33 replies to this topic

[DonaldMReif]

As far as I know, the Colorado SuperChair at Breckenridge, plus the Vista Bahn Express and Born Free Express lifts at Vail, have maps on their chairs. I haven't checked the Riva Bahn Express lift, though.

[mikest2]

Are these the ones that are mounted on the restraining bar ? Like the Adblock ?

http://www.alpinemed...nz/adblocs.html

[Lift Kid]

Beaver Creek had them as well on a few of their detaches. Breck has them on Beaver Run and Colorado. No idea on Vail. It's similar to Adblock but no ads. Just a trail map. I will see if I can find a picture.

This post has been edited by Lift Kid: 22 December 2009 - 06:58 PM

[xa0s]

Yawp.

mikest2, on 22 December 2009 - 06:52 PM, said:

Are these the ones that are mounted on the restraining bar ? Like the Adblock ?

http://www.alpinemed...nz/adblocs.html

[sseguin613]

All MSSI (Mont Saint-Sauveur) ski centers in Quebec have atleast one lift each to have these installed. Although none of them have any material inserted inside .....

[Peter]

I was just in Whistler and they have a few of these on Fitzsimmons Express I think it was.

[DonaldMReif]

As far as I know, the following Vail Resorts lifts have maps on their chairs.

Vail:
Born Free Express (#8)
Mountaintop Express (#4)
Vista Bahn Express (#16)

Beaver Creek:
Lower Beaver Creek Mountain Express (#15)
Upper Beaver Creek Mountain Express (#18)
Centennial Express (#6)

Breckenridge:
Beaver Run SuperChair
Colorado SuperChair
Peak 8 SuperConnect

Keystone:
Montezuma Express
Peru Express
Summit Express

[DonaldMReif]

I know I have probably asked this earlier, but I might need my memory refreshed.

At all of the major ski areas on the I-70 corridor, some of the high speed quads and six packs have trail maps attached to the bars on them. The ones I am pretty sure as of 2014-2015 are going to have them (based on my ski trips last year or photos for other resorts) are:

Winter Park:
Gemini Express
Zephyr Express

Keystone:
Summit Express
Montezuma Express
Peru Express

Breckenridge:
Quicksilver Super6
Beaver Run SuperChair
Peak 8 SuperConnect
Colorado SuperChair

Copper Mountain:
Super Bee
American Eagle
American Flyer
Union Creek

Vail:
High Noon Express
Mountaintop Express
Avanti Express
Born Free Express

Beaver Creek:
Centennial Chondola
Strawberry Park Express
Lower Beaver Creek Mountain Express
Upper Beaver Creek Mountain Express
Bachelor Gulch Express

Crested Butte:
Silver Queen Express
Red Lady Express

Telluride;
Village Express
Palmyra/Polar Queen Express

Durango:
Purgatory Village Express

These are the lifts in Colorado that I know for certain have trail maps on the bar.

I'm guessing there's a single manufacturer of these plastic trail map things since these appear on Doppelmayrs, Garaventa CTECs and Pomas and on many different chair models. I mean, compare the ones on the Avanti Express here (photo taken by me):


And for comparison, the High Noon Express, although Leitner-Poma instead of Doppelmayr, has the same maps (although the content is different, since the High Noon Express lift's maps show the Back Bowls and the Avanti Express lift bar maps have the Front Side):


From my 12 years of skiing in Colorado, and some research, it looks like there was a brief period of time where there was such a thing as the "lap map". Photos by Brian Wilson of http://ski-epic.com/ seem to show that there was a time around 1999-2002 where some lifts used something called a "Lap Map" which looked very similar to the current map things. The photos I saw were from Winter Park, which showed that they appeared on a couple of high speed quads including the Olympia Express lift and the Eskimo Express lift. They looked something like this (photo by Brian Wilson):


I think that trail maps fitted to the safety bar first became popular in 2009. That was the first year I ever saw such maps on the Beaver Run SuperChair, Colorado SuperChair, Peru Express and Summit Express lifts, to name a few. The maps are nice in the sense that it makes it possible to map out your next run without trying to unfold a trail map in howling wind (which may or may not involve removing your gloves to do so).

But I posted this to ask a different question: how do resorts decide which chairlifts get trail maps on their comfort/safety bars? For the most part, to the best of my observation, the resorts generally put them on lifts that start at base areas or get a lot of use as access lifts that transition people from one side of the mountain to another. However, I know for a fact that in the past ski seasons, there are exceptions where A) not every detachable that starts at a base area gets safety bar maps, or B) two detachables start alongside each other, but only one gets the maps. I give a couple of examples of this:

*For example, at Vail, the Riva Bahn Express lift has never had bar maps, even though it begins at Golden Peak base area. I always attributed this as possibly being because the lift doesn't service any real terrain worth lapping (unless you get off at the midway point and lap the terrain park or a couple of blue runs there) and most people who ride all the way to the top presumably immediately get on the Northwoods Express lift to get to real terrain.

*Breckenridge has cases of both scenarios A and B. The four lifts that have maps include two high speed six packs and two high speed quads: Quicksilver Super6, the Colorado SuperChair and Beaver Run SuperChair have them since they start at base areas, and the Peak 8 SuperConnect has them as to most skiers, it is the main transit from Peak 9 to Peak 8 (I don't know if many use the Snowflake lift mid-load station to transition between the two peaks).

