22 replies to this topic

[alexboesen]

Vail Resorts typically outlines their summer upgrade plans at Q1 earnings which is on Monday. Link is at http://investors.vai...?eventid=167523

Just for fun, I thought it would be interesting to start a thread with predictions on what they will announce. Attached below are purely my speculation on what they could announce. Interested in your thoughts.

1) Breckenridge - Peak 7 restaurant OR Chair C HSQ upgrade
2) Vail - Northwoods HSS upgrade OR Sundown Express HSQ
3) Heavenly - Galaxy HSQ upgrade
4) Keystone - Argentine HSQ upgrade
5) Park City Mountain Resort - Dreamcatcher HSQ upgrade
6) Northstar - Sawtooth Ridge lift

[DonaldMReif]

alexboesen, on 05 December 2015 - 12:21 PM, said:

Vail Resorts typically outlines their summer upgrade plans at Q1 earnings which is on Monday. Link is at http://investors.vai...?eventid=167523

Just for fun, I thought it would be interesting to start a thread with predictions on what they will announce. Attached below are purely my speculation on what they could announce. Interested in your thoughts.

1) Breckenridge - Peak 7 restaurant OR Chair C HSQ upgrade
2) Vail - Northwoods HSS upgrade OR Sundown Express HSQ
4) Keystone - Argentine HSQ upgrade
5) Park City Mountain Resort - Dreamcatcher HSQ upgrade

1) I know upgrading Lift C has been on some master plans. Some other plans I've seen call for the upgrading of Lift A to a high speed quad, with a midway unload and turn station at the existing lift's mid-unload, with the lift then going uphill to a point on Cashier. Both upgrades would be worthwhile, since Lift C is roughly 43 years old, and Lift A is on a really impractical alignment that is no longer useful. Both lifts also now only run during weekends and holidays. Upgrading Lift C would be the first thing in my book, seeing how when it is running, it's a nice way for an intermediate skier to get over to Peak 9 without having to use the Sawmill traverse, really practical when Frosty's Freeway and Lift E aren't open.

2) Both ideas for Vail would be worthwhile. The Northwoods Express lift always gets a lot of skier traffic. Not just from people skiing the Northeast Bowl, but also because unless you can ski blacks, it's the only way back to the Central and West Front Side when you're returning from Blue Sky Basin and the Back Bowls east of the Sun Up Bowl. I believe that the construction of the High Noon Express lift five years ago actually was meant to take some of the advanced skier traffic off the Northwoods Express lift, but still, a six pack Northwoods Express lift would be as worthwhile, especially considering that the lift is 30 years old now. Likewise, the Sundown Express lift would definitely make it easier to ski the Sundown Bowl since no longer would you have to take a long way around to do laps in it (go up the High Noon Express lift, ski down to Mid-Vail, take the Wildwood Express lift).

4) The Argentine upgrade would certainly take some crowding off the Montezuma Express lift, since it would be an alternate route to get to Paymaster and Wild Irishman, though I think Keystone might also cut those runs they propose to use to fill in the gap between Wild Irishman and Paymaster. I know Keystone's done some major modifications to their lifts lately. For instance, last year, they increased uphill capacity on the Outback Express lift by transferring over 17 chairs from the Montezuma Express lift and 7 chairs from the Peru Express lift.

[Peter]

Lift 7 (Northwoods) and 11 (Game Creek) should be next to become six-packs at Vail.

At Park City, Dreamcatcher, Town and Pioneer are all logical places for a next HSQ upgrade. There was a ton of dirt work going on this summer in the bowl above Flat Iron (between Dreamcatcher and Jupiter) that will get a lift in the next few years. I could see the Dreamcatcher equipment becoming a new, longer Day Break.

[floridaskier]

Dreamcatcher would be the obvious place to start on the Canyons side. With a little dirt moving, they could replace it and Dreamscape with a single HSQ. I'm sure they have grand plans to rework that entire area with the gondola as a centerpiece. Glad to hear they were moving dirt around the new gondola end.

