104 replies to this topic

[heavenly_romer]

snowboardguy, on Jan 19 2005, 05:49 PM, said:

Awsome tiimes 12958794875943
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I just went into killibrew canyon for the first time a few days ago, and the snow was complete garbage. There had just been a 5 foot dump, and the day we went in, it was considerable hot, and the snow was very sticky and heavy. I am wondering, is killibrew worth the long trip over when the snow is good?

[SidBurn]

Well one old lift I hated was the St Johns lift @ keystone. the ride was at least 17 minutes, and I can't believe it took me so long to figure out that the montezuma lift gets you to the same place in half the time (even with longer lines).

[poloxskier]

SidBurn, on Sep 25 2005, 05:05 PM, said:

Well one old lift I hated was the St Johns lift @ keystone. the ride was at least 17 minutes, and I can't believe it took me so long to figure out that the montezuma lift gets you to the same place in half the time (even with longer lines).

That lift was fun to ride though. Especially at night with the small lights to illuminate the informational and almost entertainment signs on the towers. I think that some of the towers are still up too.

[Warren733]

Old Lift I Loved: The Saints John at Keystone(HP), Even though I never saw it run, I liked it, and their are still some towers off of wild Irshman and Frenchman.
Other Old Lifts I loved: Majestic-Brighton, UT Shadow Mountain Single-Aspen, Co WoodRun, Funnel, Assay Hill, Campgrund(Un-Mod), Sheer Bliss(Running), Elk Camp-Snowmass,CO
Old lifts I love Keystone: Argintine, Discovery, and A-51(YAN).
Breckenridge: C, E, A, 6, 7, 5 (Riblet), Quicksilver Quad(Dopp.) and Colorado superchair(Poma).
Wolf Laurel: Double Lift#1 (SLI), Catalochee: Omigosh (Hall/CTEC). MRG: Singlechair.(DC./Heron/Riblet)
Lift I fell in Love With: Grizzly-Durango, CO
New Lifts I hate: Quicksilver Super 6(Poma), Montezuma Express, Peru Express, Outback Express,
Wayback, and Ranger(Dopp).
New Lifts I Love: Ruby Express, Mercury Superchair, Independence Superchair, Peak 8 Super Connect(Poma), Cataloochee's Rock Island Quad(CTEC), Wolf Lauel's Quad#1, Quad#2 and Double#2
(Doppelmayr CTEC).
Lifts I Love and Loved: All Riblets, All SLI's, All Calvero Savios, All Herons, All Heronpomas, all Halls, All PBH/ Halls, all Singles.
Below (From Left to Right) Saints John, Argintine, Lift 7, Majestic, Wood Run, Shadow Mountain,
Hespersuses' Doublechair, and Grizzly (which I fell in Love With).

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This post has been edited by Warren733: 10 August 2006 - 12:30 PM

[Lift Kid]

Old lifts I love: Quad at Buck Hill, MN (Hall); breckenridge: C, falcon superchair

[skierdude9450]

Old lifts I love:
All of the H-P doubles @ WP
Alpine @ Copper (not too old)
Highline @ Vail
The double @ Grand Targhee

New lifts I hate:
Zephyr Express @ Winter Park (low speed detachable quad)
Quicksilver @ Breck

[Jonni]

Olds that I love:

Duckling Lift @ Sunapee
Single Chair @ MRG
Pomalift @ Burke Mountain
East Double @ Cranmore

New Lifts that I hate:
N/A

New Lifts that I Love:
Slide Brook Express @ Sugarbush That thing is awesome!
Peak 8 Superconnect @ Breck
Telluride Gondola @ Telluride
Snowflake @ Breck
Castlerock Double @ Sugarbush
North Peak Express @ Loon Mountain

The list could prolly go on forever for both new and old, but here's a general overview.

[EagleAce]

KZ, on Apr 19 2004, 09:29 PM, said:

I havent ridden too many old lifts, but id say Chair 5 at dodge has to be my favorite. Its really comfortable and the unload station is classic. Check out the pictures on the main site.

Yep! I occasionally worked the top of Chair 5 at Dodge! Very peaceful. Of all the Riblets at Dodge that one is my favorite.

[Snoqualmie guy]

I really like anything that is fixed grip. When I board I like to slow life down.

[Skiing#1]

I like old double Riblet lift...Majestic at Brighton, because I like to watch them around as it moved fast,
and I sit down, it pulls me up and it swings. It is much fun than new lifts. I miss old lift. It is a new fixed
grip lift quard chairs. Now, Brighton completely removed two old lifts Millicent and Evergreen, and they
replaced a new high speed lift.

This post has been edited by Skiing#1: 14 July 2007 - 04:22 AM

[DonaldMReif]

Old Lifts I Love:
I would have to say that this is hard to fill with, because I don't ride fixed grip lifts much, but I do like Lift C at Breck, as well as Lift E and Lift 6. (E and 6 mostly because they have bouncy bits)

Old Lifts I hate:
One especially would be the Wayback lift at Keystone. It doesn't seem right that when one goes to the Outback, you cannot do the day with only rides on detachable chairlifts. The lift is okay, otherwise.

New lifts I love:
Practically everything. Especially ones like the High Noon Express at Vail and Christie Peak Express at Steamboat, because they helped improve circulation on their mountains.