However, although five of the ten superchairs begin at base areas (the ones that don't being the Falcon SuperChair, Mercury SuperChair, Peak 8 SuperConnect, Imperial Express SuperChair and Kensho SuperChair), not all of the superchairs starting at base areas have maps. On Peak 7, the Independence SuperChair starts at the Peak 7 base area (Grand Lodge on Peak 7 and Crystal Peak Lodge), but it has never had trail maps on its bars. I suppose it's justifiable since almost all of the runs it services funnel back to it, even though you can access Peak 8 via Claimjumper or Northstar, and use the lift to access the Kensho SuperChair and Peak 6 via the Zendo Chair or Wanderlust catwalk.

Meanwhile, over at Peak 8 base, the Colorado SuperChair has always had safety/comfort bar maps (well, the original quad definitely always had them during its final five years of operation, from 2009 to 2014; I'm betting the six pack is going to have them since the original had them), since it gets a lot of skier traffic both in the form of lapping traffic and traffic transiting to the Peak 8 bowls or Peaks 9 and 10. However, the Rocky Mountain SuperChair starts right next to the Colorado SuperChair and ends at about the same altitude (just, approximately a quarter to a half mile north according to Google Earth), but it has never had trail maps on its bars. I suppose that perhaps it's because the Rocky Mountain SuperChair doesn't service as much terrain for lapping (just four trails: Little Johnny, Duke's Run, Northstar and Claimjumper), but it does get a lot of use as an access lift (since it's the fastest way to access the T-Bar, Peak 7, and Peak 6). Yet, for its use as an access lift, as I said, the lift has never had maps.

A similar case, I suppose, to the Colorado SuperChair and Rocky Mountain SuperChair, would be back at Vail with the Mid-Vail chairlifts, the Mountaintop Express lift and Wildwood Express lift (which, like the Peak 8 case, is a high speed six pack starting next to a high speed quad). I'm pretty sure most people who start at Vail Village on Gondola One, upon getting off at Mid-Vail, immediately head for one of these lifts to access actual skiing terrain. The Mountaintop Express lift has always had the maps since 2009 (and kept them even after it was upgraded last year to a high speed six pack), but the Wildwood Express never has had them even though both lifts get used heavily as access lifts from which you can travel to almost any point on the mountain (the Mountaintop Express lift being used to access the East Front Side, Northwoods Bowl, Two Elk Lodge, the Back Bowls, and access to Blue Sky Basin via Sleepytime Catwalk or the Sourdough Express lift; the Wildwood Express being used to access the Sundown Bowl, Game Creek Bowl, Central and West Front Side, and Eagle's Nest).

Those are examples that make me wonder what algorithm resorts use to decide which chairlifts get retrofitted with trail maps on their safety bars and which ones don't (almost all of the ones I've ridden that have maps, save for Union Creek and the upgraded Mountaintop Express lift and Colorado SuperChair, are lifts that operated for many years without them).

[Kicking Horse]

Snowmass Village Express had them in 2005 when the lift was installed. I'm sure they still have em today.

[boardski]

Loveland does not have any... actually no bars either :-O

[DonaldMReif]

Well they only show up at major ski areas, not the ski areas that mostly get day trip crowds.

[TheEpicPancake]

I'm really surprised Deer Valley, with their clientele and level of service, has not added these to any of their lifts yet. Seems missing.

[DonaldMReif]

Interestingly, I know a case of lifts that used to have safety/comfort bar trail maps that no longer do. At Crested Butte, the Silver Queen Express lift and Red Lady Express lift have them as they are the lifts you use to get onto the mountain from the base area. I think they've been on those lifts every year since 2006 or 2007. At one point, the Paradise Express lift and the East River Express lift had them as well, from roughly 2006 (the East River Express was built that year) to 2010. But they were taken off either that year or the year after that (I went to Crested Butte in February 2012 and neither lift had the maps on the safety bars then) and I don't think they've appeared on those two lifts ever since.

[Peter]

In some cases these trail maps are installed and maintained by advertising companies...Sitour and Brand Connections.

[Backbowlsbilly]

I would think that the resorts would add them as an added amenity for their guests, mostly on lifts that are used by new people to the resort and not just the diehards, like not having them on Imperial but having them on Colorado. It also depends on the area that is being skied, do you really need them on Riva since you are either going to ski down back to Golden Peak on one of three main runs or ride it up to the top to hop on the next chair. (This is the fastest way to China Bowl on a powder day, by taking Riva to Highline to Sourdough and dropping in on Dragon's Teeth) Most people on Riva are either lapping the park or racing with SSCV and Riva also has a lot of chairs because of its length, so it doesn't really make sense to have trail maps at all. Sometimes the map doesn't look as good when squeezed into that space on the bar, especially for vertical mountains. Snowbird's Peruvian (and possibly more at Snowbird, but I don't want to speculate) and Exhibition at Highlands both have them but the map looks really odd since both mountains are both taller then they are wide, as opposed to wide mountains where they work very well like Vail and Breck.

[floridaskier]

TheEpicPancake, on 24 October 2014 - 09:07 AM, said:

I'm really surprised Deer Valley, with their clientele and level of service, has not added these to any of their lifts yet. Seems missing.

DV added them to Carpenter, Sterling, and Quincy last year

[SkiDaBird]

Bird has them on Zoom and Peruvian. They hit my GoPro if I'm not careful...
I also find it funny to look at because they are very wide and Bird is much taller than it is wide so they are incredibly distorted.

[DonaldMReif]

They're more practical on resorts that are wider than tall. The Breckenridge maps don't appear to have much distortion, but I've seen some distortion on the Crested Butte maps.

[liftmech]

To answer Donald's original question-- we put them on high-traffic base-area lifts where people are more likely to need a map. It cuts down on trail map litter. The company we use is MapLink out of Carbondale. They do most of the I-70 areas.

[DonaldMReif]

I think the MapLink maps are the ones that appear on many lifts outside of Colorado.