Think about this, every lift that has run in the spot where Creekside gondola operates has been removed due to a mechanical malfunction. The original gondola suffered a fatal grip failure, and was removed. Then, Yan made Quicksilver, which also had issues regarding the grip. Now, Creekside Gondola has TB-41s, which have fallen off of the line in the past, like when that chair fell off of the old Harmony Express. Funny coincidence.
Didn’t know that. I think those grips have had issues in the past though on other lifts, Don’t remember the exact lifts, but I recall a few lifts that had issues regarding the grip.
If I recall correctly, a chair fell off Timberline’s Magic Mile Quad a few years ago. It’s a 1992 Poma 1st gen. Challenger with TB-41s and Competition chairs. That’s the only incident I can think of.
That’s a pretty nebulous statement. You may be referring to an incident at Mt. Hood where a chair fell from a maintenance oversight…not a grip issue.
Not a TB-41 issue.
Fair enough. I was under the impression that the TB-41s had had issues in the past with the grip itself, but it sounds like these was due to other conditions. Thanks for notifying me of that.
Here’s a good shot of Killington’s Superstar Quad (1987 Yan CLD4):
and the upper lift line of Superstar:
I love how they say “state of the art detachable quads” when in reality they were death traps that had to be rebuilt after only a few years of service.
There are a few more good shots of Superstar at 8:15 and 8:48 here as well:
Here’s a good one of Greyhawk at Sun Valley. There are clips of Challenger as well starting at 4:18 and ending at 7:03:
UNIG is Doppelmayr’s standard detachable terminal worldwide. Uni meaning one and G for global. It comes in many different lengths and two different widths. According to Alpinforum:
• UNIG S: 21 windows
• UNIG M: 25 windows
• UNIG L 31 windows
• UNIG XL: 33 windows
• UNIG XXL: 35 windows
• UNIG XXXL: 37 windows
How exactly would they expand Excalibur? I would imagine they’d have to replace most of the components of the gondola, given that the technology is dated.
I think major modifications would be needed to Excalibur for it to be extended as Doppelmayr no longer make terminals the work with DT grips. I think the best option would be to replace it entirely, or keep it and add another separate lift.
Not sure. Perhaps after investing in the construction of the lift, they had the intentions of ordering the cabins later on, but maybe they didn’t have the money to do so at the time. It may also be a conditional thing, that lift is quite windy, even in the summer, which may have actually invalidated the usage of the gondola cabins. Whatever the case may be, I’ve never seen this lift running with gondolas, and I doubt they even have the cabins to do so.
Lake Louise does that with Grizzly and Glaicer. Glacier is the summer lift and is a Leitner high speed quad. Grizzly is a Poma 6 passenger gondola. In the summer they swap cabins from Grizzly over to Glacier and run it as a Chondola. I’m guessing they need completely different hanger arms to do that, as would be required to run the Creekside cabins on Peak. Also, Creekside recently started running in the summer to serve more bike trails.
Water got inside of the splice section of the tower tube. When the cold temps came the water turned to ice causing it to expand lifting the tower and the nuts and bolts broke. Causing the tower to fall right over. The term is called “Ice jacking”. Unfortunately the bolts gave away when people were on the lift.
1. Replace Whistler Village Gondola with a 2 stage 6/10 chondola
2. Replace Fitzsimmons with a bubble 6 chair
3. Replace Creekside Gondola with a new 8 person gondola.
4. Replace Franz and Big Red Express with the old Creekside Gondola
5.Jersey Cream Express with bubble 6 chair
6. Replace Showcase T-Bar with the old Franz chair
7. Replace T-Bars 1 and 2 with new CLF 4
8. Replace Horsrman T-Bar with new CLF 4
9. Replace Magic with Chondola and extend up to mid-unload of Excalibur
10. Replace Excalibur with new 4/8 MDG using the existing chairs from Excelrator and have 2 mid unloads, one where the existing one is, and then extend up to replace the Excelerator. Have another unload where the Excelrator begins.
