If you’ve never driven over 9,700′ Guardsman Pass in the summer, you might not realize just how close Brighton Ski Resort is to the upper reaches of Park City Mountain. In fact, from Brighton’s fire station to the top of the Jupiter lift is less than 7,000 linear feet. It’s this reality and a similar one in Alta’s Grizzly Gulch that makes Ski Utah’s One Wasatch concept tantalizingly close to becoming reality. But the feeling that the Wasatch just isn’t that big also has environmental groups scrambling to prevent any more of these mountains from becoming ski runs. The challenge for Save Our Canyons, the Sierra Club and others is that all the land needed to complete One Wasatch is already in the private hands of Royal Street Land Company (owner of Deer Valley,) Iron Mountain Associates (developer of The Colony) and Alta Ski Lifts Co.
Only four new lifts, marked in orange, would be needed to connect six ski resorts in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains.
Over the Pass
I’m convinced Park City and Brighton will be connected first. Ski Utah calls the two lifts needed for this connection Guardsman A and Guardsman B. They would rise from a common point adjacent to Guardsman Pass Road between Brighton and Park City’s Jupiter pod on land owned by Royal Street a.k.a. Deer Valley. Operationally, it would make the most sense for CNL/Boyne to build and operate these lifts as part of Brighton. Guardsman A, which would need approval from UDOT to cross State Route 190, would likely be a detachable quad approximately 4,065′ long with a vertical rise of 740′ ending near the top of Jupiter. Guardsman B would rise back towards Brighton and be a detachable quad about 3,800′ long with a vertical of 1,235′.
This view shows the two lifts needed to connect Park City Mountain to Brighton. Guardsman A is on the left and Guardsman B on the right.
Royal Street Land Company has a strong interest in completing the Guardsman connection because it now also owns Solitude. With Guardsman in place, a Deer Valley skier at the top of Lady Morgan Express could ride 4 lifts (Pioneer and Jupiter at Park City, Guardsman B and Milly Express at Brighton) and be at Solitude in less than an hour. The return trip would be almost as easy – Summit Express to Great Western Express to Guardsman A and Park City Mountain, which already abuts Deer Valley. Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County would both need to approve the Guardsman lifts before construction could begin.
Vail Resorts announced today it will spend $13 million this summer to modernize Wilmot Mountain, which the company acquired in January. Improvements include three new quad chairs to replace existing lifts. Wilmot Mountain currently operates eight chairlifts built by Hall, Borvig and Riblet between 1964 and 1978, meaning upgrades are long overdue. Four chairlifts will be removed, three added and three others overhauled. The three new quads along with two new carpets will increase Wilmot’s uphill capacity by 45 percent.
“We think our guests from Chicago and Milwaukee will be thrilled with the improvements we are making at Wilmot for the 2016-2017 ski season, which represents one of the biggest transformations ever undertaken for a Midwestern ski area,” said Rob Katz, Chairman and CEO of Vail Resorts. No manufacturer was named, but Vail chose Doppelmayr in 2013 to provide Eco-drive quads as part of a $10 million redevelopment at Mt. Brighton near Detroit. For those lifts, they re-used quad chairs and towers from retired Doppelmayr lifts at Vail and Beaver Creek.
Vail Resorts’ $50 million endeavor to connect Utah’s two largest resorts last summer was one of the biggest infrastructure investments at a U.S. resort since American Skiing Company created The Canyons in 1997. That summer twenty years ago, ASC bought so many lifts for The Canyons (8!) they had to split the order between three lift manufacturers to get them all done in time for the 1997-98 season. It’s hard to even imagine that happening today. Still, Vail did manage to build a two-stage gondola, add a six-pack, move a detachable quad, construct a mid-mountain lodge and re-brand an entire company over the last eight months. I got to check out the results this week.
Park City Mountain is now the undisputed largest ski resort in America with 37 lifts and 300+ trails spread across 7,300 acres (it’s worth noting that Big Sky Resort still owns, and seems to have no problem using, the Biggest Skiing in America® trademark.) The first thing I noticed is Vail did its best to remove all references to Powdr’s old Park City logo and the Canyons name, replacing them with the red infinity branding. Despite these efforts, everyone still seems to call the northern half of the complex Canyons, or perhaps worse, The Canyons. Thousands of signs were changed over the summer and every employee got a new uniform. Most of the lifts were painted red although a few remain in black and orange.
The new Park City has 37 lifts moving 78,000 skiers per hour across 11 square miles.The flagship of “One Park City” is the Quicksilver Gondola and neighboring Miners Camp lodge. Vail Resorts took the design they used for the Tamarack Lodge at Heavenly and Zephyr Lodge at Northstar and brought it east, demonstrating how the company excels at standardizing everything across its resorts. (Pepsi, never Coke, and safety bars on every chair at every mountain are other examples.)