Also on the list at the combined PCMR:
- Pioneer - long ride, built around 1985
- Thaynes - gets crowded at times, double chair with off-bullwheel loading that is pretty scary for intermediate skiers
- Peak 5 - should be a HSQ that goes higher up on the ridge to serve real terrain
- Day Break - take it higher up the mountain to steeper terrain, same as Peak 5
- Town - two ideas for a gondola that City Hall should get involved in. First stage on the current line, and second stage to the Silver Lake lodge at DV (a straight shot and there's not much in the way if they can find somewhere to build the end). These DV gondola proposals to squeeze it in somewhere else in Old Town are too ambitious given how tightly packed buildings already are. Make it free to ride like Telluride's gondola and split the cost between the taxpayers, DV, and Vail. Run it at night to get Silver Lake visitors into town. This would be a great marketing point for the hotels and the town.
--- If Vail is paying the whole way: second stage ending up at the top of Crescent so you can avoid riding Bonanza to get to Silverlode and King Con. Turn the old gondola angle station (building is still there and used for storage) as a warming hut or something.
--- DV's president Bob Wheaton has been at all of the Vail events this summer, so maybe they're planning to be friends

Access needs at PCMR:
- Timberline lift, which has so far been a rarely visited afterthought, will now be a slow bottleneck between the Park City and Canyons sides with other lift rides at each end. Iron Mountain could be extended to start at the bottom of Tombstone (probably in a straight line). Iron Mountain is a current-generation Uni-G, so it wouldn't need any custom-made old parts to be extended into a two-stage HSQ with two-way travel on the bottom section. Is there any precedent for a HSQ getting a midstation and an extension later in life (besides the original Canyons gondola?)
--- That would give them a current-model fixed quad to either sell or use somewhere else. One proposal is a new line from the bottom of Silverlode to the top of Crescent to ease some of the beginner traffic and back up Silverlode if it goes down for a month with gearbox failure (there's precedent for that). Call it "Prospector" (like the old Yan HSQ there) or "Claimjumper" (the heavily traveled beginner run it would serve).
- Use the old Peak 5 as a south-north running access lift to get towards Red Pine from the new gondola on the Canyons side
- Use the old Dreamcatcher from Red Pine Lodge to the top of Tombstone to speed up that trip. Call it "Sidewinder"

Here's a to-scale aerial of the Canyons side: https://skimap.org/d.../1431913856.jpg

It also sounds like Vail installed safety bars on the PCMR lifts that didn't have them - Town (which had them and they were later removed), Jupiter, and probably also Thaynes and Silver Star. Pioneer had bars installed a few years ago.

Finally, just for fun, here's the Wolf Mountain trail map from 1994. The only two names that survived were are Condor lift and two runs, Grizzly and Boa. Golden Eagle and Raptor lasted into the ASC era too. https://skimap.org/d.../1269213040.jpg

[DonaldMReif]

floridaskier, on 05 December 2015 - 03:55 PM, said:

Access needs at PCMR:
- Timberline lift, which has so far been a rarely visited afterthought, will now be a slow bottleneck between the Park City and Canyons sides with other lift rides at each end. Iron Mountain could be extended to start at the bottom of Tombstone (probably in a straight line). Iron Mountain is a current-generation Uni-G, so it wouldn't need any custom-made old parts to be extended into a two-stage HSQ with two-way travel on the bottom section. Is there any precedent for a HSQ getting a midstation and an extension later in life (besides the original Canyons gondola?)

I wouldn't know about two-staging Iron Mountain. See, what you're thinking would be an alternative to Timberline - reminds me of Breck's original master plans for Peak 6. In the original Peak 6 expansion plans, there was no Zendo Chair. Instead, the plan was for the Kensho SuperChair to start where the Zendo Chair starts, with a midway load and turn station where the Kensho SuperChair actually starts, then use the actual Kensho line to get to the top of Peak 6. The routing of the lifts, was so as to work around a private plot of land. Realizing that there would be more traffic using the midstation than the lower station, Breck revised their plans, truncated the Kensho SuperChair to start at what was planned to be the midload station, and turned the lower section into the Zendo Chair.

That's kinda what I'm getting at with your suggestion for Iron Mountain. With Iron Mountain, I think there would be an issue with space in that area to allow people traveling over to Tombstone to load on the inside of the turn, since Iron Mountain is a clockwise lift.

[Backbowlsbilly]

Looking forward to the announcement, here are the things I hope get done.