1. Replace Whistler Village Gondola with a 2 stage 6/10 chondola
Never happen. Will always be a Gondola
2. Replace Fitzsimmons with a bubble 6 chair
May possibly be upgraded to a 6 or 8 for the bike park. Can’t see bubbles returning after they were removed.
3. Replace Creekside Gondola with a new 8 person gondola.
Sooner the better. 10 person, same as New Blackcomb gondola
4. Replace Franz and Big Red Express with the old Creekside Gondola.
Big red staying. Franz will be replaced with a new 4 or 6. Who knows when. Alignment is bottom of existing Franz to top of T-bars. Hopefully old Creek
gondola disappears.
5.Jersey Cream Express with bubble 6 chair
May get replaced at some point. Definitely won’t have bubbles. Too windy.
6. Replace Showcase T-Bar with the old Franz chair
Glacier T-bar will stay as long as the ice is there. Old franz chair will hopefully disappear.
7. Replace T-Bars 1 and 2 with new CLF 4
Just need new T-bars. Good bad weather lifts.
8. Replace Horsrman T-Bar with new CLF 4
Glacier lift again. Ice recession means a total rethink of that lift.
9. Replace Magic with Chondola and extend up to mid-unload of Excalibur
On the old renaissance plan. Could happen in the future.
10. Replace Excalibur with new 4/8 MDG using the existing chairs from Excelerator and have 2 mid unloads, one where the existing one is, and then extend up to replace the Excelerator. Have another unload where the Excelerator begins.
Excal may get the third section going to Glacier Creek. If it were me, I would do it as new two section lift. Excel unlikely to change, but would be nice to
see it extended up to say the Wishbone/Gandy Dancer split.
It will be interesting to see what the final product is because there is no room at the bottom or top for a detach and it would be maybe 1,000 feet long
Olympic serves a learning area. And before the Garbanzo Express was put in in 1999, Olympic was how you got from the gondola midstation to the Black Chair, Garbanzo’s predecessor. Black Chair ran up Seppo’s run, and I think you can still find the tower foundations for it there in the summer.
From Blackcomb’s Master Plan, the Crystal Ridge Express and Catskinner Express lifts have been built. All that’s really left is the proposed high speed quad from the Excalibur midstation to the bottom of the Catskinner Express.
On Whistler’s side, the Emerald 6 Express and Harmony 6 Express lifts have been built. Also proposed is the replacement of Franz’s and the Whistler T-Bar with a high speed quad. There is also a proposed massive expansion to the south and west, creating a new base area with gondola access at Cheakamus, as well as two more gondolas out of Creekside base (one running to the top of Garbanzo, and another to a point below the West Bowl). This proposal also includes several new pods of trails serviced by three high speed quads, as well as a high speed six pack out of a “Whistler South” base area at the top of the Cheakamus gondola, also containing a learning area with its own fixed grip quad.
The Whistler master plan also has some infill lifts that have been proposed but never built. One would be Yellow Express, a high speed quad that would run parallel to the Emerald 6 Express. Another would be the upgrading of the Olympic chair to a chondola. And third would be two additional chairlifts in the Symphony Ampitheatre to supplement the Symphony Express: a high speed six pack called the Flute Peak Express to serve trails on the far side of the Flute Bowl (with an optional alternative alignment containing just a high speed quad), and an egress fixed grip quad up Robertson’s to eliminate the traverse back to the Harmony 6 Express.
I don’t know if the flute peak express would need to be a six pack. And the whistler south expansion would definitely need snowmaking. Upgrading the creekside gondola and big red would be better than another gondola in my opinion.
A couple questions: Would olympic need to be a chondola? It seems unnecessary and detach quad seems enough.
Also, would the detach quad running from Excalibur mid to catskinner be a reliver lift to blackomb gondola?
