Growing up in the rainy Pacific Northwest, I happen to love chairs with bubbles. I can get the comfort of a gondola without taking my skis off or enjoy fresh air like on any other chairlift. Lifts with bubbles are technically very cool too. Electronic eyes in the lift terminals know when chairs are empty and the bubbles lower automatically. Chairs stay dry and lifties don’t have to sweep them or flip chairs at night.
Bubbles everywhere at the Yellowstone Club.
Despite their added comfort, bubbles haven’t really caught on in North America. Europe is a different story where 30+ lifts are built with them every year. In the US and Canada, Doppelmayr has built 16 lifts with bubbles since 1985. You can find them at Whistler-Blackcomb, Sun Peaks, Mont-Saint-Anne, Big Sky, Canyons and Stoneham. The Yellowstone Club also has bubbles on all six of their quad chairs.
A “3S” is a detachable gondola with two track ropes and one haul rope. It combines the speed and stability of a tram with the capacity of a gondola. Cabins generally hold about 30 passengers. 3S systems can move up to 4,500 passengers per hour at up to 8.5 meters per second. They can withstand high winds and traverse long spans between towers. These highly capable lifts are also expensive. Only 12 3S gondolas have been built. Perhaps the most famous of them, Whistler’s Peak 2 Peak, cost $51 million!
3S Gondolas are huge machines.
The 3S was developed by VonRoll of Switzerland. The first one to open was the Alpin Express at Saas-Fee in 1991. A second section opened in 1994. When Doppelmayr merged with VonRoll in 1996, they inherited the 3S technology. Doppelmayr built its first 3S in 2002 at Val d’Isere, France. Called L’Olympique, it accesses the famous ski area of Escape Killy.
Kitzbuhel, Austria opened the 3S Bahn in 2004. It connects two ski areas across a valley with an 8,200 foot-long unsupported span. Four years later, Doppelmayr connected Whistler and Blackcomb with the Peak 2 Peak, featuring an even longer unsupported span of 1.88 miles. Peak 2 Peak’s highest point above ground is an incredible 1,427 feet. It remains the only 3S gondola outside of Europe.
Whistler-Blackcomb’s Peak 2 Peak Gondola.
Leitner got into the 3S business in 2009 with a system in northern Italy. The towns of Renon and Ritten were connected by a 2.8 mile-long 3S. This was the first 3S built outside of a ski resort. Another urban 3S was built across the Rhine River in Koblenz, Germany in 2010. This Doppelmayr system moves 3,800 passengers per hour in each direction. Also in 2010, Doppelmayr built the Gaislachkogl 2 at Solden, Austria.
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