Doppelmayr

Park City’s King Con Express Taking Shape

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The same K-Max from Timberline Helicopters that I watched in Jackson Hole a few weeks ago flew the tower heads for the new King Con Express at Park City the same week.  14 of King Con’s 15 tower tubes were re-used from the previous CTEC detachable quad.  Most of the new six pack towers have short extensions to make them taller.

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Not much has changed at the bottom terminal except a pit was poured for the loading carpet.  Windows are being installed at the top drive terminal.  The haul rope spool was delivered to the flats between towers 4 and 5.  The six-person chairs are still down in Park City’s main parking lot.  King Con Express and Motherlode Express are both further along than the Quicksilver Gondola, which still needs towers and a mid-station.  Still, an impressive amount of work has taken place and I have no doubt Vail Resorts will have everything ready by November for Park City’s first season as America’s largest resort.

Park City Quicksilver Gondola August Update

Peter Landsman5 Comments
Drive terminal of Park City's new Quicksilver Gondola in The Colony.
Drive terminal of Park City’s new Quicksilver Gondola in The Colony.

Construction on Park City’s new lifts has noticeably shifted towards the new Quicksilver Gondola since my last update a few weeks ago.  Steel for the drive and return terminals is going up and there is only one tower left to pour concrete for.  The angle station is the least far along with just holes in the ground at this point.

Return terminal next to the new Miners Camp Lodge with future cabin parking facility.
Return terminal next to the new Miners Camp Lodge with future cabin parking facility.

The return terminal is going up next to the new Miners Camp lodge and Silverlode lift.  A cabin parking facility will be here and it appears it will be big enough for all the cabins, unlike the small maintenance bays at the Red Pine Gondola and Orange Bubble Express.  It looks like for the first year it will just have rails and no roof.  I’m guessing a building will be built over the whole thing another year.

This is Tower 24 which will be on one end of a huge span to Tower 23.
This is Tower 24 which will be on one end of a huge span to Tower 23.

Quicksilver will have 27 towers numbered from the drive terminal in White Pine Canyon.  There are only four towers in what used to be Park City Ski Area.  I did not realize until now that there will be a massive span over Thaynes Canyon that will rival the existing Red Pine Gondola with cabins at least 200 feet in the air.  Evidently Park City traded lower wind tolerance and a difficult evacuation scenario for fewer towers and a shorter lift.

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Did Northstar California Build a New Gondola in Three Months?

Peter Landsman3 Comments

It appears Northstar California replaced most of its Big Springs Gondola in just three months between the end of last winter and the start of this summer.  The bottom terminal of this 1985 Doppelmayr 6-passenger gondola was previously relocated in 2004.  From the below pictures on Instagram, it appears Doppelmayr installed brand new terminal equipment inside of the existing terminal buildings along with new Agamatic grips, hangars and line gear.  The first-generation CWA cabins were previously refurbished in 2013.  Maybe Vail Resorts got a ‘buy eight get two free’ deal on Uni-G terminals from Doppelmayr this summer.

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Teton Quad Going Vertical

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Breakover towers 13, 14 and 15 have metal plates for sun protection.
Breakover towers 13, 14 and 15 have metal plates for sun protection.

August is when most new lifts really start to take shape.  After months of digging, tying re-bar cages and pouring concrete, the public always seems to wonder whether the lift is going to be done on time.  I’ve been hearing it for weeks from locals on the tram here.  Then towers get set in a matter of hours and the perception changes.  Terminals go up almost as quickly.

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The Teton Lift is at that point with towers and terminals going vertical.  The Ranch parking lot is getting emptier by the day as terminal parts make their way up the hill for installation.  Trail crew is finishing grading the new trails and working on erosion control.

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The return lift shack arrived from Salt Lake last week and boy does it have a lot of buttons.  An automated maintenance lock-out mode.  ‘Start drive station unmanned.’  A really large touchscreen.  I can only imagine the drive controls will look like.  Remote start will be especially nice on a lift with a top drive terminal in a very rugged spot.  On big storm nights, JHMR already has three “night creatures” at the top of the gondola, tram and Thunder to start lifts. (and in the case of the tram, to start digging out the top dock.)   The top of Teton will definitely have patrol and possibly a fourth night man.

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Beijing 2022 Olympics: Where are the Ski Venues?

Peter Landsman3 Comments
Genting Secret Garden trail map.
Genting Secret Garden trail map.

This morning the International Olympic Committee announced Beijing as the host for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games.  This means the next three Olympics after Rio will be held in Asia.  The 2022 games are shaping up to be a lot like Sochi with entire ski resorts being built for two weeks of competition.  In fact, only two of the four planned skiing and snowboarding venues exist today.  At least in China the facilities will probably be well-used after the games, unlike Russia where entire 3S Gondolas sit shuttered.

2012 Doppelmayr Worldbook entry for Genting Secret Garden's chondola.
2012 Doppelmayr Worldbook entry for Genting Secret Garden’s chondola.

The snowboarding slopestyle, halfpipe, and some of the freestyle skiing will take place at Genting Secret Garden near Chongli.  This resort opened in 2011 with two Doppelmayr detachable quads with bubbles and heated seats.  It added a Doppelmayr 6/8-passenger chondola the following year that serves 1,300 vertical feet.  Right next door, the older Wanlong Ski Resort will host slalom snowboarding.  It has three fixed-grip double chairs and a quad that look like the fake Doppelmayr lifts that China built for North Korea.  These lifts may have been fabricated in China or the ones China copied when they built the lifts for the North Koreans.  None of the lifts at Wanlong appear in Doppelmayr’s world ropeway map or Worldbooks despite being built relatively recently.

