- Red River Ski Area hires Doppelmayr to replace its Green lift – a 1977 Riblet double – with a new, longer quad called Emerald for 2016/17.
- Arizona Snowbowl’s new SkyTrac quad opens Dec. 18th.
- Sugarloaf is installing rebuilt gearboxes on two major lifts this December.
- Louisiana called its last gondola experiment MART. The next one could be BRAF?
- BMF’s unique aerial tramway strung between two towers in Puebla, Mexico opens December 20th.
- 100+ photos of Doppelmayr’s all-new detachable product, dubbed D-Line.
- Mt. Hood Meadows’ Shooting Star Express will remain closed until Christmas after being rocked by falling trees.
- Storms last week in the Cascades cut off all access to White Pass Ski Area with no estimated re-opening.
Sugarloaf
Instagram Tuesday: Evac Practice
News Roundup: 115.4 mph
- Mt. Hood Meadows updates skiers on the windstorm that sent two hundred-foot hemlock trees onto the Shooting Star Express the night of November 17th.
- Vail Resorts announces $100 million in capital improvements across its mountains for 2016/17 including replacement of the last major fixed-grip lift on Vail Mountain. The new Sun Up Lift #17 will be a detachable quad, manufacturer unknown.
- SkyTrac splices the Humphrey’s Peak Quad at Arizona Snowbowl.
- The latest from Sugarloaf on the new King Pine. An apparent Doppelmayr delay will push opening until late-December. Luckily (or unluckily) there’s no snow anyways.
- Utah’s new ski resort, Cherry Peak, announces a December 21st debut with two lifts.
- Doppelmayr’s 10th 3S gondola, the Penkenbahn, is ready to go.
- A nonprofit ski area in Ontario that’s been unable to operate its quad chair since 2011 due to a 2006 Doppelmayr service bulletin hopes to crowdfund $80,000 for repairs.
- West Mountain celebrates their new lift with fireworks rather than skiing and already has the drive terminal up for another new-used lift next summer.
News Roundup: Peak Buys Another
- The first non-prototype photos of Doppelmayr’s new detachable terminal that will replace the Uni-G model over the next few years. It’s certainly different; note the huge windows, Frey controls and stairs instead of ladders on the Kirchenkarbahn’s terminals. Thanks for the head’s up, snowtirol.
- Maine’s chief tramway inspector releases his report with pictures on the King Pine rollback and Sugarloaf’s GM responds. Eight months after the incident, the replacement drive terminal is nearly finished.
- Doppelmayr Garaventa Group revenue was down 7.5% to $841 million in fiscal 2015 while the company’s global employee headcount rose to 2,546.
- Still more bad press surrounding Saddleback and the resort’s asking price is down to $9.5 million for 2,000 acres. Meanwhile Boyne offers passholders in the lurch last spring’s rates on New England Passes.
- Peak Resorts, the fourth largest operator of lifts in North America, buys Hunter Mountain for $36.8 million. After the deal closes the publicly-traded company will operate 14 ski resorts with 153 lifts in Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Missouri.
- Two different models of LPOA chairs going up at Okemo and Purgatory.
- West Mountain demonstrates an old lift can be new again with help from Leitner-Poma, SkyTrac, Green Mountain Control Systems and Alpine Engineering.
- They call it ‘The Beast’ for a reason. Killington opened for skiing on October 19th and is running 240 snow guns nightly, all while flying concrete and adding a mid-station to their Snowdon triple. The 1973 Heron-Poma is evidently going to stick around for awhile. Fun fact: Snowdon had a mid-station in nearly the same spot which was removed in 1990.
- Lutsen’s recently retired Hall Skycruiser gondola cabins sold out in 4 minutes on Cyber Monday for $1200 each. A new gondy opens to passengers December 11th after a brief delay. If you missed out on the $1200 gondola cabins, you can still get someone a $150 double chair this holiday season.
Top Ten Lifts with the Most Chairs
The average detachable chairlift has 108 carriers while the average fixed grip lift has 103. Most people would assume the longest lifts have the most carriers but that’s usually not the case. One of the reasons is longer spacing on detachable chairlifts and gondolas. Also many long fixed-grip lifts get designed with lower hourly capacities and bigger spacing to save money. In fact, only one of the top ten lifts with the most chairs is also among the ten longest. Each of the lifts below has more than 200 chairs and, not surprisingly, all but two are fixed-grips.
