, The portals were carryover from the T-bar. I think we can date this as 54-68 as Brooks doesn’t exist yet, very hard to tell it Big Chief is in the distance but I don’t think so (1964). With the amount of wear in the snow above the ramp, I think this is after 7th heaven was built (1960) as you would need to sidestep up to the rope tow from the top of Barrier. So my guess is 1960-1963
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I have mentioned this on here before, but after this weekend’s mess it needs to be stated again: Stevens Pass needs to fix its transportation plan. Having free parking encourages people to drive, and the pass is not well suited for the amount of traffic this brings. Plus, with no on-site lodging, arrival and departure times are bunched and not spread out.
Take a lesson from Winter Park and run a ski train using the infrastructure that is already right there! Trains have a much higher capacity, do not cause congestion, and do not run into issues during bad weather. It could go from Seattle to Everett to the existing rail siding right before the tunnel in under 3 hours, with free resort shuttles able to take people the last mile (similar to Wachusett), for very minimal startup costs.
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When they built the 2nd Cascade Tunnel there was a proposal for a station *inside* the tunnel at the Mill Creek access hole serving a winter resort. Imagine if they would have built that, the backside would have direct train access!
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That would be a cool station, but from an engineering perspective, I understand why it was never built. I am not sure where that would be inside the tunnel, but getting people from tunnel level at ~2880 feet to the resort’s base at ~4060 feet entirely under a mountain would be a major challenge. Plus, having passengers embark and disembark a diesel train in a tunneled station like that would violate a number of health laws, so the entire line would need to be electrified.
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Very cool, very complicated. Tunnel was electric trains until 1956 and there was an elevator system in place during construction. Elevation for the Mill Creek shaft is only 3400ft, so not too bad of an elevator. Would have probably led to a mega-resort spanning from Stevens Pass to Yodelin. One my favorite “could have been”s for the area.
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There is a station in Japan called Doai that is mainly above-ground for regional trains, but there is an abominably long staircase (yes, no elevator) leading down into a tunnel. I think there may be some ski areas near it too.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/doai-train-station
Also, there is a special Shinkansen station just for a ski area called Gala Yuzawa.
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Slight error, the removal date for the Hogsback triple should read 1998 not 1988.
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Today I noticed the Stevens Pass website uses some old, old pics of lifts long gone: Barrier Mountain, Blue Jay, and the ropes on Cowboy Mountain that pre-date Kehr’s Chair. I’d post them, but I can’t figure out how to attach a file (the “login” buttons don’t work. Email me if you’d like copies.
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Here is the snapshot from Stevens Pass’s website on the wayback machine from this time period, for anyone interested.
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Because I have no life, I am going to be rating Stevens Pass. (This is peters job but whatever)
So when you add everything up, Stevens comes to an 81%, giving you the #1 in washington. Solid job!
*I have no life.
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Could you do The Summit at Snoqualmie next?
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