The Sunrise Express provides the primary access out of the Sun Bowl base area.Stealth III terminal, one of four built at Stratton in 2001.Tower 1.Extensive parking area.Grip maintenance shed.Overview of the parking setup.Lift line above the base area.Unloading area.Garaventa CTEC pedestal controls.Stealth IV top station.Terminal under skin.Towers 14 and 15.Looking up at the last two towers.
I feel like Sunrise runs more often than Shooting Star does. I think its maybe Sunrise is high enough for people to go to the main lodge and URSA and they can use either URSA, American Express to Snow Bowl or use the Gondola
Sunrise is scheduled to run all day every day that the lodge and terrain is open, unless on hold for maintenance or weather. Shooting Star runs 10-2 on weekdays and all day on weekends now. When URSA isn’t crowded, Shooting Star isn’t really needed as they are completely redundant. Before the replacement of Snow Bowl, they ran Shooting Star all day every day, but now that the new Snow Bowl runs daily, they don’t feel they need Shooting Star as much.
I think URSA got repainted too. I wonder why they don’t put all the chairs on this lift. AMEX, URSA, and Shooting Star have enough chairs for the full 3600 capacity.
Sunrise needs more capacity than Shooting Star though. I think Sunrise should be brought up to 3600 even if they have to remove chairs from Shooting Star to do it. Especially if snowmaking was added to the remaining trails down there. This would help bring traffic away from the main summit.
Sunrise broke down late today. I was doing laps on Shooting Star but from what I could tell it broke down for 20-30 minutes before they kicked it back on and got everyone off.
I’ve heard they had an issue with the electric motor . It has been pulled with a crane . And is currently being repaired. Also heard the problem was found by maintenance while it was operating and the decision was made to run the Apu to not further damage the motor.
Sunrise is an excellent lift, but there are two minor-ish changes Alterra/Stratton could do to make it even better.
1) The bottom terminal is too high up by about 10-20 feet. It is above the Sun Bowl Lodge and the trails that feed into it from all directions. If you have some speed there is no issue, but otherwise, it creates a hike for skiers/boarders, a disproportionate number of whom are younger and/or not as strong (given that they have little speed). The entire queue area would also need to be regraded at a lower elevation, as it is at the same height as the terminal, but given that it was regraded years ago to be flat and at the terminal’s height, it should be feasible to do the same in reverse.
2) This lift rarely has any wind issues, maybe a couple of times per year, but towers 9-13 are too high and get very cold compared to the rest of the line. The problem is quite simple: the terrain and trees dip down while the lift continues upward, creating a situation where those towers are taller than the ones prior, way beyond what is needed for clearance above the trail below. The solution would be to make these towers shorter and use combo assemblies to keep the lift down. A couple of the towers here already have combo assemblies and the towers themselves look as though they could be halved because they are spliced, although I am not sure if this means anything in terms of feasibility, ease, or practicality.
I agree with both of these being issues. Sunrise is fundamentally flawed in that you only can really approach it from a few trails without hiking (Lower Downeaster, Supertrail). This has been remedied a bit in the last few years with the addition of Sunbeam as a trail and the two side trails off Supertrail, but fundamentally there’s still really only 3 runs off this lift that aren’t a hassle to lap. Coming in from Kidderbrook is a giant hassle and coming in from the Solstice side manages to be pretty awful too.
I’m not sure dropping the hill would actually fix the issue though. The terminal itself already is halfway between Solstice and where lower kidderbrook spits out, and moving it anywhere but straight down would just make one of those hikes even worse. Assuming they did just level the hill and drop everything to ground level, it would be a lot better in all likelihood but still bad, since you’d still need to carry speed to get to it from the ends.
As for the wind, I completely agree that the top section needs to be dropped down. This lift is clutch on windy days. It running versus not running can make or break the whole ski experience. It’s very poorly designed, still better than the gondola though..
2) While I understand your point, the profile would need to be completely reengineered to make this happen, and that’s much more of a headache than Stratton is likely to take on for a small number of concerned customers on certain days. The current profile is likely engineered to run in more of a straight line specifically to avoid combos and unnecessary ups and downs.
Bottom operator shack is from 2012, and top shack along with Shooting Star’s bottom shack were replaced this summer with new ones similar to the ones at Snowbowl.
I know that the Stealth ran on Vonroll grips, the Stealth II on AK-4s, the Stealth III had an aesthetic change and ran on the AK-400s, but what about the Stealth IVs? Also, how can you have a Stealth III bottom terminal and a Stealth IV mountain terminal? I am very confused.
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I feel like Sunrise runs more often than Shooting Star does. I think its maybe Sunrise is high enough for people to go to the main lodge and URSA and they can use either URSA, American Express to Snow Bowl or use the Gondola
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Sunrise is scheduled to run all day every day that the lodge and terrain is open, unless on hold for maintenance or weather. Shooting Star runs 10-2 on weekdays and all day on weekends now. When URSA isn’t crowded, Shooting Star isn’t really needed as they are completely redundant. Before the replacement of Snow Bowl, they ran Shooting Star all day every day, but now that the new Snow Bowl runs daily, they don’t feel they need Shooting Star as much.
