Big Sky

News Roundup: Building

Peter Landsman6 Comments
  • I talk six-packs with the Vail Daily.
  • Heavenly’s Comet Express remains closed following a Jan. 1st rope evacuation, apparently due to a gearbox issue.  This is one of the reasons Vail Resorts is replacing its fleet of 1980s-vintage detachable quads.
  • Doppelmayr and the United Nations are hosting a week-long urban mobility ropeway class in April.
  • The New York Times tells the tale of Big Sky Resort.
  • Ski patroller severely injured in fall from chair at Terry Peak.
  • Gondola proposed to serve airport in Vietnam’s congested largest city.
  • BC Parks considers a gondola to Mt. Seymour to alleviate parking and traffic problems.
  • Ski Area Management‘s lift construction survey dropped this week.  Highlights from its outlook for 2017:
    • “We’re off to a strong year for ’17, there are lots of people asking about lifts…It’s very positive compared to the previous two years.” – Jon Mauch, Senior Sales Manager at Leitner-Poma
    • “There’s a lot of enthusiasm about what could happen under a Trump administration.  People expect deregulation and a more business-friendly climate.” – Mark Bee, President at Doppelmayr USA
    • “We’re seeing lots of requests quotes, lots of major modifications and retrofits…It’s all being driven by the age of the existing lift infrastructure.” – Carl Skylling, General Manager at Skytrac
    • I’ve already identified 29 new lifts likely to be built in 2017, pacing well above the last few years for mid-January.
  • Slovakian manufacturer Tatralift debuts its third detachable lift using a Wopfner grip.  That makes seven companies capable of building a detachable lift globally – Bartholet, BMHRI (China), Doppelmayr/Garaventa (Austria), Leitner–Poma (Italy), LST (France), STM (Turkey) and Tatralift (Slovakia.)

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First Look at Big Sky’s Powder Seeker Six and Challenger 2.0

Peter Landsman15 Comments
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Powder Seeker will be the Rockies’ first six-passenger chairlift with bubbles and heated seats when it debuts this winter.

Lone Peak is a happening place this November as crews from Doppelmayr USA and Big Sky Resort work to finish not one, but two of America’s largest new lifts this year.  I’ve been following these projects since April, when the aging Lone Peak triple and Challenger double chairlifts were torn down to make way for new versions that will greet lucky guests when the snow flies.  Mike Unruh, Director of Mountain Operations at Big Sky, kindly gave me a sneak peak of the shiny new lifts today.

Powder Seeker

A six-pack dubbed Powder Seeker is the new the crown jewel of Big Sky’s 26-lift fleet, with blue bubbles, heated seats and headrests.  Servicing the above treeline terrain in the Bowl, Powder Seeker is just over 2,600′ long with 14 towers and an 823′ vertical rise.  With a 6.1 meter line gauge and 45 mm haul rope, it should be able to spin through all but the harshest Montana winds.  In addition to a chair parking rail that will eventually be enclosed, the Uni-G-M stations feature tire banks that can raise hydraulically to park chairs.  Thirty-one carriers will go on the line initially; Big Sky also bought two spares and can add more as as needed.

The lower station features Chairkit gates, 90-degree loading, an AC prime mover, Doppelmayr-Lohmann gearbox and two Cummins diesel backups.  The seat heating system can be seen in the pictures above with yellow charging rails and black contacts attached to the DT grips.  Another cool feature is a headset in the motor room connected to the lift’s phone system so that mechanics will be able to hear communications, like a helicopter pilot can.

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News Roundup: Six-Pack

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News Roundup: Leitner

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Big Sky Flies Towers for America’s Most High-Tech Chairlift

Peter Landsman11 Comments

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A UH-60 “Black Hawk” from Timberline Helicopters carries a tower head for the new bowl chair at Big Sky Resort September 11, 2016.
With a helicopter flying towers this week and Austrian-built chairs arriving, skiers are just a few months away from riding America’s most technologically advanced chairlift in the bowl at Big Sky Resort.  Featuring blue bubbles, heated seats, headrests and innovative footrests, Big Sky will be the first public ski resort in North America to get Doppelmayr’s six-passenger CS10 chair (the private Hermitage Club in Vermont got them last year.)  The yet-to-be-named Lone Peak lift will initially feature 33 flying couches with footrests between riders’ legs to prevent children from falling.  These chairs are the latest and greatest from Doppelmayr and will be used on future lifts built over the next ten years as part of Big Sky 2025.

