Doppelmayr

Park City’s New King Con Six

Peter Landsman1 Comment
The new Motherlode under construction July 14, 2015.
The new Motherlode under construction July 14, 2015.

In addition to the new Pinecone Gondola, Vail Resorts is doing a major lift shuffle at Park City Mountain this summer.  The King Con high speed quad (1993 CTEC) is being replaced with a brand new Doppelmayr six pack.  King Con is being refurbished and relocated to replace Motherlode higher up on the hill.  More on that in an upcoming post.

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Both terminals for the new King Con are largely complete as of this week.  The Uni-G model terminals will be dark red and silver to match the new Park City Mountain logo and brand which will be unveiled on July 29th.  Rumors are that the word resort will be removed from the PCMR name and the new logo will be a dark red version of the Canyons infinity logo.  Most of the existing detachable lifts at Park City have already been painted in the new color scheme.

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King Con Six will re-use the CTEC tower tubes from the old high speed quad.  New tower heads are being assembled in the base area parking lot.  The bottom terminal will have a loading carpet as is standard with all new detachable lifts at Vail Resorts these days.  The lift is a top-drive, bottom-tension configuration.  Doppelmayr EJ six passenger chairs are already on-site.  All three of Park City’s new lifts will have Redaelli haul ropes which have also been delivered.

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Park City’s New Pinecone Gondola

Peter Landsman3 Comments
It's not hard to figure out where the new gondola goes. This is looking down from the top of Crescent.
It’s not hard to figure out where the new gondola goes. This is looking down from the top of Crescent.

I found myself near Park City this week and had to check out all the construction creating Utah’s largest ski resort.  It’s one thing to read Vail Resorts’ press releases touting $50 million in improvements but it is quite another to see hundreds of workers scrambling to complete a long list of projects spread over 7,300 acres.  This post will focus on what is perhaps the most exciting part – the new Pinecone Gondola that will link Park City to Canyons.

PCMR terminal and Snow Hut Lodge under construction.
PCMR terminal and Snow Hut Lodge under construction.

The 8,200′ long gondola starts adjacent to Park City’s Silverlode six-pack where a new Snow Hut lodge is also being built.  The terminal and first two tower footings have already been poured.  From this point, the line crosses over a modest ridge and descends before beginning the climb to Canyons in earnest.  There is a break halfway up Pinecone Ridge where the liftline moderates before a steep section to the summit.  Most of the holes for the towers in this portion have been dug including the two breakover towers just before the ridge-top mid-station. I was surprised at how sharp the midstation’s angle will be – around 30 degrees.

Looking up the lift line from tower 4.
Looking up the lift line from tower 4.

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News Roundup: Planned Openings

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A sea of lift parts converge from St. Jerome, Salt Lake City and Wolfurt in Jackson Hole’s parking lot.

A Lost Ski Area with a 3S Gondola

Peter Landsman3 Comments
Abandoned towers for a Doppelmayr detachable quad at the Vall Fosca Mountain Resort in Spain. Photo Credit: Alfonso Pedrero Muñoz on Panoramio.
Abandoned towers for a Doppelmayr detachable quad at the Vall Fosca Mountain Resort in Spain. Photo Credit: Alfonso Pedrero Muñoz on Panoramio.

There are closed ski resorts with old, abandoned lifts rotting away all over the world.  But a remote mountain in Spain takes the lost ski area to a new level with tens of millions of dollars of half-completed lifts (including a 3S gondola) that never opened.  Doppelmayr partially built three lifts at the Vall Fosca Mountain Resort and abandoned them after the developer went bankrupt at the height of the 2008 financial crisis.  It’s a fascinating story of boom and bust all too common in the ski industry.

An abandoned 3S gondola terminal on the side of the road at the Vall Fosca Mountain Resort in Spain. Photo source: http://monaxmontagne.blogspot.fr/2012/08/du-tourmalet-la-vall-fosca.html
An abandoned 3S gondola terminal on the side of a road at the Vall Fosca Mountain Resort in Spain. Photo credit.

Construction began back in 2006 and the resort was scheduled to open for the 2008-09 ski season.  The plan included a €230 million pedestrian village with 965 homes at 4,000 feet.  A 3S gondola was to connect the village to a new ski resort with four chairlifts.  At the time, only Val d’Isere and Kitzbuhel had Doppelmayr’s tri-cable gondola technology and Vall Fosca was destined to have the first 3S outside of the Alps.  That title ended up going to Whistler-Blackcomb.

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Snow King’s New Lift Opens This Weekend

Peter Landsman2 Comments
Snow King Mountain is a busy place.
Snow King Mountain is a busy place with crews simultaneously building a chairlift, mountain coaster, base lodge and alpine slide.

Snow King Mountain and Doppelmayr load tested the new Rafferty quad chairlift last week.  It will open along with a revamped alpine slide this weekend.  The opening is about 15 days behind schedule – not bad considering the scope of Snow King’s transformation.  This marks the debut of Doppelmayr’s new Alpen Star drive-tension terminal and their new, simplified control system.  The lift has mid-station unloading and will operate year-round.  A mountain coaster and treetop adventure park will follow in August with a new base lodge debuting this winter.  Meanwhile, the Doppelmayr crew has moved across the valley to build the new Teton Lift.

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Counterfeit Lifts in North Korea

Peter Landsman6 Comments

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
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.

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Sugarloaf Announces Lift Safety Upgrades and Website

Peter Landsman1 Comment

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.
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.
King Pine’s new drive terminal will be similar to Skyline’s.
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Work Begins on Jackson Hole’s Teton Lift

Peter Landsman3 Comments
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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 base terminal.
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.
Funny to see Doppelmayr staging next to a new Leitner-Poma terminal.

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News Roundup: New Controls

Peter Landsman2 Comments
Doppelmayr USA has redesigned all of their controls for 2015.
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.
  • Vail Resorts voluntarily raises the minimum wage it pays lift operators and other workers to $10 an hour.
  • Lots of improvements coming to Powderhorn in addition to their first detachable lift.
  • 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.
  • West Mountain, NY is moving forward with making one old lift into two new ones.
  • Singapore opens its second Doppelmayr gondola line with three stations and 8-passenger cabins.