- Cyclone – Sunrise Park Resort, AZ – 352 Yan triple chairs
- West Mountain – Sugarloaf, ME – 280 Borvig double chairs
- edited to add later: Town – Park City, UT – 264 CTEC triple chairs
- Alpine – Copper Mountain, CA – 218 Yan double chairs
- Porcupine – Snowbasin, UT – 212 Stadeli triple chairs
- Summit – Attitash, NH – 207 CTEC triple chairs
- C-Chair – Breckenridge, CO – 206 Riblet triple chairs
- A-Chair – Breckenridge, CO – 206 Riblet triple chairs
- Snowflake – Breckenridge, CO – 205 Poma double chairs
- Northwest Express – Mt. Bachelor, OR – 204 Doppelmayr quad chairs
- American Flyer – Copper Mountain, CO – 203 Poma quad chairs
What about gondolas? There are a bunch of them that stretch two-plus miles. Even so, no gondolas come close to making this list. The Sunshine Village Gondola has the most cabins in North America with approximately 175 CWA Omegas and the Whistler Village Gondola comes in at number two with 160 Sigma Diamond cabins. The average North American gondola has just 74 cabins.
Now, who can guess which lift has the most towers?
News Roundup: Panoramabahn
- I passed a Doppelmayr drive terminal on I-80 last week. Now I know where it was going: Sugarloaf.
- More pictures from Lutsen Mountains of their new gondola. The old Hall Skycruiser is still standing parallel to her replacement.
- Haul rope and commline go up at Okemo.
- North Korea’s Masik Pass ski resort looks to have gotten a base-to-summit gondola this summer based on recent satellite imagery. Perhaps another counterfeit Doppelmayr?
- In British Columbia, first Crystal Mountain and now Mt. Baldy will not open this season. Baldy has a T-Bar, Mueller double, and 2007 Leitner-Poma quad that last operated in 2013.
- SkyTrac load tests at Pomerelle. One more to go at Arizona Snowbowl.
Instagram Tuesday: Climbing
Instagram Tuesday: Stars
Oldest Operating Lifts in the US & Canada
1. Single Chair, Mad River Glen, VT – 1948 American Steel & Wire Single Chair
The single chair at MRG still has its original towers and terminal structures but everything else was replaced by Doppelmayr CTEC in 2007. As part of that project, towers were removed, sandblasted and repainted before being flown back to new foundations with new line gear. Doppelmayr also replaced the bullwheels, chairs, grips, drive and haul rope. This begs the question of ‘when is an old lift a new lift?’
2. Gatlinburg Sky Lift, Gatlinburg, TN – 1954 Riblet double
Everett Kircher of Boyne fame bought this chairlift from Sugar Bowl, CA for $3,000 in 1954. Originally it was a single chair built in 1939. Modified sheave assemblies were machined at the Kircher’s car dealership in Michigan when the lift went to Tennessee. At some point it appears to have gotten newer-style Riblet towers. Boyne Resorts still operates this lift 800 miles from their nearest ski resort. (edit: JP notes in the comments below that this version was replaced by a Riblet double in 1991. Thanks JP!)
3. Chair 1, White Pass, WA – 1955 1962 Riblet double
This lift only operates on busy weekends and holidays but it’s an old one and a good one . A classic Pacific Northwest center-pole double with very few modifications from its original design and no safety bars! (edit: Brian notes in the comments that this lift was actually installed as Chair 2 in 1962. The original chair 1 operated 1955-1994.)
News Roundup: Tower Time
- The East’s next big resort at The Balsams still hopes to break ground before the snow flies and open in late 2016. Still no word on who will supply the lifts.
- Leitner-Poma flies towers at Loveland, Snowmass and Sipapu. Brian from Timberline Helicopters has flown every tower in the west so far this summer with his K-Max. At Sipapu it reportedly only took him 37 minutes!
- Meanwhile, Doppelmayr puts up some big terminals.
- SkyTrans Manufacturing helps crews from Sugarloaf take down the Bucksaw double. Probably means it’s coming soon to a zoo near you.
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