I think it would be a daily lift, seeing as it in conjunction with Catskinner would be a more direct route for getting to Rendezvous from the Excalibur midstation, as opposed to taking Excalibur to the Excelerator Express, then taking the Jersey Cream Express.
If they build it, they should name it the Wizard Express as tribute to the previous high speed quad. They should call it that or the Cruiser Express, in tribute to the triple that Excalibur Stage II replaced.
But yeah, that high speed quad really would come in handy, as it would make it possible to use a chairlift to lap most of the old Wizard pod. Maybe put it in a slightly alternate alignment that ends at the top of Slingshot, making it also possible to lap via chairlift the lower part of the former Solar Coaster pod.
The alpine lifts should be able to withstand higher wind speeds. I have been 4 times this season and all of them have been closed every time. Can detachable be retrofitted to run in higher wind speeds?
The alignment, how high the lift sits above the ground and trees, the topography, etc. impact a lifts ability to run in high wind. For this season specifically, many alpine Whistler Blackcomb lifts were closed for a while due to a lack of snow.
Most recently they have been closed because of avalanche risk. The alpine lifts are exposed, so weather will shut them down far more often than other lifts.
Rob – One valid point is the Blackcomb Gondola seems much much more susceptible to wind than the Solar Coaster used to be. And additionally the time to decouple to run the lower / upper line separate (mainly as the thing breaks down A LOT) seems to take a while. And finally on said windy days (like ahem right now) having the upper line run at a slow speed means the LOWER line also runs at a slow speed. Therefore the storm day return cycle to base laps kind of suck. This is the same problem the village gondola has. I do wonder at what point an ops decision could be made to force unload everyone at mid station??
This is definitely an argument that Solar Coaster should’ve been upgraded to a high speed six pack while having the gondola only replace Wizard. Then again, Vail wanted it to be possible to have a one-seat ride to Rendezvous.
So a couple of things. The BG was having issues at Christmas, but otherwise has run fine including some days with no stops, despite your assertions on facebook it’s always broken down. Yes the gondola is more susceptible to wind, but Solar ran a lot of days it shouldn’t have. The BG is there for 4 season traffic so a few days in winter when wind is a problem is the price you pay for that. Also note that if the lift is split it is limited to half speed (3 m/s), so not much is gained by doing that.
Honestly, what wouldn’t have been a bad idea there would have been to have a similar setup to Fitz and Garbonzo with the two lifts running a nearly identical line next to the gondola. Catskinner’s not too far off from that, but since it loads so much higher it’s not quite the same. I don’t see this coming anytime in the near future, it’s possible whenever Magic gets replaced they’ll extend it up a little further but with the giant garage to the right of the gondola preventing the lift being built next to it on the right and the left being crowded by the gondola’s location next to the lodge it probably can’t happen.
One to thing about the Fitz/Garbanzo split is that Garbanzo doesn’t get one quite all the way to Roundhouse. You have to take Big Red or Emerald 6 the rest of the way. But yeah, Whistler has the more ideal setup where you can either ride the gondola all the way up or take the chairlifts route of Fitzsimmons, Garbanzo and Emerald 6 or Big Red and get extra runs and EpicMix check-ins. Whereas with Blackcomb, you have to take a gondola onto it from any of the three entry points (Blackcomb Gondola, Excalibur or Peak 2 Peak), and only the Excalbur route has a chairlift included (with Excelerator).
Will be interesting to see what happens when Vail decides that it’s time for Excalibur to be replaced, seeing as that lift’s getting up there in age.
I believe that there are two plans down the line for Blackcomb. One will be a lift running from the Excalibur midstation to the bottom of Catskinner. This will serve as a third staging route. The other will be a a third stage of excalibur to the bottom of Jersey Cream. This will probably be realized with a replacement.
