Upper lift line.Another view down the line.Top towers and terminal.Upper station.Drive terminal.Looking down from the top.Lower lift line.Bottom terminal with 90-degree loading and chair parking rail.Doppelmayr Uni terminal.Doppelmayr Worldbook entry.
Capacity is listed at 1500pph, giving a carrier spacing of 49 meters. There are also some carriers missing in the pictures. At 2800pph quad has spacing of 25.7 m
This lift reused the same towers as Blossom, the Riblet double chair that was replaced by this lift. They reinforced the towers but that is the most likely reason for less chairs due to loads. Molly’s and Palmer also reused the towers from the preexisting Riblet double chairs before they were upgraded to high speed quads. Molly’s for sure has larger chair spacing similar to Stormin Norman. Molly’s replaced the Victoria Station lift. When Pucci was replaced in 2020 they also reused the towers from when it was a triple chair. At Timberline the only two high speed quads that did not reuse towers are Magic Mile and Jeff Flood as Magic Mile had a slightly different alignment to the Riblet double chair it replaced and Jeff Flood was a completely new lift that opened up new terrain.
Also take a look at the first comment on this page. Since new this lift has always had large chair spacing. They also change the direction of the lift with Blossom having a counter-clockwise rotation and Stormin Norman having clockwise. I assume it was to allow for the 90 degree loading.
Short answer is there was a Riblet double Palmer before the high speed quad. The high speed quad reused the towers and some of the infrastructure from the Riblet double. For more details see below.
All the towers except for maybe tower 1 on Palmer were reused from the Riblet double built in 1978. The towers were reinforced with the tripods after the first year due to some of the towers snapping over the first winter. The current Doppelmayr quad replaced it in 1996.
The lower terminal of the Riblet was an overhead drive and tension. The lower terminal was built on top of the vault that the current Palmer is on. For the new lower terminal they added the new drive and built a snow shed on top of the vault. The thick timber decking inside the lower terminal was the loading deck for the old lift.
The mid station existed on the old lift and they reused the same loading ramp. The shack at the mid load station when looking right from the lift was the mid station operator shack for the Riblet lift.
The new top terminal was built back from the old Riblet terminal into the mountain and a snow shed built over the top and placed chair parking in the top terminal.
The two towers at the top of Palmer before you go into the snow shed with cross bracing between the them was where the offload ramp was and the bullwheel was just past those towers. The two additional vertical tubes on that between those towers extended higher and that allowed for four tower heads instead of the two on the current Doppelmayr.
The old Riblet Palmer did not have snow sheds on either the bottom or top terminals. It also ran counter clockwise compared to the the high speed quad running clockwise.
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Installed on the towers of the old Riblet double? Makes sense why this lift and Molly’s have much lower capacities than the usual detachable quads…
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Same would go for the Sunrise Express at Bachelor, which reused the Yan tower tubes from a triple chairlift.
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The Stormin’ Mormon lift is approved by the Church of Powder Day Saints.
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Why is the chair spacing so far apart?
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Probably wind reasons
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Not for wind. Looks like it’s every fifth chair missing in these photos, so they were doing NDT.
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Capacity is listed at 1500pph, giving a carrier spacing of 49 meters. There are also some carriers missing in the pictures. At 2800pph quad has spacing of 25.7 m
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This lift reused the same towers as Blossom, the Riblet double chair that was replaced by this lift. They reinforced the towers but that is the most likely reason for less chairs due to loads. Molly’s and Palmer also reused the towers from the preexisting Riblet double chairs before they were upgraded to high speed quads. Molly’s for sure has larger chair spacing similar to Stormin Norman. Molly’s replaced the Victoria Station lift. When Pucci was replaced in 2020 they also reused the towers from when it was a triple chair. At Timberline the only two high speed quads that did not reuse towers are Magic Mile and Jeff Flood as Magic Mile had a slightly different alignment to the Riblet double chair it replaced and Jeff Flood was a completely new lift that opened up new terrain.
Also take a look at the first comment on this page. Since new this lift has always had large chair spacing. They also change the direction of the lift with Blossom having a counter-clockwise rotation and Stormin Norman having clockwise. I assume it was to allow for the 90 degree loading.
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What about Palmer? That was a new lift?
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Short answer is there was a Riblet double Palmer before the high speed quad. The high speed quad reused the towers and some of the infrastructure from the Riblet double. For more details see below.
All the towers except for maybe tower 1 on Palmer were reused from the Riblet double built in 1978. The towers were reinforced with the tripods after the first year due to some of the towers snapping over the first winter. The current Doppelmayr quad replaced it in 1996.
The lower terminal of the Riblet was an overhead drive and tension. The lower terminal was built on top of the vault that the current Palmer is on. For the new lower terminal they added the new drive and built a snow shed on top of the vault. The thick timber decking inside the lower terminal was the loading deck for the old lift.
The mid station existed on the old lift and they reused the same loading ramp. The shack at the mid load station when looking right from the lift was the mid station operator shack for the Riblet lift.
The new top terminal was built back from the old Riblet terminal into the mountain and a snow shed built over the top and placed chair parking in the top terminal.
The two towers at the top of Palmer before you go into the snow shed with cross bracing between the them was where the offload ramp was and the bullwheel was just past those towers. The two additional vertical tubes on that between those towers extended higher and that allowed for four tower heads instead of the two on the current Doppelmayr.
The old Riblet Palmer did not have snow sheds on either the bottom or top terminals. It also ran counter clockwise compared to the the high speed quad running clockwise.
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I stand corrected.
Thank you for all this information about Palmer and Timberline Lodge in general.
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