34 replies to this topic

[SkiBachelor]

Within the next few years, Breckenridge is planning on replacing a number of its older lifts with new ones. Some of the lifts that are scheduled for replacement are A Chair, which will be replaced with a detachable, Chair 6 with a higher capacity lift, the Colorado SuperChair with a new detachable. There are also plans for a new lift out of the Peak 8 base area, a cabriolet and another access lift.

Full story available on Summit Daily's website:
http://www.summitdai.../NEWS/101100057

[boardski]

The A chair has needed replacement for years it is a painfully long and slow ride. It would be nice if they could have it originate adjacent to the Quicksilver chair for a quicker way for intermediate and advanced skiers to access peak 9 and dedeicate Quicksilver for beginners.

[Lift Kid]

I read that a few days ago. They listed a lot of lifts that really needed replacement. I liked their idea of moving ski school up the mountain on Peak 9. They really could use some new lifts. I can't wait to see what type of terrain there will be on Peak 6.

[afski722]

Interesting....so when are we going to see lift tickets top $90/day?

Some interesting concepts contained in the article. I'm going to comment on a few of them.

A-chair: Upgrading to a HSQ may be needed on peak days to reduce the line, but could put way too many skiers on this portion of the mountain (below the mid-station) with all the beginners that come off the Quicksilver and cross-traffic over to the Mecury. A new FST with improved terminals and a faster drive speed would be a better option

6-chair: Again, upgrading to a HSQ may put too much skier pressure on this area and allow the place to get tracked out way to quickly. A FQT would help add some additional capacity, but preserve the skiing experience. Do you really need to always make such quick laps? I like the current FGD, but if I wouldn't care if it became a triple. Even on peak days, the line doesn't get too bad a Chair 6

Colorado: I agree, sooner or later this lift will need to be replaced. However, Vail currently has many HSQ that are the same age or older. Have the Dopps held up better than the original Pomas? Or is Breck looking to put a HSS in place of the Colorado. With the opening of Peak 7 and the new Gondola, skier patterns have changed on the mountain, and the Colorado chair can get some bad lines on peak days. I would not be surprised to see a HSS here.

Peak 7: Moving the lower terminal of the Independence Chair has been a done deal with the new development. Too bad they didn't think of this when they built the thing a few years ago. Additional snowmaking is necessary if they want to promote this as a gateway to the mountain. Over Christmas week, the snow conditions on Peak 7 were not that great - lots of boilerplate and thin spots.

Peak 6: Not too familar with the terrain over there.

Peak 8-9 Cirque: Would be a nice addition, as long as the snowpack isn't blown away. I believe the north side holds pretty well.

Interesting to see how this all evolves.

[skier2]

www.rockymountaindreamhome.com/peak7_8_new.html

Here is the plan:

Attached File(s)

•  Peak7_8MasterPlan.jpg (148.43K)
  Number of downloads: 53

[Mike]

[quote name='afski722' post='54782' date='Jan 12 2007, 09:32 AM']...
Colorado: I agree, sooner or later this lift will need to be replaced. However, Vail currently has many HSQ that are the same age or older. Have the Dopps held up better than the original Pomas? Or is Breck looking to put a HSS in place of the Colorado. With the opening of Peak 7 and the new Gondola, skier patterns have changed on the mountain, and the Colorado chair can get some bad lines on peak days. I would not be surprised to see a HSS here.[/quote]

Colorado runs during the summer so it adds has almost twice the hours of a lift built during the same era that is only run during the winter. There is a problem with the new gondola pumping everyone into the base of 8 so they will need a way to distribute the people as quickly as possible.


[quote]Peak 7: Moving the lower terminal of the Independence Chair has been a done deal with the new development. Too bad they didn't think of this when they built the thing a few years ago. Additional snowmaking is necessary if they want to promote this as a gateway to the mountain. Over Christmas week, the snow conditions on Peak 7 were not that great - lots of boilerplate and thin spots.[/quote]Moving the terminal was known from day one. The ski area built the lift with the bottom terminal where it currently is because they had approval to do so. You know the saying "You have to strike while the irons hot"...well, that applies in this case. If they waited for final approval to move the road and approval to build the gondola, they might have missed the oppertunity to build the Independence lift. The lift is engineered for the couple hundred yard extension so they will basicaly have to splice a length of rope on the current rope, add a few towers, and relocate the current terminal.[/quote]

This post has been edited by Mike: 12 January 2007 - 11:13 AM

[liftmech]

How many hours does Colorado have, Mike? Its twin over at Copper has 27,500 (approximately). Knowing what kind of issues pop up on a lift of that vintage, I'm not surprised you guys are thinking of replacing it.

[boardski]

afski722, on Jan 12 2007, 09:32 AM, said:

Interesting....so when are we going to see lift tickets top $90/day?

Some interesting concepts contained in the article. I'm going to comment on a few of them.

