24 replies to this topic

[DonaldMReif]

Technically, I should be waiting until the Peak 6 lifts open to be doing this photo update, but I might as well do it since I have photos now.


Zendo:
This is the fixed grip quad you use to access the Kensho SuperChair and Peak 6. It starts between Lincoln Meadows and Angel's Rest on Peak 7 at the junction of Monte Cristo, Angel's Rest and Lost Horizon. It has 11 towers and 110 chairs.

Since Monte Cristo and Angel's Rest were open, I was able to get these photographs of the bottom station and lower lift line.

[DonaldMReif]

Speaking of the Kensho SuperChair, here are some photos of it that I was able to acquire by riding other lifts. As you can see, there was haul rope up, but this was taken about a week before they installed the chairs. There are 103 chairs and 22 towers on the Kensho SuperChair. From the Instagram photo (link below in my next post), it looks like a steep lift line. There are three straight combi towers above tree line (first time I've ever seen three consecutive towers of that type at Breckenridge) - towers 15, 16, and 17. It also looks from the Instagram photo and Leitner Poma website photos that there are three compression towers below timberline - towers 1, 11, and 12, plus a depression tower at tower 2 and possibly tower 3. That is seven or eight towers at minimum with hold down sheave wheels, and there might be more.


As viewed from the Independence SuperChair:






A better view, this one taken from the Mercury SuperChair earlier in the afternoon, allowing sun to shine on the wooden sidings of the upper terminal:

This post has been edited by DonaldMReif: 19 December 2013 - 12:24 PM

[DonaldMReif]

And there have been some changes, albeit minor ones, at other chairlifts.


The Independence SuperChair has lost its loading gates. Also, it was operating at a much higher speed than I have ever seen it run before, based on the sound of the electric motor at the top.




The now-standard yellow pictogram signs have now appeared on the Mercury SuperChair. They also are now on the Rocky Mountain SuperChair and the Peak 8 SuperConnect.

Before:



After:




The Peak 8 SuperConnect's loading area has been changed this year. This, as you may know, used to be a 90 degree loading area. This year, Breckenridge converted it to an inline loading area- ostensibly so as to reduce stops and slows due to misloads, given that in the original configuration, it was pretty easy for the chair to knock you into the pit if you weren't careful. It also allows them to reconfigure the queue to allow you to access the lift from the Sawmill catwalk. The gates, however, are still utilized due to the midstation being unchanged.

As you can see in this photo, the transformation mostly involved moving the gates and loading ramp over. They did not bother to remove the awning that used to cover the gates when they were in their original position:

This post has been edited by DonaldMReif: 14 December 2013 - 07:17 PM

[liftmech]

I see they can't get the magnetic signs to stick without help either.

[DonaldMReif]

Well, today I got to experience Peak 6 for myself, riding Zendo and doing two trips up the Kensho SuperChair (one to record video footage, the other to take photographs).

Zendo:

Zendo is the fixed grip quad to access Peak 6. It originates on Peak 7 between Angel's Rest and Lincoln Meadows at the junction of Monte Cristo, Angel's Rest and Lost Horizon, and ends at the Horizon Warming Hut at the bottom of the Kensho SuperChair. This lift has 11 towers and 110 chairs.

Here's a video of a ride on the lift that I made:


Here are a few photos of the lift in operation (not the photos from visits I made two weeks ago):






So far, the one criticism that I have seen of Zendo is that the unloading area is really problematic for snowboarders. As you can see in the video, it's rather steep and there is no flat spot to strap in your board. I've seen a lot of people criticizing the issues with the Zendo lift's unloading area on the Facebook page. This problem does not exist on the Kensho SuperChair, which has the advantage of ending at a natural flat spot at the top of the ridge on Peak 6.

Trivia: Both Peak 6 lift names are of Japanese origin, and both tie in with the entire "Awaken Your Sixth Sense" theme used on the trails. Punch either lift name onto Wikipedia, and be amazed to find that Breckenridge was bold enough to name the access lift the Meditation Hall lift and the main lift the Seeing Nature SuperChair.

This post has been edited by DonaldMReif: 26 December 2013 - 09:12 PM

[DonaldMReif]

Kensho SuperChair:

I do have a knack for getting videos and photo tours of new 2013 chairlifts during their second day of operation, do I? That was the case with the Mountaintop Express lift, and now it's applied to the Kensho SuperChair.

With a top terminal elevation of 12,302 feet, the Kensho SuperChair is the second highest ending lift on the mountain (only the Imperial Express SuperChair at 12,840 feet goes higher), and also is the highest high speed six pack in North America (Winter Park previously had boasted of having this title thanks to the Panoramic Express lift, but not anymore; Breckenridge never brought this up in marketing). It also has a 1,536 foot vertical rise, which is the second largest of any lift on the mountain (only the Beaver Run SuperChair at 1,600 feet has a larger rise). It is also the steepest of the four high speed six packs (counting the future upgrade to the Colorado SuperChair), given it has the distance of Quicksilver Super6 and yet it has more vertical rise than the longer Independence SuperChair. The environment of the terrain and the location of the lift make it kind of like Breckenridge's attempt to emulate the Outback section of Keystone, only that the Kensho SuperChair goes above timberline whereas the Outback Express does not.

The Kensho SuperChair also has something unique to any chairlift at Breckenridge and that is the wooden siding on the lift terminals, custom-designed by Leitner-Poma to give a more European look to the lift (similar to the custom wood trimming Crested Butte uses on their high speed quads). It is also the sole high speed six pack at the resort to run in bottom-drive configuration.

The lift has 22 towers and 103 chairs.

