In July 2011, South Korea won the 2018 Winter Olympics, beating out cities in France and Germany. Almost immediately, North Korea announced plans to build its own ski resort called Masik Pass. The plan required at least five lifts despite the lack of any lift manufacturers in Asia.
Masik Pass Trail Map. All Photos from Uri Tours on Flickr.
Kim Jong Un’s government turned to the usual players, Doppelmayr and Poma. Both refused to build the lifts, citing the international ban on selling luxury goods to the North. Switzerland’s BMF agreed to a $7.7 million order but the Swiss government killed the deal. Ironically, Switzerland is where Kim Jong Un went to private school in the early 1990s and where he learned to ski.
Yesterday Sugarloaf Mountain Resort, the site of two of the worst lift accidents in recent memory, announced $1.3 million in lift safety upgrades including a new Doppelmayr drive terminal for the lift that rolled back in March. The mountain will also launch a new website devoted solely to lift safety and maintenance with a tip line for anyone to submit questions and concerns about lifts. All of this is moving forward despite Sugarloaf’s looming sale.
The King Pine Quad’s bottom drive terminal will be replaced with a new Doppelmayr one.In December 2010, the Spillway East double, built by Borvig in 1975, experienced a de-ropement that caused numerous chairs to hit the ground and drag approximately 40 feet. Eight skiers were injured and the last legal claim was settled just last week. The State of Maine’s investigation found inadequate maintenance records, poor training, high winds, and component failure as probable contributing factors. The full report is here. Spillway was replaced by a Doppelmayr quad the following summer and renamed Skyline.
The King Pine Quad, a 1988 Borvig, rolled-back approximately 460 feet on March 21, 2015, resulting in numerous injuries. Skiers went around the bottom bullwheel at high speed and many others jumped off. Sugarloaf’s internal investigation found that the drive bullwheel’s drop dog failed to deploy due to a faulty switch and the lift was eventually stopped by an operator who manually activated the lift’s emergency brake. The state has not yet released its investigation into this incident. King Pine and its sister quad called Timberline were both closed for the remainder of last season.
King Pine’s new drive terminal will be similar to Skyline’s.Continue reading →
The view into Grand Teton National Park from the top of Jackson Hole’s new Teton lift.
Jackson Hole Mountain Resort is celebrating its 50th anniversary in December which will coincide with the opening of new terrain and a shiny high speed quad called Teton. JHMR’s first Doppelmayr detachable will serve three new runs in the area formerly known as the Crags. This project is part of a major lift upgrade that included the new Casper detachable quad and will also include a second gondola.
Ready for a Uni-G terminal next to the Lower Werner run.
The new lift will serve approximately 1,800 vertical feet of terrain between the Casper and Apres Vous lifts. With a steep profile, Teton’s ride time will be under six minutes. Having four detachable quads on the north side of the mountain will hopefully take some pressure off the aerial tram.
Funny to see Doppelmayr staging next to a new Leitner-Poma terminal.
Doppelmayr USA has redesigned all of their controls for 2015.
Apparently Doppelmayr has redesigned their controls for 2015. A new pedestal pictured above looks like an improvement, especially the speed selector replacing slow/medium/fast buttons.
Willard Mountain, NY files for bankruptcy, proving once again it is best to control all of the land your ski resort sits on. The area has a Borvig and Partek doubles.
Saddleback Maine has put the drive terminal for its main lift up for sale on Resort Boneyard for $200k. Hopefully a new lift is on the way.
Whistler-Blackcomb to test snowmaking as a means to preserve summer skiing on Horstman Glacier, home to the only glacier-anchored lifts in North America.
These days building a detachable lift means a capital investment of at least $3 million plus around $100,000 in annual maintenance. A so-called ‘pulse’ lift offers the speed of a detachable system with similar infrastructure to a traditional fixed-grip lift. Chairs or cabins are grouped together into ‘pulses’ and the entire lift slows down for loading and unloading. When comparing types of aerial lifts there are always trade-offs; here they include low capacity and long headways. Most pulse lifts can only move 300-600 passengers per hour and headway – the time a passenger has to wait for a carrier to show up – can be minutes instead of as low as six seconds. Perfect for certain applications but unsuitable in most.
