Doppelmayr

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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Flying Concrete for the Teton Lift

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Brian Jorgenson from Timberline Helicopters flies concrete for the new Teton Lift earlier this week.
Brian Jorgenson from Timberline Helicopters flies concrete for the new Teton Lift earlier this week.

It’s mid-July and construction is ramping up on the north side of the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. A K-Max helicopter from Timberline Helicopters was on-site Sunday to fly concrete for the towers that couldn’t be accessed by road.  The rest of the tower footings were already finished and back filled.  Concrete work is also complete at the top terminal and steel will be going up shortly. The bottom terminal is a few weeks behind.  Down in the parking lot, towers are mostly assembled and terminal components will be headed up the hill soon.

Tower heads are complete except the sheaves. If a K-Max helicopter is used, sheaves will be flown separately.
Tower heads are just missing sheaves.  If a K-Max helicopter is used, sheave trains will be flown separately.
Bottom terminal is still just a hole.
Bottom terminal is still just a hole and tower one’s rebar cage is to the left.

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Saddleback Needs $3 Million for New Lift to Avoid Closure

Peter Landsman5 Comments

Maine’s third largest ski resort is in trouble.  We knew something was up earlier this summer when Saddleback put their main out-of-base lift up for sale on Resort Boneyard for $350,000.  Today the Berry family definitively announced the 52-year old Rangeley lift will not spin again.  The lift has upgraded Doppelmayr terminals but aging towers, line equipment and chairs.  $3 million is needed by August 1st to build a new Doppelmayr fixed-grip quad or the ski area will close.

The 4,550' Rangeley double has reached the end of its useful life and needs to be replaced.
The 4,550′ Rangeley double has reached the end of its useful life and needs to be replaced.

Saddleback’s story includes decades of ups and downs like many mid-sized New England ski resorts.  A bank foreclosed on the entire property in 1975 but it remained open.  In 2002, the previous owners announced Saddleback would close.  Local skier Bill Berry stepped in and bought the mountain for $8 million in 2003.  After their first season of ownership, the Berry family invested heavily in lifts, installing the South Branch quad and replacing both of Rangeley’s terminals with new Doppelmayr CTEC ones in 2004.  A new James Niehues trail map was commissioned that at one point showed six new lifts to be built.  The Kennebago T-Bar was replaced with a Doppelmayr CTEC quad in 2008 but no other lifts ever got completed.

Saddleback needs $3 million for a new Doppelmayr quad to match Kennebago, seen here.
Saddleback needs $3 million for a new Doppelmayr quad to match Kennebago, seen here.

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Solitude Construction Update

Peter Landsman2 Comments
Looking up from the base of Solitude's future Summit Express.
Looking up from the base of Solitude’s future Summit Express.

Deer Valley closed on its purchase of Solitude Mountain Resort in May and announced they would replace the Summit double with a new Doppelmayr detachable quad.  The new Summit will be in a new, longer alignment that is easier to access from Apex Express.  I checked out the progress last week.

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The old lift is completely removed and stored in the Moonbeam parking lot.  It looks like the Thiokol double will be used elsewhere (the last lift Solitude removed ended up at Canyons Resort.)  Trees are gone from the new lift line and a lot of earth work has been done although nothing has been built yet.  Highlander Ski Lift Services appears to be building the new quad.  With 13 new lifts projects and counting, Doppelmayr is stretched pretty thin.  I did not see any parts for the new lift but I am sure they will be arriving soon.

These two Doppelmayr CTEC towers must be extra from when Moonbeam was moved to Powderhorn.
These two Doppelmayr CTEC towers must be extra from when Moonbeam was moved to Powderhorn.

Lift Profile: Centennial Chondola at Beaver Creek

Peter Landsman3 Comments
Centennial is the world's only 6/10 chondola lift.
Centennial is the world’s only 6/10 chondola lift.

Beaver Creek Resort faced a unique challenge last year when they needed to replace their aging workhorse lift.  The original Centennial Express was one of Doppelmayr’s first high speed quads, built in 1986.  Vail Resorts wanted the new lift to serve skiers as well as private events at the Spruce Saddle Lodge while at the same time achieving a high hourly capacity.  Originally announced as a regular six pack, Vail and Doppelmayr later decided to build the world’s only chondola with six passenger chairs and ten passenger gondola cabins.

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This is the longest Uni-G terminal I have ever seen.
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During summer operation the loading carpet is covered but queuing gates remain.

The result is an impressive lift nearly 8,000 foot long that moves 3,400 passengers an hour.  25 10-passenger CWA Omega gondola cabins alternate with 125 chairs in a 5:1 ratio.  The old lift had 195 quad chairs but moved 35 percent fewer people.  The new Centennial rises over 2,000 vertical feet in 7.9 minutes at 1,000 fpm.  It has 25 towers, five fewer than the original.

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