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Here's our T-Bar's mid station... way better picture. Look how far above the tower the downhill side is.

Does anyone know if there are any FG lifts left in Colorado that have midstations offering both loading and unloading? I know Peru used to have one, and the Broadmoor but are there any others?

That would be something I have never seen before, or even on detachables, mids with both loading and unloading. Does anyone have pics of the load/unload midstations?

Wolf Creek Maybe?

I dont have any pics but if you look at the pics of the mid station on Grizzly at Durango you can see that the upline side is really low to the ground and then goes through a compression sheave asembly beire going up to the top station. There previously was a loading ramp there but it has since been removed. If you are riding the Peru at Keystone where it levels off after the first rise you can still see the unloading and loading ramps.

Which lift does Wolf Creek have midstations on?
This post has been edited by poloxskier: 06 March 2005 - 06:30 PM

nevermind. i'm thinking of a different ski area. Sorry

highspeedquad, on Mar 6 2005, 07:17 PM, said:

Chair 4 at Crystal used to have a load/unload midstaion. It was called 'Quarterway' both because it wasn't halfway up the lift, and because there was the Midway Shuttle lift. When Boyne took over the area in '97 they moved the bottom terminal up the hill and tore out Quarterway. Made no sense to me, and if you've skiied there it wouldn't make any sense to you either. The midstation was placed to utilise the topography, and the current configuration doesn't do that. I have no pics that I'm aware of, but being as that was Bill's lift once upon a time he might.

Was that a FG or a Detach? It seems it would be easier to manage it on a detach.

it was a FG

Have there been any load/unload stations on a high speed lift yet? If so, where?

There was a HSQ built in Sweden that has them. It's a prett funky looking UNI-G terminal.

Are there any in North America or ones that people have pictures of? I would really like to see these.

At Killington they use two haul ropes so they just run one half of the lift...The Skyship gondola

pictures coming

highspeedquad, on Mar 7 2005, 04:20 PM, said:

How is that? Any midstation in a detachable setting requires a boatload of equipment. In my example, there were simply two towers low to the ground and two wooden ramps- one for unloading, one for loading. You could do away with the ramps if you had a bulldozer and some fill.

Thats exactly the way that the Broadmoor set up theirs there was a fairly tall earth mound for the unload and a breakover and it traveled almost horizontaly to the load station where it went under a depression assembly and then continued up. The Lift at the Broadmoor didnt have to worry about there being a difference in snow depth and as a result chair loading height. There was usualy only man made snow, although I did find an old poster, which now resides on my wall, that shows skiers in about 6" of powder.

I meant easier for the passengers to load and unload. The mechanics would clearly be easier on a FG. Not sure what I was thinking there.

I thought it was very easy to load and unload, but I've never been around a detachable midstation.

An observation- those of us who grew up skiing fixed-grips definitely have different views of the relative advantages/disadvantages of both types of lifts. I hope that statement doesn't make me sound old, but sometimes I feel that way reading posts from you under-twenty folks :)

One of the the things that can make a datachable midstation easier to load and unload would be if the lifts you are comparing have footrests. If so, then the chairs have to be a little higher than on the bottom load, because the footrest could get in the way, so you are a little higher up. That could definitely cause some problems, especially on FGs.

The majority of midstation lifts that I have ridden that have footrests, fixed or detachable, require that you raise the foot rest before the chair enters the station.