Park City
Flying Gondola Towers in Park City
Doppelmayr flew towers for the Quicksilver Gondola in Park City yesterday and today. I wasn’t able to make it but Instagram has us covered! Quicksilver has 27 towers but a few had already been set by crane. Check back next week for more updates from America’s largest ski resort.
Instagram Tuesday: Bubbles
Park City Motherlode Express August Update
If you’ve been following the $50 million being spent at Park City this summer, you know that Vail Resorts opted not to buy a new lift for the upgrade of Motherlode to a high speed quad. Instead they are re-using the old King Con, a 1993 CTEC. Only the tower/terminal tubes and one crossarm are new. Tower heads and sheaves were flown into place a few weeks ago. Electrical work is ongoing at both terminals, which still say King Con on the outside. A new Redaelli haul rope is sitting at the bottom and chairs are ready to go at the top. Motherlode is about 1,000 feet longer than King Con but I haven’t seen any sign that more chairs will be added.
Instagram Tuesday: Some Assembly Required
Turning Lifts with Sheaves Instead of Stations
We’re used to lifts that run in a perfectly straight line between terminals but sometimes a lift just has to have a turn. Common reasons for this uncommon occurrence include buildings in the preferred alignment and challenging property lines. Most lifts with turns are detachable systems with angle stations which are very expensive. But not all lifts that need to turn require loading or unloading mid-way. In a handful of these cases, lift manufacturers have avoided the need for angle stations or extra bullwheels by designing towers with canted sheaves.
The first company to use this trick was Riblet with Chair 5 at Breckenridge way back in 1970 1986. Closely-spaced towers 10A, 10B and 11 have angled sheaves in a compression-support-compression setup. I’m not sure of the exact angle of the turn on Chair 5 but its a couple of degrees. (Edited to add later: the lower terminal and towers of Chair 5 were moved in 1986, 16 years after the lift was first built.)
Most of the lifts that turn using angled sheaves were built by Doppelmayr CTEC and its predecessor Garaventa CTEC and turn less than five degrees. A turn is typically accomplished over three towers with the middle of the three being a depression assembly. The Cabriolet at Park City (formerly Canyons) was the first modern lift with this setup and opened in 2000, connecting the main parking lot to village. Its five degree turn was required due to private property lines and existing buildings.
A year after the experiment at The Canyons, Garaventa CTEC built another detachable with a turn for Snowbird. The Baldy Express turns between towers 10 and 12 again due to private property lines. The first six pack with a turn was the Six Shooter at Big Sky (formerly Moonlight Basin) which was built in 2003 and has a couple degree turn between towers 24 and 26. I’ve heard Six Shooter’s turn was due to a surveying mistake that would have put the top terminal on Big Sky Resort’s property. Doppelmayr CTEC engineered the turn rather than re-doing a bunch of tower bases. The irony here is that ten years later Big Sky ended up buying the land and lifts anyways.
Park City’s King Con Express Taking Shape
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.
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
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.
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.
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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Vail Resorts Unveils Park City’s New Brand
At an event this afternoon, Vail Resorts officially launched the brand for America’s new largest ski resort. The new Park City logo combines the Canyons infinity symbol with a new Park City red color and the tagline “There is Only One.” This is not terribly surprising from a company whose flagship resort is branded “Like Nothing on Earth.” CanyonsResort.com now redirects to the new Park City website, which ironically is the old Canyons site. No doubt the new logo and colors look sharp and will serve them well for years to come. Many of the lifts have already been repainted in the new red and silver color scheme in preparation for this winter.
Also unveiled today was a new trail map painted by James Niehues. The working name for the new gondola (Pinecone Gondola) has been scrapped in favor of Quicksilver Gondola in an ode to Park City’s mining heritage. I liked the Pinecone name; it was chosen for the ridge the gondola crosses but I imagine Vail was worried about confusion with the existing Red Pine Gondola. Quicksilver fits well with the mining names already in use at Park City such as Silverlode, Bonanza, Motherlode and Payday. The new lodge at the base of the Quicksilver Gondola will be called Miner’s Camp. Although it has mostly disappeared, the Canyons name lives on as the northern base area has been renamed Canyons Village.
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