Whistler-Blackcomb
Whistler Blackcomb’s Next 20 Years
Whistler Blackcomb is the greatest resort success story on our continent – from humble beginnings in 1966 to a resort municipality with 53,000 beds, Olympic host and the first to draw two million skiers in a season. While Whistler and Blackcomb mountains were developed independently, they are now linked by one of the most iconic ropeways ever built. Today, the mountains have a fleet of thirty lifts including seven gondolas and 14 detachable chairs over 8,200 sprawling acres. Despite being the largest ski resort in the US or Canada, W-B still gets crowded and has opportunities for continued improvement and expansion. The resort’s master plan prescribes replacing nine lifts and adding eleven more, primarily on Whistler Mountain. Many of the lifts add new out-of-base capacity with the goal of “staging” both mountains with 32,000 skiers in 2.5 hours or less.
On the Whistler side, the plan includes a major expansion to the south, creatively dubbed Whistler South. It would include an 8-passenger gondola from a new “Cheakamus” parking area and another base facility part way up. At just 2,000 feet above sea level, The lower base would have no trails to it, just the gondola to the upper base area. A second gondola would connect to here from Whistler Creekside. Trail pods above would include a beginner area and three detachable chairlifts including one in Bagel Bowl.
The Creekside base would also get a fourth gondola direct to Whistler’s Chic Pea, bypassing the Creekside Gondola/Big Red choke point. Higher up, Franz’s chair and Whistler’s two original T-bars would be replaced by a single detachable quad from the bottom of the former to the top of the latter. At the heart of Whistler Mountain, Emerald Express is slated to be swapped with a six-pack. The quad would move to a parallel alignment ending slightly higher. Talk about an increase in capacity!
If you’ve ever been in Symphony Bowl, you know the high speed quad built in 2006 serves an area larger than most ski resorts. As such, Whistler Blackcomb plans two more lifts starting at the Symphony base fanning out in opposite directions. One called Robertson’s goes towards Harmony while the other serves either Flute Peak or Flute Shoulder with a detachable four or six-passenger chair. Access to the alpine from Whistler Village stays exactly the same; the only change on this side of the mountain is replacement of Magic (a Yan triple) with a 6/8 chondola.
374 Lifts That Aren’t Where They Used to Be
In any given year, about a third of ski areas’ “new lifts” are actually lifts removed from other locations that are finding a new home. There are entire websites dedicated to the buying and selling of second-hand ski lifts. By my count, at least 374 lifts in the US and Canada have been re-engineered and re-installed at new places, either at the same ski resort or clear across the country.
The ski area that has sent the most lifts to other places is, not surprisingly, Whistler-Blackcomb. Ten of its former chairlifts live on at ski areas across the US and Canada. Some resorts operate fleets of lifts pieced together entirely from other places. Big Sky Resort operates nine used lifts, many of them hand me downs from other Boyne Resorts. Removed lifts that don’t get snapped up by other ski areas often end up at amusement parks and zoos.
A handful of lifts have been moved multiple times. The Dreamscape lift at Park City (formerly Canyons) is in its third location on the same mountain. Originally installed by Garaventa CTEC in 1996 as the Saddleback quad, it was replaced the very next season by a detachable quad. The fixed-grip quad became Raptor, which served the runs between Super Condor Express and Golden Eagle for three seasons, after which it was removed (and still not replaced.) That same summer, Raptor went to the opposite side of the mountain to anchor a major expansion called Dreamscape. I would not be surprised to see Vail Resorts replace Dreamscape this coming summer, giving the still-not-that-old quad chair a chance at a fourth life.
Instagram Tuesday: Doppelmayr New & Old
Instagram Tuesday: Sunset on Summer
News Roundup: Adding Lifts
- The Balsams mega-project gets snowmaking water permit and releases its phase one plan which includes six new lifts. That will be the contract of the year next summer if it really happens.
- The owners of Saddleback have extended the deadline to find financing for a new lift before pulling the plug on this season.
- Mt. Rose Ski Tahoe announces an $11.00 minimum wage for all resort employees next season.
- Kitzbuhel in Austria will add another 8-passenger bubble lift for next season to be built by Leitner.
- France’s Avoriaz also announced a new Poma six-pack.
- Whistler will add the Creekside Gondola to its Bike Park starting Friday. The gondola has been outfitted with the latest Deasonbuilt center-pole bike carriers. Creekside will become Whistler-Blackcomb’s 11th lift open for summer operations including three gondolas and six detachable quads.
- The Neptuno double chair (Poma) in Las Lenas de-roped off 5 towers last week thanks to an avalanche. See photo below.
Instagram Tuesday: Heavy Lifting
Top Ten Biggest Lifts in North America by VTFH
Vertical transport feet per hour (VTFH) is the best way to measure how lifts move people up mountains. VTFH combines hourly capacity and vertical rise into one number, usually measured in millions. Ski Area Management uses this metric each fall when they look at how good of a year it was for the lift-building business.
For a lift to score big it has to have a high hourly capacity (think lots of carriers, high speed) and large vertical rise (think big slope length with many towers.) The Jackson Hole tram has a huge vertical (over 4,000′) but very low capacity so its VTFH is only 2,654,600 – not even in the top 400. The Peak 2 Peak Gondola has a huge capacity but only rises 119 feet for a dismal VTFH of 243,950. There are 49 lifts in the US and Canada that move enough people high enough to achieve a VTFH over five million. Below are the top ten.
1. Revelation Gondola Stage II, Revelstoke Mountain Resort, British Columbia
2007 Leitner-Poma 8-passenger gondola
2,952′ vertical x 2,800 passengers per hour = 8,265,600 VTFH
2. Gold Coast Funitel, Squaw Valley, California
1998 Garaventa CTEC 28-passenger funitel
2,000′ vertical x 4,032 passengers per hour = 8,064,000 VTFH
3. Heavenly Gondola, Heavenly Mountain Resort, California
2000 Doppelmayr 8-passenger gondola
2,874′ vertical x 2,800 passengers per hour = 8,047,200 VTFH
4. Gondola One, Vail Mountain, Colorado
2012 Leitner-Poma 10-passenger gondola
1,996′ vertical x 3,600 passengers per hour = 7,185,600 VTFH
5. Centennial Express, Beaver Creek Resort, Colorado
2014 Doppelmayr 6/10 chondola combination lift
2,102′ vertical x 3,400 passengers per hour = 7,146,800 VTFH
North America’s Top Ten Longest Lifts
North America’s top ten longest lifts are all gondolas or aerial tramways and only half of them are directly used for skiing. Silver Mountain’s Gondola is number one although it is no longer the world’s longest. Since 2014, that title has belonged to the Bursa Uludag Gondola in Turkey which is a ridiculous 28,871 feet. This list does not include systems which have multiple haul ropes, such as Blackcomb’s Excalibur, which I consider to be two separate gondolas.
1. Silver Mountain Gondola, Silver Mountain, Idaho – 1990 VonRoll 8-passenger gondola
16,350′ ride time 16.4 minutes
2. Sunshine Village Gondola, Sunshine Village, Alberta – 2001 Poma 8-passenger gondola
14,894′ ride time 12.4 minutes
3. Peak 2 Peak Gondola, Whistler-Blackcomb, British Columbia – 2008 Doppelmayr 3S tri-cable gondola
14,497′ ride time 9.8 minutes
4. Sandia Peak Tramway, Albuquerque, New Mexico – 1965 Bell 50-passenger tramway
14,338′
5. Silver Queen Gondola, Aspen Mountain, Colorado – 1986 Poma 6-passenger gondola
13,216′ ride time 13.2 minutes