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What would the capacity be if they put every chair they had on the line?
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I think it’d be 3,600.
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Parts of the upper terminal were repainted this year. The outdoor controls are being renovated, and previously cracked buttons are being replaced.
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I think URSA got repainted too. I wonder why they don’t put all the chairs on this lift. AMEX, URSA, and Shooting Star have enough chairs for the full 3600 capacity.
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I know for a fact they keep some off in case Shooting Star needs a few. I dont think they store spares in the Shooting Star parking.
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Sunrise needs more capacity than Shooting Star though. I think Sunrise should be brought up to 3600 even if they have to remove chairs from Shooting Star to do it. Especially if snowmaking was added to the remaining trails down there. This would help bring traffic away from the main summit.
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It’s to prevent collisions, and because of this, max capacity is about 3300 instead of 3600 per hour
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Something happened with Sunrise’s motor because it has been running on auxiliary power this weekend like URSA did last season.
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Hopefully it’s not quite as slow as URSA on the diesel.
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Sunrise broke down late today. I was doing laps on Shooting Star but from what I could tell it broke down for 20-30 minutes before they kicked it back on and got everyone off.
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They better be prepared to run Solstice more.
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It’s closed today. Solstice is open. That’s going to cause some big lines at URSA.
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I heard that they “need a new part” for the lift. It’s also still listed as “closed” on the website. Looks like Solstice’s time to shine.
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I’ve heard they had an issue with the electric motor . It has been pulled with a crane . And is currently being repaired. Also heard the problem was found by maintenance while it was operating and the decision was made to run the Apu to not further damage the motor.
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Yep, and the APU is super loud. You can hear it from a quarter mile away.
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Sunrise is an excellent lift, but there are two minor-ish changes Alterra/Stratton could do to make it even better.
1) The bottom terminal is too high up by about 10-20 feet. It is above the Sun Bowl Lodge and the trails that feed into it from all directions. If you have some speed there is no issue, but otherwise, it creates a hike for skiers/boarders, a disproportionate number of whom are younger and/or not as strong (given that they have little speed). The entire queue area would also need to be regraded at a lower elevation, as it is at the same height as the terminal, but given that it was regraded years ago to be flat and at the terminal’s height, it should be feasible to do the same in reverse.
2) This lift rarely has any wind issues, maybe a couple of times per year, but towers 9-13 are too high and get very cold compared to the rest of the line. The problem is quite simple: the terrain and trees dip down while the lift continues upward, creating a situation where those towers are taller than the ones prior, way beyond what is needed for clearance above the trail below. The solution would be to make these towers shorter and use combo assemblies to keep the lift down. A couple of the towers here already have combo assemblies and the towers themselves look as though they could be halved because they are spliced, although I am not sure if this means anything in terms of feasibility, ease, or practicality.
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I agree with both of these being issues. Sunrise is fundamentally flawed in that you only can really approach it from a few trails without hiking (Lower Downeaster, Supertrail). This has been remedied a bit in the last few years with the addition of Sunbeam as a trail and the two side trails off Supertrail, but fundamentally there’s still really only 3 runs off this lift that aren’t a hassle to lap. Coming in from Kidderbrook is a giant hassle and coming in from the Solstice side manages to be pretty awful too.
I’m not sure dropping the hill would actually fix the issue though. The terminal itself already is halfway between Solstice and where lower kidderbrook spits out, and moving it anywhere but straight down would just make one of those hikes even worse. Assuming they did just level the hill and drop everything to ground level, it would be a lot better in all likelihood but still bad, since you’d still need to carry speed to get to it from the ends.
As for the wind, I completely agree that the top section needs to be dropped down. This lift is clutch on windy days. It running versus not running can make or break the whole ski experience. It’s very poorly designed, still better than the gondola though..
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2) While I understand your point, the profile would need to be completely reengineered to make this happen, and that’s much more of a headache than Stratton is likely to take on for a small number of concerned customers on certain days. The current profile is likely engineered to run in more of a straight line specifically to avoid combos and unnecessary ups and downs.
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Bottom operator shack is from 2012, and top shack along with Shooting Star’s bottom shack were replaced this summer with new ones similar to the ones at Snowbowl.
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What is the difference between the Stealth III and the Stealth IV?
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I know that the Stealth ran on Vonroll grips, the Stealth II on AK-4s, the Stealth III had an aesthetic change and ran on the AK-400s, but what about the Stealth IVs? Also, how can you have a Stealth III bottom terminal and a Stealth IV mountain terminal? I am very confused.
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The only CTEC lift ever to use VonRoll grips is the Eagle Express Quad at Solitude. All Stealth terminals used the AK grips I think.
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Sugar Bowl’s gondola would also be a CTEC with VonRoll grips.
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I think it was retrofitted by CTEC, not built in partnership.
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But still, what is the difference? Also, thanks for the clarification on the grips.
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