Vail Northwoods- After Avanti, Mountaintop, and Vista Bahn, this one just seems in line to get done.
Breck 6 Chair- Although C Chair is on the list too, I think 6 Chair is the biggest problem just because of capacity. 6 Chair was discussed when Breck replaced Colorado.
Keystone Bowls Expansion- This one is unlikely but a lift for North/South Bowl and a lift for Bergman would be really nice, keep the capacities low and open up some more of the mountain, would also make the hike for Independence Bowl shorter. This was approved and Keystone has already taken the first step, upping the capacity on the Outback Express by adding more chairs.
Park City Dreamcatcher- This was needed before the connecting gondola and now it will be especially important.

[skier691]

How about replacing a few double Halls at Afton Alps with newer quads, cleaning the space up a bit.
Replacing the terminals and grips/chairs on the Orient Express @ Vail
While not an improvement, picking up a new Midwest area in the Chicago market.

[skierdude9450]

At Vail I'd think a Northwoods replacement should be a top priority. Game Creek, while from the same year, doesn't see nearly the amount of traffic as Northwoods, so from a capacity standpoint, the current lift is plenty efficient. I guess it's just a matter of how long they want to keep an aging lift running.

I also wonder if they have any plans of developing Kirkwood any farther. That's by far the least built-up of their major resorts.

This post has been edited by skierdude9450: 06 December 2015 - 09:14 PM

[DonaldMReif]

Backbowlsbilly, on 06 December 2015 - 06:44 PM, said:

Looking forward to the announcement, here are the things I hope get done.

Vail Northwoods- After Avanti, Mountaintop, and Vista Bahn, this one just seems in line to get done.
Breck 6 Chair- Although C Chair is on the list too, I think 6 Chair is the biggest problem just because of capacity. 6 Chair was discussed when Breck replaced Colorado.
Keystone Bowls Expansion- This one is unlikely but a lift for North/South Bowl and a lift for Bergman would be really nice, keep the capacities low and open up some more of the mountain, would also make the hike for Independence Bowl shorter. This was approved and Keystone has already taken the first step, upping the capacity on the Outback Express by adding more chairs.
Park City Dreamcatcher- This was needed before the connecting gondola and now it will be especially important.

I can see it. Lift 6 becomes a high speed quad with 2,400 pph uphill capacity.

[Peter]

The earnings release is out; Chair 17 at Vail will be replaced with a HSQ.

[alexboesen]

Regarding calendar year 2016 capital expenditures, Katz said, "We remain committed to reinvesting in our resorts, creating an experience of a lifetime for our guests and generating strong returns for our shareholders. While we will announce our complete capital plan for calendar year 2016 in March 2016, we are pleased to announce two signature projects that we intend to construct in 2016 for the 2016/2017 ski season. The first project is the addition of a new 500 seat restaurant at the top of the Peak 7 chairlift at Breckenridge. Already one of the most popular resorts in North America, the new restaurant will dramatically improve the dining experience on the mountain, particularly given its location directly adjacent to our new Peak 6 terrain. The second project is the upgrade of the Sun Up chairlift at Vail Mountain (Chair 17), from a fixed grip triple to a high-speed four-passenger chairlift. This new chairlift will significantly improve the ski experience in Sun Up Bowl and more quickly move skiers and riders to and from the Back Bowls and Blue Sky Basin. With this new addition, every major chairlift on Vail Mountain will be a high-speed chairlift. Both of these projects are subject to regulatory approvals. We expect our total resort capital plan for calendar 2016, including these two projects but excluding investments in summer activities, will total approximately $100 million which is consistent with our long-term capital guidance."

[DonaldMReif]

I guess this on mountain restaurant at the top of the Independence SuperChair will replace the Peak 7 Warming Hut. That's the only logical conclusion I can come up with given space there. It definitely will shift some crowds away from One Ski Hill Grill and the Vista Haus, and probably have better bathrooms with actual plumbing (part of the reason I've never set foot in that warming hut in years).

This post has been edited by DonaldMReif: 07 December 2015 - 08:30 AM

[DonaldMReif]

As for the Sun Up Express lift, that will certainly work for me as a nice alternative to using the Timberline Catwalk or going all the way down to the Highline Express lift to get to the Sourdough Express lift and Two Elk Lodge.

I guess the Northwoods Express lift will just have to wait until 2017 at the earliest.