I think this Doppelmayr lift may be a Chinese-made fake.
Doppelmayr or the the Chinese version of Doppelmayr at Wanlong Ski Resort.

Nearby Wanlong and Genting Secret Garden there is a third resort under construction called Taiwu which will host the snowboard cross and freestyle skiing.  Wanlong, Genting Secret Garden and Taiwu are all in a cluster 140 miles from Beijing.  (For reference, Whistler was 75 miles from Vancouver in 2010.)  None of them get much natural snow so snowmaking will be essential.

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News Roundup: Doppelmayr Garaventa 2015

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  • Doppelmayr wins a €9.4 million contract for a detachable gondola in Bogota, Colombia.  The 10-passenger, two mile system will carry 2,600 passengers per hour.
  • The US Forest Service accepts Crested Butte’s new master plan for review.  It includes replacing the North Face lift as well as two new lifts in Teocalli Bowl.
  • Rick Spear, the president of Leitner-Poma, thinks an aerial tram from Staten Island to Manhattan is (not surprisingly) a good idea.
  • Arizona Snowbowl’s new lift announcement gets lots of press.
  • Italy’s Leitner and Aguido are merging.  Leitner built a couple dozen lifts in the US and Canada before their joint venture with Poma began in 2002.  Aguido built the Cannon Mountain Aerial Tramway in New Hampshire.
  • Sugarloaf decides it doesn’t have the money to upgrade its oldest lift to acceptable safety standards so it will be removed without a replacement.  Bucksaw was built in 1969.  After it is removed there will be 23 Stadeli lifts remaining in operation, four of which are older than Bucksaw.
  • Construction on The Balsams has been delayed again.  I’ll believe the hype when lift towers start going in.
  • Rumor on Skilifts.org is SkyTrac will complete the abandoned, half-constructed Stagecoach lift on the Moonlight Basin side of Big Sky.  I believe this Doppelmayr double came from the defunct Fortress Mountain in Alberta.

    The Stagecoach lift was partially completed before Moonlight Basin went bankrupt in 2009.
    The Stagecoach lift was partially completed before Moonlight Basin went bankrupt in 2009.

Jackson Hole Tower Flying Part II

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Brian Jorgenson of Timberline Helicopters flying towers for the Teton lift on July 28th, 2015.

Tower fly day number two for Jackson Hole’s Teton lift went smoothly with crews setting the remaining six towers in less than two hours.  Some of the top and bottom terminal parts were also flown up the hill while the helicopter was here.  With road access at both terminals, I don’t expect to see any more heli work on this project.  Lower Valley Energy is currently running power to the top drive terminal site from Casper and the first lift cabin arrived from Doppelmayr.  Footings for the bottom terminal are about halfway done.  See below for more pictures of today’s flying.

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Fly Day in Teton Village

Peter Landsman1 Comment
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Flying a tower tube with a K-Max.

Last night I heard the unmistakable sound of a helicopter flying over my house.  Around here it’s usually a search and rescue chopper but this time I looked out to see the double rotors of a Kaman K-Max.  It’s the same helicopter that did the concrete footings for the Teton lift last week. Doppelmayr started flying towers early this morning and the crew worked their way down from the top, setting towers 15 through 5 before wind and snow shut them down around noon.

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The K-Max can’t fly complete towers at 9,000 feet so the tubes, crossarms and sheave trains were flown separately.  As the wind picked up, the pilot had to call it a day while working on tower 5 so it sits for now missing a crossarm.  Tower 1 can be done with a crane when the lower terminal goes in so there are only a handful left to fly.

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Lift Profile: Portland Aerial Tram

Peter Landsman3 Comments

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The Portland Aerial Tram, opened in January 2007, is one of only a handful of urban commuter lifts in the United States.  It connects the campus of the Oregon Health & Science University with Portland’s up-and-coming South Waterfront neighborhood.  The tram was built for $57 million during Doppelmayr-Garaventa’s North American golden years when they completed three projects worth $150 million in less than two years (the others being Jackson Hole’s new tram and the Peak 2 Peak Gondola.)  The Portland tram now carries more than 3,300 passengers a day, far exceeding initial projections.

Leaving the bottom terminal on Portland's South Waterfront.
Leaving the bottom terminal on Portland’s South Waterfront.

The tram only rises 496 feet but it crosses a light rail line, eight lanes of Interstate 5 and eleven other roads.  The bottom terminal houses the 600 HP drive motor and tram offices while the 80,000 lb. counterweight sits underneath the top station.  Slope length is only 3,437 feet, allowing quick three-minute trips at 2000 feet per minute or 7 m/s.  This achieves a capacity of 1,014 passengers per hour, per direction.

A tram cabin approaches the top dock.
A tram cabin approaches the top dock.

Why did a tram one quarter of the size of Jackson Hole’s cost $25 million more?  Two words: politics and aesthetics.  Designers wanted the system to be unique to Portland and aesthetically pleasing.  The city held an international design competition and selected AGPS Architecture of Zurich to design the terminals, tower and cabins.  The 197-foot tower is entirely covered in steel panels and lit up in colors at night.  Gangloff custom-designed the tram’s two 78-passenger cabins to look like flying reflective bubbles.  The top station is perhaps the most complex piece of the project, sitting 140-feet above ground and supported by angled columns.

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