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Does anyone have pics of this Borvig/Leitner Hybrid detachable? It sounds interesting...

There aren't many pictures of this lift in circulation, but it is big, old, slow, and clunky, The terminals are constrcted like old Poma terminals, with the drive and bullwheel on the outside in a seperate building from the main terminal. The lift has about 14-16 towers, and it is relatively low riding. It probably only goes at 850 feet per minute, sometimes a little faster. It is really wide and has a very flat profile. The bubble shown in the following picture is one of about 5-10 that look like this, the rest are big heavy black bubbles that take a whole chair's force to lift.

Those carriers look very similar to CTEC's old design. Do you know if they were modified at one time Skier2?

Hmm. this is weird. According to the SAM surveys, The Borvig/Leitner HSQ was installed in 1986. Then in 1989, a CTEC fg bubble quad was built. But the picture shows a CTEC bubble chair with a detach grip and borvig tower. I never knew CTEC made bubbles. The lengths and verticals of the 2 lifts don't match either.

Update: I found some pics from Flickr. It looks like CTEC modified the original chairs.
This post has been edited by Skier: 12 July 2006 - 11:28 PM

I believe there is a picture of this lift in an old SAM Magazine that has a picture of this lift and it looks totally different.

No, actually I believe these are the original carriers. I thought they were leitner carriers, but maybe I was wrong. They may have been custom built. As far as the bubbled lift goes, that is correct... Spirit Mountain has a HSQ with bubbles and a FGQ that used to have bubbles but were removed. The fixed chair is a CTEC but it has the same chairs as on the HS quad with different backrests. I have never seen any other CTEC chairs like them in circulation, which leads me to believe that the fixed chair only has CTEC line equipment and towers and terminals, not chairs.

Below on the map, The HSQ is the long lift on the left side fo the map that runs up "Four Pipe" and is called the Spirit Express. The bubbled fixed quad is the lift on the far right that is called the Big Air Chair.

In the lift survey, the listing for the FGQ is wrong in that it says the name of the lift is "Double Jaw". Double jaw is the Hall double that can be seen running just to the left of the HSQ line. The FGQ is actually called "Big Air" Chair. Also, notice how exaggerated the lengths of the lifts are. The HSQ is supposed to be 4000 feet long, but is is really just over 3600. Also, the FGQ is listed on the map as being 2500 feet long, but it is only 2020 feet long. That doesn't seem like much, but considering that this is the midwest and my home hill had a total length of 600 feet for the lift, a 400-500 foot exaggeration seems like alot.

skier2, on Jul 13 2006, 03:44 PM, said:

Actually, Those bails on the express quad are of the CTEC breed. They are quite common on fixed grips that were built by CTEC before the merger with Doppelmayr and then there were even a few more after that.
The hanger arms and grips are probably still leitner. There is also a lot more stuff on this lift that has been retrofitted by CTEC besides the carriers. Most of this stuff is electrical and is not generally visible.

The CTEC-VonRoll hybrid Eagle Express HSQ at Solutide is kinda similar to that lift. CTEC fixed grip chairs with VonRoll hangers

my opinion. So i remember the HSQ (L+B) at Spirit originally had the black plastic chairs that are(were) now on the CTEC quad, minus the bubbles. I believe they switched the chairs all/part? except of course the grip, fairly soon after the CTEC was built. I skied there regularly then, the CTEC had the clear bubbles from the get go. they are now on the HS. The HS had the black plastic chairs and a tinted full coverage bubbles, originally. When the CTEC was new, you could ski all of spirit by riding a lift with a bubble, protected from the HARSH winds off of The Great Gitchi Gummie. I know of problems with the wind there, maybe a factor for the change. I remember the lift never running , the original chairs/bubbles were swung by the wind bad

Interesting... I wonder why Spirit would switch the chairs? Wind, but you would think that the quad would keep the chairs with the black solid plastic backrests, expecially sice they are wind resistant and the fixed quad on which they now preside is less wind protected. The H.S. quad is low riding and is thus protected (probably planned that way). Also, were the black bubbles that are now on some of the chairs on the spirit express originally on the CTEC quad? I want to know more. I wonder why they replaced the original tinted ones with those crummy black ones that are heavy and opaque that just have the little window in the middle. Like I said, the clear one in the picture is one of just a few like it. Also, the mechanism that lifts the bubbles on the lift in the bottom terminal is broken, so it must now be done by hand. On the fixed lift that used to have bubbles, on the top terminal, there is still the thing that guided the chairs and opened/ closed the bubbles. Hmmm... Also, I knew that the chairs were CTEC, sorry I didn't write that, rather I meant that the hanger arms didn't look like they were. Can anybody find pictures of the original configuration of either the HSQ or the FGQ?
This post has been edited by skier2: 13 July 2006 - 07:45 PM

although totaly off subject now, I now have looked at the pictures of the Spirit HS, not knowing of when they were taken, so?? Thinking the bubbles look like the original B/L one's, that are now back on it?? And the soild backed chairs were a windcatcher, just like a kite, or like a lift with back pads on it. The ctec originally had the clear 1/2 bubbles on it for a year or two.

The pictures from Flickr were uploaded just a week ago on July 7th

just to make shure, skier sage and i were talking about this ski area, after leaving ironwood last year i drove thru duluth minnesota, would this be the ski area thats right in the middle of the city?

What is the point of having a HSQ build by two manufacturers?

spunkyskier01, on Jul 14 2006, 10:13 PM, said:

Here is a map of where spirit mountain is from google earth. If it is correct then it is not directly in the middle of the city but the nice thing is that it is near us 2. Here is the map.

 untitled.jpg (404.32K)
Number of downloads: 15

Lift Kid, on Jul 15 2006, 11:24 AM, said:

There are a few reasons for it to be this way. The main reason why is because the two companies already had a relationship with one another. This is illlustrated in the below statement:

Quote

source: http://www.skiliftfo...p?showtopic=302

So, seeing as though borvig could not produce a HSQ and leitner could not yet market to the US resorts, this was the lift that was produced. Wit this set aside though, there are more lifts that were built by both leitner and borvig as a team.

the bridge on US 2 between Superior and Duluth is called the 'Bong Bridge"

Yeah, also thats the correct location of Spirit. Real nice, it overlooks Duluth/Superior and all its lights at night, but its also on the first ridge off Superior, the wind can be nasty

skier691, on Jul 13 2006, 04:29 PM, said:

This is correct. They switched the chairs from the HSQ to the FGQ. The FGQ chairs are seen in those Flickr pictures. Garaventa CTEC modified the chairs to hold the bubbles and they also modified the controls. This past summer, Spirit removed the bubbles.

Picture of the stabilizing wheel on the current FG chair. (previous HS chair)

 bigair4.jpg (140.69K)
Number of downloads: 40

Quote

The quad is not as exposed to the wind as the HSQ. The quad only is exposed at the top of the line. The rest of it is in the trees. The HSQ is in the direct path of the wind. The old chairs weren't able to let the wind go through them.

Lift Kid, on Jan 13 2007, 05:13 PM, said:

I wonder why that chair has those rollers on them? The bails themselves are from the HSQ but the hangers are CTEC or at least appear to be. And even if they are leitner, the grips have there own principal roller. So it does not make sense that the quad has a roller on it unless it has some guidage somewhere.