Thing about the Excalibur stage 3 is that that would probably entail having to replace all the grips on the existing stages, since the DS grip is no longer produced. That, or like Telluride’s parking access gondola, stage 3 would have to be built as a separate independent system.
The proposed high speed quad from Excalbur’s midstation to the bottom of Catskinner might go hand in hand with an upgraded Magic Chair.
Is the detach quad spanning Franz’s up to the t bars confirmed?
also, I think they should build a fixed grip at the junction of highway 86 going up to bagel bowl so skiers can make it back to the peak without big red, relieving pressure off it as well as a much shorter time option.
Great pictures of the old Yans in this thread on skilifts.org.
http://www.skilifts.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=10878
You should add them to this spreadsheet.
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The website’s giving me a hard time accessing these, can someone who has an account on the website paste the pictures below this comment?
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http://www.skilifts.org/forum/index.php?app=core&module=attach§ion=attach&attach_rel_module=post&attach_id=26352
http://www.skilifts.org/forum/index.php?app=core&module=attach§ion=attach&attach_rel_module=post&attach_id=26353
http://www.skilifts.org/forum/index.php?app=core&module=attach§ion=attach&attach_rel_module=post&attach_id=26354
http://www.skilifts.org/forum/index.php?app=core&module=attach§ion=attach&attach_rel_module=post&attach_id=26355
http://www.skilifts.org/forum/index.php?app=core&module=attach§ion=attach&attach_rel_module=post&attach_id=26356
http://www.skilifts.org/forum/index.php?app=core&module=attach§ion=attach&attach_rel_module=post&attach_id=26357
http://www.skilifts.org/forum/index.php?app=core&module=attach§ion=attach&attach_rel_module=post&attach_id=26358
http://www.skilifts.org/forum/index.php?app=core&module=attach§ion=attach&attach_rel_module=post&attach_id=26359
http://www.skilifts.org/forum/index.php?app=core&module=attach§ion=attach&attach_rel_module=post&attach_id=26360
http://www.skilifts.org/forum/index.php?app=core&module=attach§ion=attach&attach_rel_module=post&attach_id=26451
http://www.skilifts.org/forum/index.php?app=core&module=attach§ion=attach&attach_rel_module=post&attach_id=26452
http://www.skilifts.org/forum/index.php?app=core&module=attach§ion=attach&attach_rel_module=post&attach_id=26453
http://www.skilifts.org/forum/index.php?app=core&module=attach§ion=attach&attach_rel_module=post&attach_id=26454
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I dont think the website lets you view images unless you have a account
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Still not working. So close yet so far away…
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Okay, now this *should* work- https://imgur.com/a/AixC0Jp
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Think about this, every lift that has run in the spot where Creekside gondola operates has been removed due to a mechanical malfunction. The original gondola suffered a fatal grip failure, and was removed. Then, Yan made Quicksilver, which also had issues regarding the grip. Now, Creekside Gondola has TB-41s, which have fallen off of the line in the past, like when that chair fell off of the old Harmony Express. Funny coincidence.
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The chair that came off the line at Harmony had nothing to do with the grip. It was a broken assembly bolt.
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Didn’t know that. I think those grips have had issues in the past though on other lifts, Don’t remember the exact lifts, but I recall a few lifts that had issues regarding the grip.
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TB grips have been pretty reliable, from my experience. What sort of issues do you know of?
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If I recall correctly, a chair fell off Timberline’s Magic Mile Quad a few years ago. It’s a 1992 Poma 1st gen. Challenger with TB-41s and Competition chairs. That’s the only incident I can think of.
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That’s a pretty nebulous statement. You may be referring to an incident at Mt. Hood where a chair fell from a maintenance oversight…not a grip issue.
Not a TB-41 issue.
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Fair enough. I was under the impression that the TB-41s had had issues in the past with the grip itself, but it sounds like these was due to other conditions. Thanks for notifying me of that.
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Does anyone have pics of the black chair or the original Yan high speeds?