A-chair: Upgrading to a HSQ may be needed on peak days to reduce the line, but could put way too many skiers on this portion of the mountain (below the mid-station) with all the beginners that come off the Quicksilver and cross-traffic over to the Mecury. A new FST with improved terminals and a faster drive speed would be a better option

6-chair: Again, upgrading to a HSQ may put too much skier pressure on this area and allow the place to get tracked out way to quickly. A FQT would help add some additional capacity, but preserve the skiing experience. Do you really need to always make such quick laps? I like the current FGD, but if I wouldn't care if it became a triple. Even on peak days, the line doesn't get too bad a Chair 6

Colorado: I agree, sooner or later this lift will need to be replaced. However, Vail currently has many HSQ that are the same age or older. Have the Dopps held up better than the original Pomas? Or is Breck looking to put a HSS in place of the Colorado. With the opening of Peak 7 and the new Gondola, skier patterns have changed on the mountain, and the Colorado chair can get some bad lines on peak days. I would not be surprised to see a HSS here.

Peak 7: Moving the lower terminal of the Independence Chair has been a done deal with the new development. Too bad they didn't think of this when they built the thing a few years ago. Additional snowmaking is necessary if they want to promote this as a gateway to the mountain. Over Christmas week, the snow conditions on Peak 7 were not that great - lots of boilerplate and thin spots.

Peak 6: Not too familar with the terrain over there.

Peak 8-9 Cirque: Would be a nice addition, as long as the snowpack isn't blown away. I believe the north side holds pretty well.

Interesting to see how this all evolves.

With regard to A-Lift: They could still make it high speed but space the chairs further apart than the average high-speed lift. They have done this on the Imperial lift and other areas such as Aspen Highlands have done this on some of their high-speed lifts when they need the "high speed" mostly for the length of the lift and not necessarily for the capacity. I would definately agree that capacity increase would be disasterous for peak 9 and would lead to the trails resembling more like an I-70 traffic jam. On the other hand it would be nice to provide advanced beginners/lower level intermediates a little bit nicer and more efficient chair than the slow ancient one that is there currently.
Chair 6- The same applies to the A-lift, HSQ with chairs spaced further apart to keep from overly increasing capacity would be nice. It would also be nice if the bottom of the new #6 could be located next to 'E' lift.
A little hard to visualize the proposals for peak 8 lift changes. I have always liked Rocky Mountian in its current location. Moving it uphill would make it less effiecient to access the mountain. Having the tops of Rocky & Colorado spread out like they are also spreads the people out nicely and makes it so it is not so crowded on top.
Peak 6 sounds good- More terrain will help spread people out even more. One of the chief complaints is how crowded and congested many of the areas at Breck are. Peak 6 would likely alleviate some of that. I've always wondered if they ever thought of installing a second lift on peak 10 also to help access some of the harder-to-reach terrain and possibly open more terrain.

Interesting times for Breckenridge. It will be interesting to see how it all unfolds.

[poloxskier]

boardski, on Jan 14 2007, 07:11 AM, said:

With regard to A-Lift: They could still make it high speed but space the chairs further apart than the average high-speed lift. They have done this on the Imperial lift and other areas such as Aspen Highlands have done this on some of their high-speed lifts when they need the "high speed" mostly for the length of the lift and not necessarily for the capacity. I would definately agree that capacity increase would be disasterous for peak 9 and would lead to the trails resembling more like an I-70 traffic jam. On the other hand it would be nice to provide advanced beginners/lower level intermediates a little bit nicer and more efficient chair than the slow ancient one that is there currently.
Chair 6- The same applies to the A-lift, HSQ with chairs spaced further apart to keep from overly increasing capacity would be nice. It would also be nice if the bottom of the new #6 could be located next to 'E' lift.
A little hard to visualize the proposals for peak 8 lift changes. I have always liked Rocky Mountian in its current location. Moving it uphill would make it less effiecient to access the mountain. Having the tops of Rocky & Colorado spread out like they are also spreads the people out nicely and makes it so it is not so crowded on top.
Peak 6 sounds good- More terrain will help spread people out even more. One of the chief complaints is how crowded and congested many of the areas at Breck are. Peak 6 would likely alleviate some of that. I've always wondered if they ever thought of installing a second lift on peak 10 also to help access some of the harder-to-reach terrain and possibly open more terrain.

Interesting times for Breckenridge. It will be interesting to see how it all unfolds.

One of the other lifts that was proposed years ago was a poma or similar lift to aid in your exit from the south side of Peak 10, especially from the double blacks on that side as it is a long catwalk to get out of there. I havent heard talk of this lift in the last 6-8 years so I dobut that there is going to be anything that will happen there but it would be nice.

[Lift Kid]

poloxskier, on Jan 14 2007, 11:17 AM, said:

One of the other lifts that was proposed years ago was a poma or similar lift to aid in your exit from the south side of Peak 10, especially from the double blacks on that side as it is a long catwalk to get out of there. I havent heard talk of this lift in the last 6-8 years so I dobut that there is going to be anything that will happen there but it would be nice.

That would be really nice. They should move Camel Back POMA to Peak 10. It might need to be extended though.