Pine Ridge lift at the Yellowstone Club, Montana.
There are currently 17 pulse lifts operating in the US, Canada and Mexico; all but three are gondolas. Nearly all were built in the last 15 years. Panorama Mountain Village, Northstar California, Steamboat, Snowmass, Canyons Resort, and Le Massif all use pulse gondolas to connect village areas. These lifts are usually less than 3,000 feet long and convenient for skiers and non-skiers alike. Other pulse gondolas are attractions in their own right such the Iron Mountain Tramway at Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park, SkyTrail at Trees of Mystery, the Gondola at Royal Gorge Bridge Bridge & Park and the Riverfront Park SkyRide in Spokane. There is also a new Leitner-Poma pulse gondola in Orizaba, Mexico with tripod towers that are hundreds of feet tall.
Riverfront Park SkyRide, built by Doppelmayr.
Snow Valley in Edmonton, Alberta has a very unique pulse chairlift built by Doppelmayr in 2008. Instead of having groups of 3-5 chairs, it has just two groups of 20 closely-spaced quad chairs. Because it is only 850 feet long, the lift can move 1,378 skiers per hour at up to 5 m/s, the same speed as most detachable lifts. In fact the ride is only about a minute. The lift slows to a beginner-friendly 0.8 m/s for loading and unloading. Because of the low speed, skiers ride around the bullwheel at the top and unload facing down the hill. It’s the only lift I know of with 180-degree unloading.
Little Snow King Mountain in downtown Jackson, Wyoming is in the midst of an $8 million transformation. They are simultaneously building a new Doppelmayr quad, Wiegand alpine coaster, zip-line adventure course and brand new base lodge. The lift is nearly complete and expected to open shortly along with Snow King’s famous alpine slide. The goal was June 15th but I think it will probably be a week or so later. The alpine coaster is well on its way and planned to open in August. With a $4 million base-to-summit TechnoAlpin snowmaking system installed last summer, the future is looking good for this community ski area. The only thing they need now is a detachable summit lift and restaurant overlooking the Town of Jackson with the Tetons in the background. Willamette Pass’ six pack with gondola conversion would be perfect.
The crew from Doppelmayr is just about finished at Snow King and they are moving down the road to Jackson Hole Mountain Resort to build the new Teton detachable quad. Most of the return terminal parts are now on site along with the haul rope. I was surprised to see the rope was manufactured in France by a company called ArcelorMittal. Apparently it’s the largest steel company in the world and they supplied the rope for Vail’s Gondola One.
Two new aerial tramways are about to open on the Italian side of Mont Blanc that will be among the steepest in the world. This is Doppelmayr’s largest project ever on Leitner’s home turf. The €110 million contract was awarded in late 2011 and construction began in 2012. Two sets of 80-passenger cabins will ascend a crazy 7,093 vertical feet in ten minutes. For comparison, Palm Springs’ tram does 5,873 feet in 12 minutes, Jackson Hole’s 4,084 feet in nine minutes.
Mont Blanc will have CWA’s first fully-rotating cabins.
Mont Blanc can be accessed from both the Italian and French sides. There is also a highway tunnel under the mountain, but that’s not nearly as cool. The existing setup on the Italian side requires riding three lifts built in the 40s and 50s to reach Point Helbronner at 11,358 feet. The French side has two tramways, the famous Aguille du Midi 1 & 2 that reach 12,392 feet. Connecting the French and Italian summits is a 3.1 mile bi-cable pulse gondola that opened in 1957.
Both new trams will have the world’s first 360-degree rotating cabins (others like the Palm Springs Tramway have only rotating floors.) Built by CWA, these 80-passenger cabins will feature heating, air conditioning and video screens showing live camera views.
System Statistics
Both sections will be in new alignments as shown in Google Maps above. The first section ascends from the village of Entreves to a mid-station called Le Pavillon with three towers along the way. It will move 600 passengers per hour with a four minute ride. The second section from Le Pavillon to Point Helbronner has only two towers and ascends over 4,000 feet in six minutes. Both sections will operate year-round once they open in mid-June.
Red McCombs’ 28-year battle with the Forest Service over the Village at Wolf Creek may be coming to end. A private lift would access Wolf Creek Ski Area, although the owners of the ski area do not support the Village.
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