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There are some good pics here.
http://www.skilifts.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=10878
I assume there are some other pictures from the skilifts.org forum of Yan detachables that Peter can dig up. I sure would appreciate it if he did.
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I don’t think Peter repurposes pictures from other sites for the database.
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Well I would still appreciate it if he posted links to them.
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It says I can’t access the photos
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It says I can’t access the photos
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I’m pretty sure it restricts photos if you don’t have an account. Just make one, it’s free.
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Here’s a good shot of Killington’s Superstar Quad (1987 Yan CLD4):
and the upper lift line of Superstar:
I love how they say “state of the art detachable quads” when in reality they were death traps that had to be rebuilt after only a few years of service.
There are a few more good shots of Superstar at 8:15 and 8:48 here as well:
Here’s a good one of Greyhawk at Sun Valley. There are clips of Challenger as well starting at 4:18 and ending at 7:03:
There’s a good page of some of Yan’s fixed grip designs as well on Skilifts.org:
http://www.skilifts.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=10947&hl=&fromsearch=1
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Is there some where I can find the meaning of uni g unigs unigm uni unigxxl and so on?
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UNIG is Doppelmayr’s standard detachable terminal worldwide. Uni meaning one and G for global. It comes in many different lengths and two different widths. According to Alpinforum:
• UNIG S: 21 windows
• UNIG M: 25 windows
• UNIG L 31 windows
• UNIG XL: 33 windows
• UNIG XXL: 35 windows
• UNIG XXXL: 37 windows
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Where can I find pictures and discriptions of the different dopplmeyer terminals.
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Will the terminals on the new blackcomb gondola be unig vision?
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I dont think so. It will be a ordinary unig XXL terminal I think. Uni G visions are quite rare in North america and I think aspen has one.
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Huh? Aspen Skiing Co. doesn’t operate any Doppelmayr lifts.
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I was wrong its Keystone’s River run gondola.
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Blackcomb Gondola will be XXL UniG at top and bottom and 2 x L at midstation
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Which lifts will the Blackomb gondola replace?
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Wizard Express and Solar Coaster Express.
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Huh. I thought it was replacing Excalibur. But I checked and I guess you’re right.
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Eventually, they’re going to extend Excalibur to the bottom of Glacier and Jersey Cream.
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How exactly would they expand Excalibur? I would imagine they’d have to replace most of the components of the gondola, given that the technology is dated.
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I think major modifications would be needed to Excalibur for it to be extended as Doppelmayr no longer make terminals the work with DT grips. I think the best option would be to replace it entirely, or keep it and add another separate lift.
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Excalibur has ds grips, not dt. Dt are still i. Production.
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Ted. You are correct about the grip type. Typo there. Should be DS.
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Why did the peak chair never run with gondolas?
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Not sure. Perhaps after investing in the construction of the lift, they had the intentions of ordering the cabins later on, but maybe they didn’t have the money to do so at the time. It may also be a conditional thing, that lift is quite windy, even in the summer, which may have actually invalidated the usage of the gondola cabins. Whatever the case may be, I’ve never seen this lift running with gondolas, and I doubt they even have the cabins to do so.
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The original plan was to run with gondola cabins off Creekside, but the logistics a pretty big to do the changeover twice a year for a short season.
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Lake Louise does that with Grizzly and Glaicer. Glacier is the summer lift and is a Leitner high speed quad. Grizzly is a Poma 6 passenger gondola. In the summer they swap cabins from Grizzly over to Glacier and run it as a Chondola. I’m guessing they need completely different hanger arms to do that, as would be required to run the Creekside cabins on Peak. Also, Creekside recently started running in the summer to serve more bike trails.
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some shots of the new Emerald 6 in this video. https://youtu.be/Zf8D42c1U98
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Isn’t Whistler village gondola a 8 mgd?
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WVG has ten passenger cabins but is certified for nine people.
