Doppelmayr

The New Longest Gondola in Turkey

Peter Landsman1 Comment

It used to be when you boarded the gondola to Silver Mountain in Kellogg, Idaho, a huge sign proclaimed, “Welcome to the World’s Longest Gondola.”  At 16,350 feet, the Silver Mountain Gondola held that title from its opening in 1990 until May 2009.  That’s when Doppelmayr completed the Ba Na Cable Car in the mountains of Vietnam.  A hundred and fifty feet longer than Silver’s gondola and a thousand feet taller, it broke world records for both length and vertical rise.

The Ba Na Cable Car in Vietnam was the world's longest when it opened. Photo credit: Doppelmayr
The Ba Na Cable Car in Vietnam was the world’s longest from when it opened in 2009 until 2014. Photo credit: Doppelmayr

Fast forward a couple years and Leitner has crushed the ropeway length record again with a gondola in Turkey that opened in 2014.  Like the Silver Mountain Gondola, the Bursa-Uludag Gondola connects a city with a ski resort but this one is split into in three sections.  It starts in Bursa (Turkey’s fourth largest city) at only 1,300 feet above sea level and tops out at the Uludag resort town and national park at 6,000 feet.  The combined system is just under 29,000 feet long with a vertical rise of 4,600 feet.  It has 139 Sigma Diamond cabins and 44 towers.  The entire system takes only 22 minutes to ride at 6 m/s, replacing a 35-kilometer drive on a mountain road that took over an hour.

As if the Ba Na Cable Car and Bursa-Uludag Gondola aren’t cool enough, there’s also a 26,000 foot 3S gondola under construction in Vietnam that will relegate Silver Mountain’s gondola to the world’s fourth longest.

News Roundup: Tower Time

Peter Landsman1 Comment

Sugarloaf's oldest lift towers come down. Photo credit: Sugarloaf Mountain Resort
Sugarloaf’s oldest lift towers come down. Photo credit: Sugarloaf Mountain Resort
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Chairs Going on the Teton Lift

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The Teton lift got its haul rope and commline in the last few weeks and Doppelmayr started launching chairs on Saturday.  Agamatic grips were being attached to each chair before going onto the maintenance rail at the bottom terminal.  Doppelmayr was launching chairs in groups with the lift running slowly in reverse.  All 80 chairs should be on by this afternoon.  Next up: adjustments and load test.  Impressive to see this project nearly finished two and half months before its scheduled opening (which is December 19th.)

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Chairs going on in reverse.
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Towers 13-15 just below the top terminal.

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News Roundup: Tragedy in Oklahoma

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A work chair on the Skyride at the Tulsa State Fair failed earlier this week causing two mechanics doing line work to fall.
A work chair on the VonRoll Skyride at the Tulsa State Fair failed earlier this week causing two mechanics doing line work to fall.
  • OSHA is investigating the death of one of two mechanics who fell while doing line work on the Skyride at the Tulsa State Fair.  A work chair on the 1965 VonRoll gondola appears to have failed below the hanger, dangling both men from their harnesses.  Steve Shelton, 43, died of trauma as a result.  His family set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for funeral expenses.
  • Poma is setting steel for Europe’s new highest lift in Russia.  The three-stage, two-passenger gondola on Mt. Elbrus will reach 3,847 m/12,621 feet (Breckenridge’s Imperial Express SuperChair goes 350 feet higher.)
  • Sugarloaf begins removing its oldest lift as part of a ‘lift safety’ initiative.  I guess a lift that doesn’t exist is safer than one that does.
  • Hidden Valley, New Jersey’s three Borvig lifts are out and two new Partek lifts are going in.  The ski area which closed in 2013 also has a new name – the National Winter Activity Center.  Follow the progress live here.
  • The city of Cali in Colombia will open MIO Cable, a 10-passenger Poma gondola, on Friday.  The 6,800′ system has four stations and 60 Sigma cabins that move 2,000 passengers per hour each way.
  • Deer Valley Resort, SkyTrac and the NSAA will host an evening program honoring Jan Leonard on October 14th at Snow Park Lodge.
  • Doppelmayr crews fly 11 towers for a new gondola at Lutsen Mountains, Minnesota.  The $7 million system is going up alongside the resort’s Hall gondola, which will run through October 18th.
  • It’s looking like Saddleback, Maine will have a ski season without a new lift.

News Roundup: Closings and Openings

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Park City King Con Express September Update

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Like the Quicksilver Gondola, Park City’s new King Con Express is just about ready for a haul rope.  Both terminals are nearly complete and all the towers have been ready to go since August.  The chairs are still down in the base area waiting to be assembled.  As far as I can tell, grips and operator houses have not been delivered yet.  I’m guessing Park City is getting the pre-fabricated CTEC-style houses for both King Con and the Gondola.