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33 chairs arrived from Austria last week and feature Big Sky blue bubbles, heated seats, headrests and more.
Brian Jorgenson from Timberline Helicopters began flying 12 lift towers on Sunday and will haul the rest later this week.  The same Black Hawk will also set 17 towers for the new Challenger lift, a Doppelmayr triple chair.  Wind stopped Brian from flying around lunchtime yesterday (and today it’s snowing) but both projects are on schedule thanks to the hard work of Big Sky’s mountain operations team, the Doppelmayr USA crew and their contractors.

The new bowl lift will dramatically improve upon the old Lone Peak Triple, cutting a 6.2 minute ride to just three minutes.  The triple chair opened in 1973 and was among two remaining lifts from the Chet Huntley era.  Challenger and Lone Peak are the first all-new lifts built at Big Sky since 2005 and hopefully the first of many upgrades and additions.  Capacity in the bowl will remain the same at first – 1,800 skiers per hour – with the ability to upgrade the six-pack to 3,200 pph in the future.  Thirty-three six-place chairs running 985 feet per minute will move the same number of skiers as the old lift did with 122 triple chairs!  The bowl lift is designed for 26 chairs to be added as needed for an eventual total of 59.

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Big Sky 2025: A $150 Million Vision for the Next Decade on Lone Peak

Peter Landsman47 Comments

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Big Sky Resort plans to build the most high-speed, high-tech lift network in North America over the next ten years, the company announced at media event this afternoon. Boyne Resorts Principal Stephen Kircher outlined Big Sky 2025, a $150 million road map for capital investment that includes a new North Village gondola, replacement of core lifts with bubble six-packs and additional lifts to serve new terrain. Enhanced snowmaking, new on-mountain dining and improvements to the Mountain Village will complement the massive investment in new lifts.

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The rise of Big Sky from Chet Huntley’s four-lift outpost in 1973 to the Biggest Skiing in America with 26 lifts owes in large part to the Matterhorn-like mountain named Lone Peak. Boyne Resorts bought Big Sky in 1976 and slowly grew it into America’s largest ski resort by 2013 with the purchase of Moonlight Basin and the Spanish Peaks Mountain Club.  Mr. Kircher noted none of the three mountains were financially sustainable in the 2000s and the uniting of the three has been transformative.  Now with 5,800 acres of terrain, Boyne seeks to elevate the ski experience to match the grandeur of its mountain that is unmatched in North America.  “We have a unique opportunity with the high alpine terrain here at Big Sky,” he noted.

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Phase one underway this summer includes the new Challenger Triple, Lone Peak Six and upgrades to Ramcharger and Lone Tree.

With $13 million of construction underway on the mountain, Big Sky Resort will operate the second third largest lift fleet in North America this winter behind Whistler Blackcomb and Park City.  The sprawling complex already includes two six-packs, five detachable quads and the famous Lone Peak Tram. This summer’s new lifts are just the beginning of a plan that includes the return of a gondola and ten more lifts (eight with bubbles) within existing boundaries and beyond.  Big Sky 2025 will transition the resort from one with nearly the most lifts to one with the best lifts featuring loading carpets, bubble chairs, head rests and heated seats that skiers have become accustomed to in Austria and Switzerland but rarely find in the States.

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Challenger & Lone Peak Six Updates from Big Sky

Peter Landsman10 Comments

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Challenger

The first of two new Doppelmayr lifts under construction at Big Sky Resort this summer is a fixed-grip triple chair with loading conveyor replacing Challenger.  A 1988 Superior Tramway double to the upper reaches of Lone Peak suffered gearbox damage last February (while I was on it) and never ran again.  The new lift will be 25 percent faster than the old, ascending 1,670 feet in 9.5 minutes.  Concrete for the new triple is finished except for the operator house footers up top. The triple chair will feature Doppelmayr’s Tristar bottom drive/bottom tension station with a simple return bullwheel up top. Interestingly, Boyne Resorts has ended up with four Tristar lifts after recent incidents at Sugarloaf (x2,) Big Sky and Sunday River.

About half of the tower footings were built from scratch while others were kept from the old lift that ran in the exact same alignment.  Challenger will have 18 towers versus 15 on the old double.  Both terminal locations have been completely re-graded with much more room for loading and unloading.  Tower tubes and crossarms are in the parking lot ready to fly any day now.

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