Skilifts.org / SORT Forum

Has anyone been on, or knows how these lifts work at Portillo, Chile? I was broswing their website when I found them. Here's a link to the website: Portillo Lifts What I got from reading the page was that the lifts are essentially a typical platter pull but there are 5 discs to use that Poma manufatured, and there are only 2 in the world, both at Portillo. Apparently they are used because of the avalanche prone area that they are in. Anyone have more info?

thanks!

dave
This post has been edited by djspookman: 07 November 2005 - 07:41 AM

It says its a pulley drilled into the mountainside. Never seen these before. A better question is how they load and unload a five-seater pomalift. Good find, Dave

For those who have seen a few of the older Warren Miller movies, this lift is seen a lot in the scenes filmed at this resort.

I think i've seen this in a photo. Its like a rack hanging from the cable with 5 skiers in a row.

thats pretty cool, maybe they have the lower haulrope in a tube under the snow or something.

floridaskier, on Nov 7 2005, 04:26 PM, said:

thanks..

I was wondering this too... That could lead to quite the mess loading/unloading!

dave

From what video footage I have seen of this lift, it looks like it can only take 5 people up at a time and then it goes back down the hill. I guess you could call it a jig-back type lift.

SkiBachelor, on Nov 8 2005, 11:09 AM, said:

ahh.. that would simplify the loading/unloading issues I was thinking of.

dave

djspookman, on Nov 8 2005, 07:13 AM, said:

I can't remember the issue but Skiing had a Portillo article a number of years ago and they mentioned the unloading process. There are a series of signs that tell which person when to unload and the design of the platter of the last person to unload is different. I dont really remember much of the article but I will try to find it so I can get all the information from it.

its called a "va et viene" or something french like that. But yeah, its a five person poma. Very hard to get on and off.