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What do you mean by certified for 9?
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Does anyone know what happened with the Excalibur Gondola Crash?
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Water got inside of the splice section of the tower tube. When the cold temps came the water turned to ice causing it to expand lifting the tower and the nuts and bolts broke. Causing the tower to fall right over. The term is called “Ice jacking”. Unfortunately the bolts gave away when people were on the lift.
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Wasn’t nuts and bolts that broke, the welded flange separated from the tube.
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I have always wondered about these lift upgrades:
1. Replace Whistler Village Gondola with a 2 stage 6/10 chondola
2. Replace Fitzsimmons with a bubble 6 chair
3. Replace Creekside Gondola with a new 8 person gondola.
4. Replace Franz and Big Red Express with the old Creekside Gondola
5.Jersey Cream Express with bubble 6 chair
6. Replace Showcase T-Bar with the old Franz chair
7. Replace T-Bars 1 and 2 with new CLF 4
8. Replace Horsrman T-Bar with new CLF 4
9. Replace Magic with Chondola and extend up to mid-unload of Excalibur
10. Replace Excalibur with new 4/8 MDG using the existing chairs from Excelrator and have 2 mid unloads, one where the existing one is, and then extend up to replace the Excelerator. Have another unload where the Excelrator begins.
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One question i have is can a chondola have a midstation? To date I cannot think of a chondola that contains one.
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“One question i have is can a chondola have a midstation? To date I cannot think of a chondola that contains one.”
You can, but they are large, complex terminals with lots of moving parts.
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Buck hill wants to install a chondola that would be a dumb detach, so would a fixed grip work?
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I have always wondered about these lift upgrades:
1. Replace Whistler Village Gondola with a 2 stage 6/10 chondola
Never happen. Will always be a Gondola
2. Replace Fitzsimmons with a bubble 6 chair
May possibly be upgraded to a 6 or 8 for the bike park. Can’t see bubbles returning after they were removed.
3. Replace Creekside Gondola with a new 8 person gondola.
Sooner the better. 10 person, same as New Blackcomb gondola
4. Replace Franz and Big Red Express with the old Creekside Gondola.
Big red staying. Franz will be replaced with a new 4 or 6. Who knows when. Alignment is bottom of existing Franz to top of T-bars. Hopefully old Creek
gondola disappears.
5.Jersey Cream Express with bubble 6 chair
May get replaced at some point. Definitely won’t have bubbles. Too windy.
6. Replace Showcase T-Bar with the old Franz chair
Glacier T-bar will stay as long as the ice is there. Old franz chair will hopefully disappear.
7. Replace T-Bars 1 and 2 with new CLF 4
Just need new T-bars. Good bad weather lifts.
8. Replace Horsrman T-Bar with new CLF 4
Glacier lift again. Ice recession means a total rethink of that lift.
9. Replace Magic with Chondola and extend up to mid-unload of Excalibur
On the old renaissance plan. Could happen in the future.
10. Replace Excalibur with new 4/8 MDG using the existing chairs from Excelerator and have 2 mid unloads, one where the existing one is, and then extend up to replace the Excelerator. Have another unload where the Excelerator begins.
Excal may get the third section going to Glacier Creek. If it were me, I would do it as new two section lift. Excel unlikely to change, but would be nice to
see it extended up to say the Wishbone/Gandy Dancer split.
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Is WB still considering the Showcase Gondola idea that was in the Blackcomb master plan?
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Don’t think so. The tunnel that is part of that plan is not viable. Rock conditions unfavourable.
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anyone have any plans on the showcase gondola tunnel?
Sounds very interesting
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The Blackcomb gondola has 21 towers on each side.
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Buck hill wants to install a chondola that would be a dumb detach, so would a fixed grip work?
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Fixed grip gondolas really don’t work as the terminal speed has to be low for safe loading/unloading.
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That’s why they make pulse gondolas.