Today, Vail Resorts announced its acquisition of Wilmot Mountain near Chicago, adding to the company’s portfolio of regional resorts in the Midwest. Vail bought Mt. Brighton near Detroit and Afton Alps near Minnesota’s Twin Cities back in 2012. The addition of Wilmot brings Vail up to twelve resorts in Colorado, California, Michigan, Nevada, Utah and Australia. The company will announce specific improvements in March, but today’s release mentions bringing state-of-the-art lifts to Wilmot Mountain. The ski area currently operates eight chairlifts – four doubles, three triples and a quad – built by Riblet, Hall and Borvig in the 1960s and 70s. This is Vail Resorts’ fifth new ski area in three years and it will be interesting to see where they go next.
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.
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.
We're upgrading the Sun Up Lift (#17) from a fixed grip triple to a high-speed four-psgr lift for the 16/17 season! pic.twitter.com/LFCL04VEnL
Tomorrow will mark 11 months since Vail Resorts announced their massive $50 million project to connect Park City Mountain Resort with Canyons to create the largest ski resort in the country. A significant chunk of that investment went to Doppelmayr USA to build two new detachable lifts and relocate another. All three projects are nearly finished before there’s even much natural snow on the ground. In addition to the three new lifts, Park City built a huge new restaurant called Miner’s Camp, added significant snowmaking and did a lot of painting & re-branding.
The Quicksilver Gondola is a month away from uniting Canyons with Park City.
When I visited today the new King Con six-pack was spinning and the Motherlode Express was also finished with chairs on the line. Crews were pulling com-line at the Quicksilver Gondola and finishing up the angle station. Check out pictures of all three projects below. Park City is making snow on both sides of the mountain under sunny skies this weekend and all three new lifts are scheduled to open by the holidays.
Finally the relocated King Con got some new paint. Haul rope is on too.
Doppelmayr is on a roll at Park City with haul ropes spliced and tensioned for the new King Con Express and Motherlode Express lifts. In case you’ve been living under a rock, King Con is a brand new Uni-G model six pack with a loading carpet while Motherlode is a recycled Garaventa CTEC detachable quad moved from the King Con line. Both are nearly finished 50 days before opening day.
King Con Express with a brand haul rope and freshly-painted tower tubes.
Over at the Quicksilver Gondola, which connects Park City to the former Canyons Resort, the drive terminal is getting a loading platform and what looks like a small cabin maintenance building. A bunch more cabins have arrived from Switzerland; the highest number I saw on a gondola was 61. The angle station is going up now with a crane setting bullwheels today. This station is going to be massive and I imagine the large tire sections will follow this week.
Top of King Con with the new gondola in the distance.
In other news, Payday Express, the last of Park City’s detachables with white paint received its new red and silver paint job last week along with Flat Iron next to the new gondola. Just about every lift at the combined resort has been painted this summer with the exception of a few fixed-grip lifts on the Park City side. Check out more pictures of the construction after the jump.
Vail Resorts is in the midst of a major program at its four Colorado resorts to replace first-generation detachable quads with new six packs and gondolas. Up for a refresh this summer is Chair 2 at Vail, the Avanti Express. The 1989 detachable quad is being replaced with a Doppelmayr six-pack. This follows the replacement of the Vista Bahn with a Leitner-Poma 10-passenger gondola and the Mountaintop Express with a Doppelmayr six-pack last summer. Vail has been saving parts from these lifts to keep others of the same vintage going. Lifts 7, 8, 11 and 21 are the only 1980s detachables left at Vail and will likely be replaced in the next few years. Northwoods and Game Creek are the oldest two lifts of any kind left at Vail, dating back to 1985.
The bottom terminal will have a loading carpet.
The new 2 is in the same alignment as the old and re-uses its tower tubes. New, wider crossarms were flown into place a few weeks ago with the exception of towers 24 and 25 at the summit. Concrete work for both terminals is finished except for the loading carpet pit at the bottom terminal. Steel for the terminals has been delivered. New chairs are staged at the summit and the haul rope spool sits at tower 9.
Middle portion of the line with the haul rope ready to go.
The EpicMix app will show lift wait times in minutes for major lifts at Vail’s four Colorado resorts.
Last week, Vail Resorts announced their EpicMix mobile app will provide guests with live lift wait times for 55 lifts at Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge and Keystone starting this winter. Vail Resorts will use their app to track guests through lift lines to provide a crowd-sourced estimate called EpicMix Time. The technology is currently being tested at the company’s Perisher resort in Australia. Vail compares the system to Google’s Waze app, which crowd sources traffic and accident information for Google Maps. The company plans to expand the technology in future years to all its resorts and other places where guests have to wait in line such as restaurants and rental shops.
Vail’s Gondola One can move an impressive 3,600 skiers per hour but sometimes even that isn’t enough.
Other resorts have tried to provide lift waiting times in the past. For years, Whistler-Blackcomb has had lights on its lift status signs that indicate whether a lift line is less than 5 minutes, 5-15 minutes, or more than 15 minutes. I suspect Whistler’s system is powered by lift operators calling a dispatcher which is a less than perfect solution. Vail’s technology will be much more accurate and timely.
If you’ve never driven over 9,700′ 
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