[garthd]

Lift Kid, on Jan 14 2007, 10:24 AM, said:

That would be really nice. They should move Camel Back POMA to Peak 10. It might need to be extended though.

The original location of the Falcon was at the bottom of Cimmaron, but they found Native American artifacts when working down there and couldn't build it. Maybe farther to the south...

I've heard tell of another double loading HSS to replace the Colorado, and I would love to see the bottom of the Rocky moved uphill. Then you could make super quick laps on the terrain that it serves. I also agree that a HSQ would be a bad idea to replace 6 Chair...too many people too quickly. I say FGT.

AFSki722 is right about Peak 7 snowmaking. We worked hard to keep Peak 7 nice, but sometimes there is only so much you can do.

This post has been edited by garthd: 14 January 2007 - 09:47 AM

[Lift Kid]

garthd, on Jan 14 2007, 11:45 AM, said:

The original location of the Falcon was at the bottom of Cimmaron, but they found Native American artifacts when working down there and couldn't build it.

Is that why there are tow towers at the bottom of Cimmaron? I thought they looked like lift towers.

[garthd]

Lift Kid, on Jan 14 2007, 10:05 PM, said:

Is that why there are tow towers at the bottom of Cimmaron? I thought they looked like lift towers.

No, those are for finish area fencing and banners and the like...but they do look like lift towers.

[Lift Kid]

garthd, on Jan 15 2007, 10:20 AM, said:

No, those are for finish area fencing and banners and the like...but they do look like lift towers.

Yes. They really do.

[poloxskier]

garthd, on Jan 14 2007, 08:45 AM, said:

The original location of the Falcon was at the bottom of Cimmaron, but they found Native American artifacts when working down there and couldn't build it. Maybe farther to the south...

I've heard tell of another double loading HSS to replace the Colorado, and I would love to see the bottom of the Rocky moved uphill. Then you could make super quick laps on the terrain that it serves. I also agree that a HSQ would be a bad idea to replace 6 Chair...too many people too quickly. I say FGT.

AFSki722 is right about Peak 7 snowmaking. We worked hard to keep Peak 7 nice, but sometimes there is only so much you can do.

With that alignment was there another lift proposed to run the face to access the mountain? I had not heard about them actualy breaking ground by cimmaron but I had heard that a few years after the present falcon was installed that they were wanting to instal a lift running up bronc to return skiers to the front without the required cat walk. And a few years afterwards they proposed the poma on the catwalk.

This post has been edited by poloxskier: 15 January 2007 - 12:38 PM

[garthd]

poloxskier, on Jan 15 2007, 01:37 PM, said:

With that alignment was there another lift proposed to run the face to access the mountain? I had not heard about them actualy breaking ground by cimmaron but I had heard that a few years after the present falcon was installed that they were wanting to instal a lift running up bronc to return skiers to the front without the required cat walk. And a few years afterwards they proposed the poma on the catwalk.

I'll try to find out a little more tonight...it may have been when they were clearing for trails that they discovered all of this.

[iceberg210]

Once again I think resorts are falling victim to the idea that one size fits all. There are many cases as it sounds like there are in Breckenridge where granted the old chair needs to be replaced but not necessarily with a HSQ. Many resorts I think should take a look at resorts like Brighton and Solitude that realize that some lifts don't warrant a HSQ and it would be a waste of resources to build one in that location.

[skierdude9450]

Lift Kid, on Jan 12 2007, 05:52 AM, said:

I can't wait to see what type of terrain there will be on Peak 6.

Well, from what I've seen of the area, it looks to be the same old vertically challenged terrain with blue cruisers that should be greens. They're already in pretty bad standings with the US Forest Service, so it will take some really good negociating for that to happen.

[Lift Dinosaur]

iceberg210, on Jan 17 2007, 03:21 PM, said:

Once again I think resorts are falling victim to the idea that one size fits all. There are many cases as it sounds like there are in Breckenridge where granted the old chair needs to be replaced but not necessarily with a HSQ. Many resorts I think should take a look at resorts like Brighton and Solitude that realize that some lifts don't warrant a HSQ and it would be a waste of resources to build one in that location.

One thing everyone is forgetting is that most of US are experienced skiers. Breck does 1.4 MILLION skiers per year, and their majority aren't much above skiing "long blue cruisers that should be green". I bet if you total Solitude and Brighton's numbers they don't even come close to 1 M.
Breck is catering to their skiers, not the 500 members of skilifts.org

$1.00-Dino

[Lift Kid]

Lift Dinosaur, on Jan 18 2007, 07:31 PM, said:

One thing everyone is forgetting is that most of US are experienced skiers. Breck does 1.4 MILLION skiers per year, and their majority aren't much above skiing "long blue cruisers that should be green". I bet if you total Solitude and Brighton's numbers they don't even come close to 1 M.
Breck is catering to their skiers, not the 500 members of skilifts.org

$1.00-Dino

I must agree with this statement. Breckenridge caters to a lot of Beginners. To build more difficult runs wouldn't be a large financial gain. Their main marketing target is the novice skier/rider.

My $0.2