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The bottom terminal just needs some end caps and an underskin.
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The pit in the lower left is for the loading carpet.

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Cabins and Towers for Park City’s Quicksilver Gondola

Peter Landsman4 Comments
The first Uni-G terminal at Park City looks mighty nice in red and silver.
The first Uni-G terminal at Park City looks mighty nice in red and silver.

The most anticipated new lift of the year is starting to look like the really big gondola that it is. The drive terminal for Park City’s Quicksilver Gondola is largely complete and all 27 towers were set last weekend.  Doppelmayr opted to use the same K-Max heli they’ve been using for other projects even though gondola towers are huge.  The biggest towers – 23 and 24 – were actually set by crane.  In fact, a two-mile long road was built just to access T21-23 on the edge of Thaynes Canyon.

Tower 24 on the edge of Thaynes Canyon is a big one.
Tower 24 on the edge of Thaynes Canyon is a big one.
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There are now 4 lines over Thaynes Canyon, none of which are the final ones.

The towers that were flown were split into in as many as six pieces because of the limited capability of the K-Max at 9,000 feet.  At least two towers have 16-sheave trains that must weigh a ton.  Some towers were flown without catwalks and railings just to make weight.  I was surprised Doppelmayr did not use a heavy-lift helicopter like the Chinook but I’m sure it all came down to price and what was available.

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Building Solitude’s Summit Express

Peter Landsman1 Comment

It felt like spring at Solitude Mountain Resort, not because of the weather but because the Summit lift replacement project is really just getting underway.  The new Doppelmayr detachable quad is in an entirely new alignment that is extremely rugged.  There was obviously a ton of blasting and dirt work just to get to this point.  Once the Summit Express is complete, Solitude will have four high speed quads and only three fixed-grip lifts left.

Looking down from tower 15.
Looking down from tower 15.

Highlander Lift Services is in charge of this project rather than crews from Doppelmayr or Solitude.  Most of the tower forms are in but I did not see any concrete in the ground.  The top terminal is just a hole and the bottom isn’t much further along.  The lift is going to have around 20 towers and only the crossarms and lifting frames have arrived so far.  Unfortunately it looks like these guys are going to be building a lift in the snow.

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Some tower cages are still in the parking lot.
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This is all the parts for the new lift that have been delivered.

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Three New 3S Gondolas Coming Soon

Peter Landsman8 Comments

The 3S Gondola is today’s finest lift technology with large, comfortable cabins quickly moving thousands of people per hour over virtually any terrain.   Doppelmayr and VonRoll pioneered the technology with Poma and Leitner developing their own versions in recent years.  Thirteen of these systems operate worldwide with at least three more in development in settings as diverse as the Swiss Alps and islands of Vietnam.  Here is a summary:

3S Bahn – Zermatt Bergbahnen AG

Klein Matterhorn's first 3S will be the second built by Leitner Ropeways.
Klein Matterhorn’s first 3S will be the second built by Leitner Ropeways.

The world’s highest elevation 3S will open on the Matterhorn in Zermatt for 2018.  It will feature Leitner’s DirectDrive technology and new Sigma Symphony cabins designed by the famous Italian firm Pininfarina.  Its 25 28-passenger cabins will move 2,000 skiers per hour at 7.5 meters per second.  The lift will cover almost 13,000 feet laterally and 3,000 feet vertically in nine minutes.  Zermatt will be the first non-urban 3S gondola for Leitner or Poma. Construction begins next summer.

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News Roundup: Pardatschgratbahn

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  • Its been six weeks since the Berry family, owners of Saddleback, Maine, said they would close the resort if they could not find financing to order a new lift by August 1st.  Regardless of the outcome, this has been a PR disaster with a desperate announcement and then silence.  Not a good sign when the general manager refuses to talk to the state’s largest newspaper.  My take: despite the bluff they will find a way to open.
  • Ligonier Construction awarded $4.6 million contract to re-build the State of Pennsylvania’s Laurel Mountain Ski Area.  The project includes a new quad chairlift but I could not find a lift manufacturer identified in the bid documents.  Nearby Seven Springs Mountain Resort will operate the ski area on behalf of the state.
  • Snow Summit proves again that snowmaking systems can save lifts and buildings from wildfires.
  • What if Aspen had a gondola from Ajax to Buttermilk and Snowmass?
  • Not one but four 15-passenger gondolas proposed to link a cruise terminal with George Town in the Caribbean’s Cayman Islands.  I’m thinking even that won’t be enough when Royal Caribbean’s newest ship shows up with 6,000 passengers tired of being on a ship with 6,000 passengers.
  • “No one has contributed more to the task of transporting skiers and snowboarders up the ski mountains of the United States than Jan Leonard,” said the President of the NSAA in the Salt Lake Tribune’s obituary.  Services will be held tomorrow.