This post has been edited by DonaldMReif: 07 December 2015 - 08:42 AM

[doubrown]

This shows a future lift above Flat Iron:
https://skimap.org/d.../1447611479.jpg

It's been a while since I skied the Canyons, so what type of terrain and snow conditions would this service?

Also, is there much potential for lifts above Peak 5, Daybreak or Dreamscape? This really old concept shows lifts in those areas:
https://skimap.org/d.../1209423116.jpg

[Backbowlsbilly]

Vail didn't announce this but I was just thinking the other day about them possibly relocating the old Chair 17 after it is replaced this summer. It was installed in 1992 (possibly relocated from somewhere else in the Vail Valley but I'm not sure) and Vail is known to have relocated these Dopp triples often, at Gopher Hill and Little Eagle recently in Vail but also in several instances at Beaver. What about using the old Chair 17 to replace the old Chair 22 Mongolia Platter? Vail has parts left over from Chair 5 to make this happen but new chairs wouldn't be necessary as Vail could keep the capacity low if it just used the same chairs and ran the lift from the base of bowl, mainly the Bolshoi Ballroom trail, to near the top of the current Chair 22. It would be a huge improvement that would retain the skiing experience in the bowls if the capacity was kept low. Thoughts?

[boardski]

It was the former lift 7 at Beaver Creek. Originally installed in 1980 and became obsolete in 1986 when the original Centennial express was installed which ran the lengths of both lifts 6&7.

[NoPainNoJane]

I have to question the decision to build such a large restaurant at the top of peak 7 at Breck, with the severe lack of employee housing in the area right now without any immediate construction taking place to increase employee housing, where do they propose the additional employees live?

[DonaldMReif]

NoPainNoJane, on 13 January 2016 - 09:51 AM, said:

I have to question the decision to build such a large restaurant at the top of peak 7 at Breck, with the severe lack of employee housing in the area right now without any immediate construction taking place to increase employee housing, where do they propose the additional employees live?

Maybe employee housing is not something they bring up because that's not exactly something the visitors will see.

At any rate, a restaurant at the top of Peak 7 makes logical sense when you consider a few other things, like:

1. Personally, the top of the Independence SuperChair is a better meeting spot than the bottom, especially on busy days when the lines are long. That's because the unload ramp is in one spot, but there are two queues for the lift at the bottom, which can make it confusing when you don't know which line to go to.

2. If you're skiing Peak 6 and you want to go eat lunch at a food court, you don't have to go all the way back to Peak 8 to do so.

3. Let's be honest, that Peak 7 Warming Hut/Patrol Hut at the top of the lift feels to me to be a bit obsolete and useless ever since they extended the Independence SuperChair into the Peak 7 Base Area (which has better facilities when it comes to taking a warmup break). I mean, it was useful during the first six years of Peak 7's operations when you could only access the Independence SuperChair via Pioneer or Fort Mary B.

[alexboesen]

Backbowlsbilly, on 12 January 2016 - 03:14 PM, said:

Vail didn't announce this but I was just thinking the other day about them possibly relocating the old Chair 17 after it is replaced this summer. It was installed in 1992 (possibly relocated from somewhere else in the Vail Valley but I'm not sure) and Vail is known to have relocated these Dopp triples often, at Gopher Hill and Little Eagle recently in Vail but also in several instances at Beaver. What about using the old Chair 17 to replace the old Chair 22 Mongolia Platter? Vail has parts left over from Chair 5 to make this happen but new chairs wouldn't be necessary as Vail could keep the capacity low if it just used the same chairs and ran the lift from the base of bowl, mainly the Bolshoi Ballroom trail, to near the top of the current Chair 22. It would be a huge improvement that would retain the skiing experience in the bowls if the capacity was kept low. Thoughts?

I believe that Vail has long term plans to eventually build the lift you are describing but it will be high speed and extend higher on the ridge closer to the East Vail Chutes backcountry gates and the top of Mushroom Bowl. This was illustrated in the Category III applications. Purely speculation, but I have always thought they may eventually decide that they do not have enough capacity on either Skyline or Tea Cup Express lifts, upgrade one/both to a HSS, and move the current lift to the Mongolia alignment.

[alexboesen]

Chris Jarnot COO of Vail Mountain was quoted at the Vail Homeowners Association annual meeting stating that Chairs 7 and 11 are on the docket for replacement in the next few years.