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No room to keep it. We had to use the same alignment. Also very expensive to keep around as a back up lift
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It will be interesting to see what the final product is because there is no room at the bottom or top for a detach and it would be maybe 1,000 feet long
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What’s next on the chopping block? 7th heaven express being replaced with 7th Heaven 6 Express?
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Lots of other things need to happen in conjunction with an upgrade there.
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I hope for 7th Heaven 6 or Franz’s express for next year. Or maybe both!
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Also is the Olympic chair needed? Isn’t it really long for a beginner lift? What is it used for
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Olympic serves a learning area. And before the Garbanzo Express was put in in 1999, Olympic was how you got from the gondola midstation to the Black Chair, Garbanzo’s predecessor. Black Chair ran up Seppo’s run, and I think you can still find the tower foundations for it there in the summer.
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Here are links to the 2010 master plans for Whistler and Blackcomb
Whistler
Blackcomb
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From Blackcomb’s Master Plan, the Crystal Ridge Express and Catskinner Express lifts have been built. All that’s really left is the proposed high speed quad from the Excalibur midstation to the bottom of the Catskinner Express.
On Whistler’s side, the Emerald 6 Express and Harmony 6 Express lifts have been built. Also proposed is the replacement of Franz’s and the Whistler T-Bar with a high speed quad. There is also a proposed massive expansion to the south and west, creating a new base area with gondola access at Cheakamus, as well as two more gondolas out of Creekside base (one running to the top of Garbanzo, and another to a point below the West Bowl). This proposal also includes several new pods of trails serviced by three high speed quads, as well as a high speed six pack out of a “Whistler South” base area at the top of the Cheakamus gondola, also containing a learning area with its own fixed grip quad.
The Whistler master plan also has some infill lifts that have been proposed but never built. One would be Yellow Express, a high speed quad that would run parallel to the Emerald 6 Express. Another would be the upgrading of the Olympic chair to a chondola. And third would be two additional chairlifts in the Symphony Ampitheatre to supplement the Symphony Express: a high speed six pack called the Flute Peak Express to serve trails on the far side of the Flute Bowl (with an optional alternative alignment containing just a high speed quad), and an egress fixed grip quad up Robertson’s to eliminate the traverse back to the Harmony 6 Express.
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The 2010 maps are out of date. 2013 is the current version.
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I don’t know if the flute peak express would need to be a six pack. And the whistler south expansion would definitely need snowmaking. Upgrading the creekside gondola and big red would be better than another gondola in my opinion.
A couple questions: Would olympic need to be a chondola? It seems unnecessary and detach quad seems enough.
Also, would the detach quad running from Excalibur mid to catskinner be a reliver lift to blackomb gondola?
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I think it would be a daily lift, seeing as it in conjunction with Catskinner would be a more direct route for getting to Rendezvous from the Excalibur midstation, as opposed to taking Excalibur to the Excelerator Express, then taking the Jersey Cream Express.
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I don’t think Olympic would need to be a chondola. A fixed grip quad or a high speed quad with carpet would probably suffice.
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With the lines on blackomb gondola in the past few weeks, the proposed detach from base 2 to catskinner is sorely needed.
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If they build it, they should name it the Wizard Express as tribute to the previous high speed quad. They should call it that or the Cruiser Express, in tribute to the triple that Excalibur Stage II replaced.
But yeah, that high speed quad really would come in handy, as it would make it possible to use a chairlift to lap most of the old Wizard pod. Maybe put it in a slightly alternate alignment that ends at the top of Slingshot, making it also possible to lap via chairlift the lower part of the former Solar Coaster pod.
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The alpine lifts should be able to withstand higher wind speeds. I have been 4 times this season and all of them have been closed every time. Can detachable be retrofitted to run in higher wind speeds?
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The alignment, how high the lift sits above the ground and trees, the topography, etc. impact a lifts ability to run in high wind. For this season specifically, many alpine Whistler Blackcomb lifts were closed for a while due to a lack of snow.
