More than sixty inches of snow buried the Tetons since I last visited Grand Targhee, but that didn’t stop team Doppelmayr from making a ton of progress on the new Blackfoot lift. Timberline Helicopters assisted flying towers on October 20th and the haul rope was spliced November 12th.  With comm-line installation last week, the new quad chair is almost finished.

New Blackfoot marks a huge change from the center pole chairs and wooden ramps of the classic Riblet.  Both the load and unload areas were re-worked over the summer and are way more spacious.  The new quad will move 840 more skiers per hour (to 1,800 from 960) with a minute faster ride time.  A Tristar-model drive station features an auxiliary engine capable of running the lift at nearly full capacity during a power outage.  Although it’s a bummer Targhee had to delay opening last week, the recent nice weather no doubt helped crews finishing the new lift.  This week’s forecast looks solid so hopefully we’ll be lapping Blackfoot soon!

Work on Grand Targhee’s fourth quad chair is in full swing this weekend with new stations and towers arriving for the all-new Blackfoot quad amid fall foliage and fresh snow.  The first shipment of steel from Doppelmayr included 13 towers and the support structure for the bottom station, which is in a new location uphill of the old Riblet. Still to come are the CTEC-style operator houses, bullwheels, motor room, haul rope and chairs. Concrete is in the ground and towers are nearly assembled for when the weather cooperates to fly them.  Although Grand Targhee is scheduled to open Nov. 18, Blackfoot usually doesn’t usually open until December.

The new Blackfoot will utilize a Tristar-model drive/tension station at the bottom with a fixed bullwheel on a concrete mast up top, the same setup as Challenger up the road at Big Sky.  We’ve now seen at least three different return station styles and four drive station models on this year’s new Doppelmayr fixed-grips, including the Alpen Star (Wilmot, Red River); Tristar (Big Sky, Caberfae, Targhee); and Eco (Mont Bellevue).  I find it interesting how many different station models Doppelmayr continues to offer when their competitors each have basically just two.

Stay tuned for more updates in the coming weeks from Arizona Snowbowl, Big Sky, Jackson, Powder Mountain and Sundance as the snow flies and this year’s crop of new lifts is completed.

Last time I stopped by Grand Targhee, I could still ski down Chief Joseph Bowl as the Blackfoot double was being deconstructed to make way for a new Doppelmayr quad chair.   Three months later, workers have finished removing the last of the old Riblet and prepped both station locations for modern terminals.  The new Blackfoot will move up to 1,800 skiers per hour 1,200 vertical feet in seven minutes.  When completed, Grand Targhee will operate four Doppelmayr and CTEC quad lifts, all built after 1996, with a third high speed quad coming soon.

The new Blackfoot will start a little higher up and further north, though it’s tough to tell where the old base stood with how much dirt has been moved.  The new top station is just about in the same spot as the previous one.  Lots of rock is getting pushed to make a large unload area in place of the steep wooden ramp at top of Blackfoot since 1974.  This week Doppelmayr is tying re-bar for towers and both terminals.  The project is still in its beginning stages but will ramp up over as concrete gets poured and steel arrives this fall.

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