42 replies to this topic

[floridaskier]

I know, but there's no path or anything, and they don't seem to want you to do it. People would do it every day with the half-hour gondola lines in the morning

[boardski]

They could install 2 or three paralell handle tows to pull skiers and riders high enough to ski over to the Golden Eagle, In skiing Utah the past few years, I have noticed there are no attendants on handletows or platter-tows, they must not be required, it seems as if this would not be too costly with day-to-day operations. Another more costly solution would be to install covered escalators to transport skiers over to the Golden Eagle base similar to what Beaver Creek has.

[poloxskier]

where are the escalators at Beaver Creek?

[floridaskier]

At the base below the Centennial lift.
I don't like that idea because at the end of the day when I was in Colorado last year, my brother fell down the top one in his ski boots, ripping his leg open. 21 stitches in a mountain-shaped scar. They work all right at the mall, but not in hard plastic ski boots. I think just a paved walkway would be enough to get people over there. I'd certainly take it

[boardski]

floridaskier, on Apr 8 2005, 06:32 PM, said:

At the base below the Centennial lift.
I don't like that idea because at the end of the day when I was in Colorado last year, my brother fell down the top one in his ski boots, ripping his leg open. 21 stitches in a mountain-shaped scar. They work all right at the mall, but not in hard plastic ski boots. I think just a paved walkway would be enough to get people over there. I'd certainly take it
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

OUCH!!- You have a good point there. Maybe they could grade it out and use those rubber walkways that they use in airports. Although I suppose if a walkway was graded enough and maintained well, people could just walk over there. It sounds as if, however, the ski area may not be able to financially handle any of those improvements but hopefully they will not waste anymore money on converting quads to doubles and moving chairlifts so people can no longer access them easily.

[floridaskier]

I remember in the beginning of The Canyons that they would hand out Krispy Kreme donut holes that they made in a shack by the gondola if you got there early enough. That was before they blew all their money on useless stuff, back when we still thought they were going to make something really good out of it

If they had left the Red Hawk lift in its original position (down in the parking lot, which would have been in the middle of the village now) they could have used it to get people over to Golden Eagle

[Outback]

Donut holes are not good for you...either is Golden eagle.

[Peter]

I am still confused about some of The Canyons lift history. I made a timeline of what I think is correct based on this topic and old trail maps from skimaps.com Now that skimaps is down, I can’t look at the old map that was on there, which probably would have answered some of my questions.

The Canyons Lift History
1968 – Snow Canyon installed by Riblet
Condor installed by Riblet
Golden Eagle installed by Riblet

1969 – Tumbleweed SLI double installed
SLI double, 2581 length, 901 vertical

1970 – Slaughterhouse double installed by Hall

1971 – Another beginner chair installed by Thiokol

1996 – Red Hawk installed by from parking lot
Saddleback fixed quad installed by CTEC

1997 – Tombstone express installed by Poma
Gondola installed by Poma replacing Slaughterhouse double
Lookout installed used from Steamboat
Saddleback Express installed to replace Saddleback quad
High Meadow installed by CTEC
Snow Canyon Express installed by Doppelmayr
Red Hawk shortened

1998 - 9990 Express installed by GaraventaCTEC
Super Condor Express installed by GaraventaCTEC to replace Condor double

1999 – Peak 5 installed by GaraventaCTEC

2000 – Raptor quad removed and relocated to the new Dreamscape lift
Cabriolet installed by GaraventaCTEC

2001 – Day Break installed used from Deer Valley

2003 – Red Hawk moved and renamed Sunrise

2004 – Snow Canyon renamed Sun Peak Express, Lookout renamed Short Cut, Sunrise converted from quad to double

Questions:
On various trail maps and other topics, I’ve seen multiple names for the same lifts. Can anyone explain any of these names?

Condor/Iron Horse – same lift?
Viking
Slaughterhouse – Raptor line
Troll
Tomahawk
Arrowhead – ran gondola line
Short Swing –ran from from the bottom of Snow Canyon to top of Golden Eagle

From the lift survey, The Canyons installed 3 Riblet doubles, 2 SLI doubles, a Hall double, and a Thiokol double

What was the name of the second SLI lift?
What double did Saddleback replace? Was the Saddleback fg quad the first lift on that line?
What double did Tombstone replace?
Was the double on the Snow Canyon line called Snow Canyon?
What was the name of the lift that ran the line from the bottom of Condor to the top of Golden Eagle?
Riblet installed 3 lifts at The Canyons, all in 1968. One was Golden Eagle, another was Condor, what was the third? Was it Snow Canyon? Are those the 3 original lifts?

The confusing part about this is many of these lifts had multiple names.

[SkiBachelor]

The Saddleback and Tombstone areas were brand new when ASC took over the resort. The name of the lift that ran from the bottom of condor to the top of Golden Eagle was called Raptor.

[Powdr]

Skier, on Apr 11 2006, 10:09 PM, said:

The Canyons Lift History
1968 – Snow Canyon installed by Riblet
Condor installed by Riblet
Golden Eagle installed by Riblet

These were called, Shortswing, Iron Horse & ??? (Forgot that name)

[Peter]

Well, now that I am working on the new website skimap.org, I have found hundreds of old trail maps from Western ski areas that I have spent dozens of hours scanning. This one is from 1987 at ParkWest and it shows all the old lifts before the ASC days. I wish we had this when this thread was started!