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Most recently they have been closed because of avalanche risk. The alpine lifts are exposed, so weather will shut them down far more often than other lifts.
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Rob – One valid point is the Blackcomb Gondola seems much much more susceptible to wind than the Solar Coaster used to be. And additionally the time to decouple to run the lower / upper line separate (mainly as the thing breaks down A LOT) seems to take a while. And finally on said windy days (like ahem right now) having the upper line run at a slow speed means the LOWER line also runs at a slow speed. Therefore the storm day return cycle to base laps kind of suck. This is the same problem the village gondola has. I do wonder at what point an ops decision could be made to force unload everyone at mid station??
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This is definitely an argument that Solar Coaster should’ve been upgraded to a high speed six pack while having the gondola only replace Wizard. Then again, Vail wanted it to be possible to have a one-seat ride to Rendezvous.
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So a couple of things. The BG was having issues at Christmas, but otherwise has run fine including some days with no stops, despite your assertions on facebook it’s always broken down. Yes the gondola is more susceptible to wind, but Solar ran a lot of days it shouldn’t have. The BG is there for 4 season traffic so a few days in winter when wind is a problem is the price you pay for that. Also note that if the lift is split it is limited to half speed (3 m/s), so not much is gained by doing that.
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Honestly, what wouldn’t have been a bad idea there would have been to have a similar setup to Fitz and Garbonzo with the two lifts running a nearly identical line next to the gondola. Catskinner’s not too far off from that, but since it loads so much higher it’s not quite the same. I don’t see this coming anytime in the near future, it’s possible whenever Magic gets replaced they’ll extend it up a little further but with the giant garage to the right of the gondola preventing the lift being built next to it on the right and the left being crowded by the gondola’s location next to the lodge it probably can’t happen.
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One to thing about the Fitz/Garbanzo split is that Garbanzo doesn’t get one quite all the way to Roundhouse. You have to take Big Red or Emerald 6 the rest of the way. But yeah, Whistler has the more ideal setup where you can either ride the gondola all the way up or take the chairlifts route of Fitzsimmons, Garbanzo and Emerald 6 or Big Red and get extra runs and EpicMix check-ins. Whereas with Blackcomb, you have to take a gondola onto it from any of the three entry points (Blackcomb Gondola, Excalibur or Peak 2 Peak), and only the Excalbur route has a chairlift included (with Excelerator).
Will be interesting to see what happens when Vail decides that it’s time for Excalibur to be replaced, seeing as that lift’s getting up there in age.
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I believe that there are two plans down the line for Blackcomb. One will be a lift running from the Excalibur midstation to the bottom of Catskinner. This will serve as a third staging route. The other will be a a third stage of excalibur to the bottom of Jersey Cream. This will probably be realized with a replacement.
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Thing about the Excalibur stage 3 is that that would probably entail having to replace all the grips on the existing stages, since the DS grip is no longer produced. That, or like Telluride’s parking access gondola, stage 3 would have to be built as a separate independent system.
The proposed high speed quad from Excalbur’s midstation to the bottom of Catskinner might go hand in hand with an upgraded Magic Chair.
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Is there any way to give harmony more wind protection? It has been closing a lot because of that.
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No. You can try calling mother nature and see if she’ll dial the winds down, but I dont think you’ll have much luck.
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High Alpine T-Bar was relocated from Fortress Mountain, AB.
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Is their any remains of orange double?
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No. It was all removed right around the Olympics in 2010.
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Parts where donated to Mt. Seymour as they have the same type of lift.
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Is the detach quad spanning Franz’s up to the t bars confirmed?
also, I think they should build a fixed grip at the junction of highway 86 going up to bagel bowl so skiers can make it back to the peak without big red, relieving pressure off it as well as a much shorter time option.
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Not soon. It’s on the master plan but there is no time line for it.
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