Whitefish Mountain Resort will make a big lift move this summer, relocating Chair 5 from Ptarmigan Bowl to become a new East Rim lift.  Chair 5, also known as Glacier View and at times High Five, has not seen public operation since 2014/15 due to its redundancy with the Big Mountain Express and will better serve skiers in the North Bowl.  The $1.2 million project will cost more than double what the ski area paid for the original CTEC installation in 1981.  Whitefish Mountain Resort has contracted with Skytrac to make the move.

“We are pleased to continue what has been a decade of steady improvements at Whitefish Mountain Resort with the re-position of Chair 5 to better utilize our lift infrastructure and improve the guest experience as we celebrate our 70th anniversary,” Whitefish Mountain Resort CEO Dan Graves said in a press release.  Although technically it does not open any new terrain, the East Rim lift will create a new pod between Chair 1 and T-Bar 2.  The new lift will rise 814 feet with a slope length of 2,540 feet and capacity of 1,600 skiers per hour. It will sport a new electric motor, drive, brakes, hydraulic tensioning, rebuilt gearbox and added restraining bars in the new location.

Whitefish has been all in on lift shuffling lately, acquiring the former Moab Scenic Skyway lift in 2006 and installing it as Easy Rider.  The original Glacier Chaser Express quad moved to become the Swift Creek Express in 2007, the same year old Easy Rider became Elk Highlands.  In 2011, Whitefish installed the Bad Rock triple which was relocated from a resort in Pennsylvania.  The 2014 addition of the Flower Point triple came from Kimberley, BC.  The new East Rim triple is scheduled to open in December 2017.  You can find out more about the history of Chair 5 and the new lift on the Whitefish Mountain Resort blog.