23 replies to this topic

[Duck]

I finally made it up to Blue Mountain near Collingwood, Ontario, with my friend Rob. He's a much, much better snowboarder than I, with 7 years of experience and several broken limbs of courage under his belt. I still managed to sort of keep up. :) Blue's terrain is significantly more challenging than any other resort I've been to, I'd say even Tremblant. Or maybe it was just that Rob kept dragging me down the diamond and double-diamond runs. ;)

Blue Mountain has 4, 6-person high speed detachable lifts by Poma. 3 were open for night snowboarding. The middle one of the 3 is half-chairlift, half-gondola, with the cabins aparently only used in the summer (mountain biking?).


Here's the first lift, near the leftmost parking lot (where we parked).


Here's the loading - you can see the little gates which flip open in a wave-like motion to permit even loading.


Chairs sure are wide. :)


Here's Rob at the upper terminal...


...and me at the lower terminal. Yeah that's some blood on my coat. All over my left arm too. Not the best first run ever. ;)


Here's the storage track at the top of the middle lift, for the unused gondola cabins. They're sort of like the ones at Tremblant, on that "Cabriolet" lift that goes across the base lodge.


What's that coming through the snow?


Ah, it's Rob. I tried doing the same thing but was too close to the nozzle and successfully coated my gloves and arms in water. Which promptly froze. Go me.


About halfway down, you can get a great view of the lodge. This perfect spot to stop for a photo was brought to you because that is where I fell. :)

[Duck]

Not for me!! The park.


A random skiier poses with the upper terminal of the Century Express.


Rob gets ready to teach me how to ride the glades!


Hmm, yeah. :)


Just one final shot looking back at the south side of the mountain.

What a great place. I can't wait to go back! My Chicopee seasons pass gets a %25 discount there, so it was very inexpensive to go up for the evening. I haven't been this sore in a long time though. But sore in a good way.

Oh, one more thing about the lifts - they have the largest and most luxurious control rooms I have ever seen. They look like airport control towers! So much glass everywhere and very warm looking inside.

Hope you enjoyed the photos!

-Iain

[floridaskier]

Looks like they have a pretty impressive night operation. Do the six packs get all that crowded?

[Duck]

The night boarding was just awesome, I love it. All the chairs were walk-ons. A perfect evening! I don't know how busy it gets during the day, but I have heard that on weekends it is just crazy there.

-Iain

This post has been edited by Duck: 03 March 2005 - 05:27 PM

[highspeedquad]

Very nice pictures, very, very nice.
Do you happen to know when those HSS were built? I know that they would have been built at 2000 or later, since the carriers I saw were the ones with the thinner number plate, which indicates an L-P lift, but I wouldn't know the exact date.

[SkiBachelor]

Check the lift installation survey pages.

[highspeedquad]

OK, for those who want to know, the Silver Bullet Express was installed in 2003, the Southern Comfort Express in 2000, the Century Express in 1999, and the Spectacular in 1997.

[SkiBachelor]

Also, there was a fairly new Doppelmayr HSQ that was replaced by one of the HSS packs too. I think it was a marketing thing because the HSQ had a fairly high houlry capacity and there was no need to replace it.

It would be interesting to know where that Doppelmayr HSQ ended up or if Intrawest is planning on installing it at one of its other resorts.

[KZ]

I really like those night time pictures of the lifts. Pretty unique shot.

[highspeedquad]

Did the Spectacular have the Omega station?

[Owen]

Blue Mountain has an interesting article about their beginnings up until 2003 here:

http://www.bluemount...pdf/BMR2003.pdf

They have an extremely large snowmaking fleet as well! Quite the resort. This was wierd.. I was just looking at the website and then came here to see if there were any pictures of the six packs. Low and behold! :)

This post has been edited by Owen: 03 March 2005 - 07:36 PM

[Duck]

highspeedquad, on Mar 3 2005, 10:54 PM, said:

Did the Spectacular have the Omega station?
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm not sure - the 3 6-packs that were open for night boarding all had identical terminals, if that helps. They all looked exactly the same! I was too busy watching the tires and the grips to notice if aesthetically there were any subtle differences, though. :)

-Iain

[highspeedquad]

I doubt it, there would be no reason to have those differences. If the Spectacular was a night-skiing lift then it would have the omega.

[SkiBachelor]

I think the Spectacular lift has the Challenger style terminal because it was built in 1997. Plus Copper Mountain was the first resort to have the Omega HSS terminal design.

[highspeedquad]

Well both of those pieces of info help. I guessed it was the Challenger because it was in 1997, and they were still using the Challenger style then. The first omega was in 1998.

Could you get some pictures of the Spectacular, I want to see the Challenger style six-pack.

[Duck]

:: pulls out trail map ::

Hmm... I'm not sure what Spectacular is. I show the names of the 4 6-packs as:

-Southern Comfort (lower terminal, upper terminal)
-Silver Bullet (upper terminal and gondola storage track)
-Century Express (upper terminal)
-Grand Prix (closed during my visit)

As I look over these pictures, I'm pretty sure they're all the same sort of design?

Also, what bearing does night skiing/boarding have on the type of terminal design a lift would have?

I wish I'd taken pictures while going up the lift line of Southern Comfort. It crosses over a valley and rivers, which is really beautiful, and very, very dark at night (it's unlit in that section)!

-Iain

This post has been edited by Duck: 04 March 2005 - 04:49 AM

[highspeedquad]

Hmm, maybe they changed the name? I found Spectacular under the 1997 installation sheet, but I never found the Grand Prix.

[edmontonguy]

Here's a picture of Grand Prix. It's sponsored by Pontiac hence the name. It's is a Phat-boy style HSS just like the other 3.

Attached File(s)

•  DSCN0972.JPG (327.47K)
  Number of downloads: 46

[highspeedquad]

That is not the Phat-Boy omega design, as you might see, but a Challenger terminal. Look at the carriers. I like it. It is different. Was this Poma's first HSS?

They probably did rename the lift.

[Duck]

Forgive my ignorance - but isn't that one the same as the others? What kind of differences do you guys usually key in on to tell what the specific differences are that you're mentioning?

-Iain