Attached File(s)

•  the_canyons_1987.jpg (493.27K)
  Number of downloads: 87

[SkiBachelor]

I think that was been posted before or I saw it on skimaps.com when it was still up. But it's nice to see it again. Now if we had a trail map of ASC from 1995, that would be interesting.

[Callao]

I like the symbol they used for "expert." Truly, those runs are expert because there is hardly enough snow on those south exposures.

This post has been edited by Callao: 12 June 2008 - 09:30 AM

[floridaskier]

I also like how they spelled "congested." Sure would be nice to have chair 5 back, instead of the handle tow that only goes halfway back to the base area

For anyone who skied there before the ASC days, was it set up so that you could get on Tomahawk/Golden Eagle from the base area without riding the beginner lifts?

[boardski]

I skied Parkwest in 1990 for the first time and it had all those lifts shown in the 1987 map. It was definately a great area aside from the high temp on the day I skied there being -13. No, it was not necessary to ride a beginner chair to get to Arrowhead and Tomahawk lifts. Incidently, the Tumbleweed (the longer of the two beginner lifts) was not running when I was there, I think it only ran when there was enough skiers to warrant it. I remember skiing Tomahawk (which I think is the current Golden Eagle with newer side-bar chairs than the pre 90's years), Slaughterhouse, and Arrowhead. As far as lifts I remember the shorter beginner lift, Tomahawk, Short Swing, and Iron Horse were all center-bar Riblet lifts, Slaughterhouse was a center-bar Hall lift, Arrowhead was a rather unique-looking CTEC center bar double chair and Tumbleweed was the only SLI lift in 1990. AS far as the current lift system, it would have been nice if they left Slaughterhouse there also, those were great runs. Does anyone who is more familiar with the Park West days know if I am correct about the Tomahawk/ Golden Eagle theory (the lift being one in the same with newer chairs)?

[floridaskier]

The Golden Eagle lift has obviously been there a while, so it's got to be the same as Tomahawk. Maybe the chairs are from the Ironhorse/Condor double. I don't remember what kind of chairs were on Golden Eagle in the first year of The Canyons, and I don't remember Condor as a double at all either. Should have paid more attention. Last year when the snow was melting fast in the spring all of the sawed-off tower bases from the Ironhorse/Condor lift were visible under the Super Condor line

If all of those lifts were there in those alignments, with a few replacement high speeds, The Canyons would be in much better shape than it is now. Only thing I would change is bring the bottom of Shortswing/Snow Canyon/Sun Peak down to the bottom of Slaughterhouse and Condor/Ironhorse so it's easier to get out of there

[Skiing#1]

In February 1976, my sister and I went to Park West. I remember four lifts at Park West...they were Tumbleweed (beginner), Tomahawk, Short Swing and Iron Horse. I remember Tomahawk went up then went down then went up deep. At bottom, when the people loaded, the chairs went up shortly like 10 feet. Many times, some people lost their balance and fall off like 5 or 8 feet from shortly load area that was what I saw. It made me scary, and I was brave to get the chair on and I grabbed center rod and held it. I wish I could take the picture of the bottom, but I was scared, watched them, and fantastic caused me forgot to take the picture. I can draw the picture of the bottom. Anyway that lift was longer distance than any ski resorts in Utah. Also, there was a "J" bar lift looked like about five inches of hook or J connects to the rope when I grabbed it and put it on my back. It pulled me up. My hands were free or resting. It was nicer than hold the rope. It was located beside left side of Tumbleweed Lift. I found the map. It said "future lifts" were Arrowhead and Tenderfoot. I will scan few pictures of lifts and post them tomorrow.

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•  1._Brochure.JPG (876.29K)
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•  2._Map.JPG (1.5MB)
  Number of downloads: 66
•  Tomahawk.JPG (25.18K)
  Number of downloads: 29

This post has been edited by Skiing#1: 13 June 2008 - 06:09 AM

[floridaskier]

Interesting that they planned for a lift like the Cabriolet in the 70. The Buckboard lift doesn't show up on the later map, I guess they never built it.

[boardski]

Given the diagram in the last post, it appears that the Tomahawk lift and Golden Eagle lift are the same lift. Not sure when the chairs were changed to the current bail (side-bar) chairs but those chairs had to have come from another ski area since all of the lifts were center-bar style except for Tumbleweed which was the SLI lift. I agree, it would have been better to leave the older lifts in place and focus on the new areas (Saddleback, 9990, Peak 5, Dreamscape, etc) first before replacing the older lifts. The Gondola would have to have been installed to reach the new areas but a lot of $$ could have been saved by installing used chairs for the fixed grips and gradually replacing them as revenue allowed. Slaughterhouse and Arrowhead should never have been removed and Raptor should have been left where it was. It is rather nice having the Super Condor in place of Iron Horse because of the length and how cold the ride can get but it probably could have waited longer. 9990 is a great lift to ski but does not really need to be high-speed. It seems as if they had good ideas but tried to do too much too fast. Hopefully they can recover and will make more efficient and cost effective lift decisions in the future. It is a great mountain but costs a lot more than the $15 I paid in 1990.