Ironically I almost didn't get to make these photos as we got stuck in line due to a malfunction of a safety switch causing a 15 minute closure while they reset it. A lot of the crowd in the line bailed out, but my dad and I stayed put and lo and behold, they did reopen the lift. We were rewarded with a practical ski-up-to-the-loading-area line when we got down after that first run on Reverie.

The part that gets even better is when you get chair 1 on just your second time up a new lift, which is what happened in these pictures.

I believe in hindsight that Breckenridge may have taken the gates off the Independence SuperChair and increased that lift's speed (shortening the ride time by 30 seconds) in part because of the influx of cross traffic from Peak 6. Peak 6 has also meant that at that last hill on the return to the Independence SuperChair, where the slow signs are, they now have to have people in yellow jackets there. That's the hill that gets kinda crusty due to heavy traffic.

Bottom terminal:

I do apologize if these are a bit blurry. This is the loading process when you load at the "base camp" - Horizon Warming Hut.





On the other hand, the wooden trim on the underside of the lift terminal is nothing new given that Vail utilizes a similar looking trim on the High Noon Express lift and Gondola One.

This post has been edited by DonaldMReif: 27 December 2013 - 03:42 PM

[DonaldMReif]

Lower Lift Line:

The Kensho SuperChair's lowest segment is probably the most unique among all of Breckenridge's lifts. Whereas a depression assembly is used on the other lifts to elevate you off the ground, the Kensho SuperChair's bottom terminal is situated on a location where tower 1 as a depression tower assembly wasn't exactly practical. Therefore, the depression towers are not until towers 3 and 4 (many of Leitner-Poma's recently built lifts to use the LPA grip, like the High Noon Express and Gondola One, seem to like having twin depression towers at the bottom terminal).

Therefore, tower 1 is a compression tower assembly (4S2C on both uphill and downhill). Then you have a span, then three quick towers in rapid succession before you start the actual climb up the hill.





Tower 2:


Towers 3 and 4:

[DonaldMReif]

Lower lift line cont.:

[DonaldMReif]

Leaving the private right-of-way:

It is above tower 8, seven towers before you reach timberline, that you cross Barton Breezeway and join Reverie for the remainder of the below timberline segment.

[DonaldMReif]

Lower Reverie:

There are two compression towers on the below timberline segment besides tower 1. They are towers 10 and 11, while you are riding up Reverie after crossing Barton Breezeway (the return run from the trails north of the lift).

[DonaldMReif]

You are now leaving the forests behind:

[DonaldMReif]

Above Timberline:

The Kensho SuperChair goes above timberline between towers 14 and 15. This leads to a section with three straight combination towers - towers 15, 16 and 17.

Tower 15:



Tower 16:



This is an odd pile of small trees that stick out of the snow below tower 17:


Tower 17:

[DonaldMReif]

Upper lift line:

[DonaldMReif]

Approaching the top of the lift:

Whereas the yellow pictogram signs on all of the other high speed lifts are sticker signs, the Kensho SuperChair's yellow signs were the only ones that were put on the lift as originally built. But rather than use the columns of the upper terminal like on the Falcon SuperChair, Mercury SuperChair, Rocky Mountain SuperChair, the Peak 8 SuperConnect, Quicksilver, and the Independence SuperChair, the Kensho SuperChair uses the lift towers before the upper terminal for the yellow signs. In fact, the Kensho SuperChair has the fewest lift towers with informative signs on them - just towers 1, 9, 12, 20, 21 and 22 have any signs on them. Four have the yellow signs relating to the bar, tower 9 has the "Do not Jump from Lift" warning sign, and tower 12 is a "Snowcats may be encountered at any time" sign. The last two were installed sometime in early January.

Tower 20:


Tower 21:


Tower 22:

This post has been edited by DonaldMReif: 20 March 2014 - 07:53 AM

[DonaldMReif]

Upper terminal (elevation 12,302 feet):

One thing that interests me about the Kensho SuperChair's upper terminal is that the lift operator's control panel is situated on the inside of the unloading ramp, rather than on the outside of the ramp next to the operator's shack like it is at any other lift on the mountain, even Zendo.









Video of the ride:

This post has been edited by DonaldMReif: 27 December 2013 - 03:50 PM

[DonaldMReif]

Views from Peak 9:


From Quicksilver Super6, near Beaver Run:



From the Mercury SuperChair:


The view from the Falcon SuperChair. You can also see the Beaver Run SuperChair, the Mercury SuperChair, and Lift C:



Additional of the lift itself:

This post has been edited by DonaldMReif: 14 January 2014 - 06:19 AM

[DonaldMReif]

A view of the grip:


For a perspective of distance, here's what Peak 10, or more specifically Spitfire, looks like from midway up the lift:


A view of Peak 10 as it appears from near the top of Peak 6. You can see the upper terminal of the Falcon SuperChair, plus the Peak 9 Restaurant, the entire profile of the T-Bar, the upper terminal of the Independence SuperChair. You can even make out the lower parts of the Mercury and Beaver Run SuperChairs from this point, although I did not have time to zoom in well to give you a glimpse of those:



Here's a view where you look down the Kensho SuperChair's lift line and can see: the warming hut at the bottom of the lift, the entirety of the Zendo lift, the buildings at Grand Lodge on Peak 7, Crystal Peak Lodge and One Ski Hill Place. You can also see almost the entirety of the town of Breckenridge proper, plus Beaver Run Resort, Grand Timber Lodge and a tower and a couple of chairs on Quicksilver Super6.

[DonaldMReif]

Some new photos I have made of Zendo:

[DonaldMReif]

I guess I should now do a Zendo photo tour:


Bottom terminal:

This is a conventional Leitner-Poma return station.

[DonaldMReif]

Lower Zendo lift line: