Deer Valley

One Wasatch: How Four Lifts Could Link 18,000 Acres

Peter Landsman20 Comments

1318848If you’ve never driven over 9,700′ Guardsman Pass in the summer, you might not realize just how close Brighton Ski Resort is to the upper reaches of Park City Mountain. In fact, from Brighton’s fire station to the top of the Jupiter lift is less than 7,000 linear feet. It’s this reality and a similar one in Alta’s Grizzly Gulch that makes Ski Utah’s One Wasatch concept tantalizingly close to becoming reality.  But the feeling that the Wasatch just isn’t that big also has environmental groups scrambling to prevent any more of these mountains from becoming ski runs.  The challenge for Save Our Canyons, the Sierra Club and others is that all the land needed to complete One Wasatch is already in the private hands of Royal Street Land Company (owner of Deer Valley,) Iron Mountain Associates (developer of The Colony) and Alta Ski Lifts Co.

one wasatch overview
Only four new lifts, marked in orange, would be needed to connect six ski resorts in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains.

Over the Pass

I’m convinced Park City and Brighton will be connected first.  Ski Utah calls the two lifts needed for this connection Guardsman A and Guardsman B.  They would rise from a common point adjacent to Guardsman Pass Road between Brighton and Park City’s Jupiter pod on land owned by Royal Street a.k.a. Deer Valley. Operationally, it would make the most sense for CNL/Boyne to build and operate these lifts as part of Brighton.  Guardsman A, which would need approval from UDOT to cross State Route 190, would likely be a detachable quad approximately 4,065′ long with a vertical rise of 740′ ending near the top of Jupiter.  Guardsman B would rise back towards Brighton and be a detachable quad about 3,800′ long with a vertical of 1,235′.

Guardsman A+B
This view shows the two lifts needed to connect Park City Mountain to Brighton. Guardsman A is on the left and Guardsman B on the right.

Royal Street Land Company has a strong interest in completing the Guardsman connection because it now also owns Solitude.  With Guardsman in place, a Deer Valley skier at the top of Lady Morgan Express could ride 4 lifts (Pioneer and Jupiter at Park City, Guardsman B and Milly Express at Brighton) and be at Solitude in less than an hour.  The return trip would be almost as easy – Summit Express to Great Western Express to Guardsman A and Park City Mountain, which already abuts Deer Valley.  Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County would both need to approve the Guardsman lifts before construction could begin.

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Turning Lifts with Sheaves Instead of Stations

Peter Landsman11 Comments

We’re used to lifts that run in a perfectly straight line between terminals but sometimes a lift just has to have a turn.  Common reasons for this uncommon occurrence include buildings in the preferred alignment and challenging property lines.  Most lifts with turns are detachable systems with angle stations which are very expensive.  But not all lifts that need to turn require loading or unloading mid-way.  In a handful of these cases, lift manufacturers have avoided the need for angle stations or extra bullwheels by designing towers with canted sheaves.

Look closely at the very top of Six Shooter at Big Sky. The last few towers are in a different alignment than the rest of the lift.

The first company to use this trick was Riblet with Chair 5 at Breckenridge way back in 1970 1986. Closely-spaced towers 10A, 10B and 11 have angled sheaves in a compression-support-compression setup.  I’m not sure of the exact angle of the turn on Chair 5 but its a couple of degrees.  (Edited to add later: the lower terminal and towers of Chair 5 were moved in 1986, 16 years after the lift was first built.)

If you look closely, the Baldy Express at Snowbird does not run in a straight line. Don't worry, this was by design and it's been done a number of times.
The Baldy Express at Snowbird also does not run in a straight line.  It’s by design!

Most of the lifts that turn using angled sheaves were built by Doppelmayr CTEC and its predecessor Garaventa CTEC and turn less than five degrees.  A turn is typically accomplished over three towers with the middle of the three being a depression assembly.  The Cabriolet at Park City (formerly Canyons) was the first modern lift with this setup and opened in 2000, connecting the main parking lot to village.  Its five degree turn was required due to private property lines and existing buildings.

Canted sheaved on the Cabriolet at Park City, a 2000 Garaventa CTEC Stealth detachable.
Canted sheaves on the Cabriolet at Park City, a 2000 Garaventa CTEC Stealth detachable.

A year after the experiment at The Canyons, Garaventa CTEC built another detachable with a turn for Snowbird.  The Baldy Express turns between towers 10 and 12 again due to private property lines.  The first six pack with a turn was the Six Shooter at Big Sky (formerly Moonlight Basin) which was built in 2003 and has a couple degree turn between towers 24 and 26.  I’ve heard Six Shooter’s turn was due to a surveying mistake that would have put the top terminal on Big Sky Resort’s property.  Doppelmayr CTEC engineered the turn rather than re-doing a bunch of tower bases.  The irony here is that ten years later Big Sky ended up buying the land and lifts anyways.

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New Roundup: Ouch!

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