[ewillso7]

Durrrant, on 17 January 2005 - 07:55 PM, said:

Old lifts I love:
Little Whiteface @ whiteface: classic CTEC/Hall Double. try loading at the midstation. its a good time.
Jet Triple @ Jay Peak
Madonna @ Smuggs
Campground (pre-upgrade) @ Snowmass

New lifts I hate:
Cloudsplitter Gondola @ Whiteface
K1 Gondola, Rams Head HSQ @ Killington

What's wrong with the Cloudsplitter?
2400' vertical in 8 minutes to some great advanced terrain is quite convenient if you ask me

[ceo]

Oh sure, if we're going to dig up this old thread...

Old lifts I love(d):
Tramway at Cannon (the old one)
Upper T-Bars at Cannon (gone): fast, steep, don't you dare fall.
#3 T-bar at Sugarloaf: the sole survivor, indispensable on windy days
Mountain Poma at Burke: one of 2 (I think) detachable Pomas in the East, and with a (slight) turn!
Single at MRG

New lifts I hate:
Superquad at Sugarloaf, mostly because of the name.

New lifts I love:
Cannonball Express at Cannon (actually fixed-grip, replaced Upper T-bars): serves great summit trail pod; lifties blast cool music at base.

[skierdude9450]

Well in 4.5 years since my last post on this thread I wouldn't say much has changed from the original statement except chair 10 at Vail has moved to the other category.

Old lifts I love:
Again the doubles at Mary Jane
A-Lift at Copper
Bar-UE at Steamboat
Storm King at Copper
Pali at A-Basin
Chair 4 at Loveland
Challenger at Big Sky

Old lifts that need to go:
H-Lift at Copper (lots of misloads, really slow)
Crystal at W-B (you've got the line cut already, build the lift)
The Poma "10 person" cabins on the Whistler Village Gondola

New lifts I love that made a difference:
Chair 5 at Vail
Super Bee at Copper (not really new anymore)
Peak2Peak at W-B
Panoramic Express at WP
River Run Gondola at Keystone

New lifts I hate:
Chair 10 at Vail (a nice long ride never hurt anyone)
Imperial Express at Breck (a triple would have gotten the job done fine)
Buckaroo Gondola at Beaver Creek

This post has been edited by skierdude9450: 01 February 2011 - 02:18 PM

[DonaldMReif]

skierdude9450, on 01 February 2011 - 02:16 PM, said:

Old lifts that need to go:
H-Lift at Copper (lots of misloads, really slow)
Crystal at W-B (you've got the line cut already, build the lift)
The Poma "10 person" cabins on the Whistler Village Gondola

Where would Crystal be at Whistler-Blackcomb? I assume it's on Blackcomb.

And I agree that High Point at Copper should go. At the same time, I think that Kokomo and Lumberjack should also be removed and replaced with a high speed quad running directly from the bottom of Kokomo to the top of Lumberjack.

skierdude9450, on 01 February 2011 - 02:16 PM, said:

New lifts I love that made a difference:
Chair 5 at Vail
Super Bee at Copper (not really new anymore)
Peak2Peak at W-B
Panoramic Express at WP
River Run Gondola at Keystone

I must say that the High Noon Express (#5) is also in my list of new lifts I love. Also in that list: the Christie Peak Express lift at Steamboat, the Sourdough Express at Vail, and the Birds of Prey and Larkspur Express lifts at Beaver Creek.

skierdude9450, on 01 February 2011 - 02:16 PM, said:

New lifts I hate:
Chair 10 at Vail (a nice long ride never hurt anyone)
Imperial Express at Breck (a triple would have gotten the job done fine)
Buckaroo Gondola at Beaver Creek

I must agree with you on the Buckaroo Gondola. It does seem a little ridiculous that beginners have to keep taking off their equipment after each run, whereas if you do the main mountain, you don't have to keep taking your equipment off. A double would have been fine there.


Some of my others.

Old lifts I love:
1. The Doppelmayr built high speed quads at Vail. They are over 25 years old, and yet they still look like they're running strong and have another 25 years of useful life left. They show how chairlifts withstand the test of time. The ones I like the most are the Avanti Express and Orient Express lifts, as they are the most scenic. The Garaventa CTEC high speed quads are just as good.
2. The Mercury SuperChair at Breckenridge. Services a great run pod of its own.
3. The Rocky Mountain SuperChair, also at Breckenridge. May not service a lot of runs, but it is a nice ride.
4. The Peru Express, Montezuma Express, and Outback Express at Keystone are all nice rides with good run pods.
5. Lift E at Breckenridge has a nice bounce in it.
6. The American Flyer lift at Copper Mountain is nice (although it has been years since I last rode it).
7. Storm Peak Express and Sundown Express at Steamboat have nice run pods.

Old lifts I like, but not especially love:
1. Falcon SuperChair at Breckenridge. This being because of the fact that it runs up a very windy ridge.
2. Colorado SuperChair at Breckenridge because it is crowded and sometimes windy.

Old lifts I hate:
1. Teocalli at Crested Butte (mostly because of a bad incident I had on it, and it is centerpole)
2. Lift 6 at Breckenridge, because it has a segment that rises and falls several feet due to a large span between towers.
3. Elkhead at Steamboat (because it doesn't have safety bars, which I think it should have)

New lifts I love:
1. Independence SuperChair at Breckenridge
2. Sunshine Express and Christie Peak Express at Steamboat
3. High Noon Express at Vail
4. Sourdough Express at Vail
5. East River Express at Crested Butte

[iceberg210]

Can't honestly say there are any chairs that I hate (regardless of a eons old post in this thread :p), new or old, sure ones that would be better placed or perhaps done differently but I have no problems with any new chairs...

However there are certainly some I miss

Collins (Yan Double) and Germania (Yan Triple) at Alta
While I will admit that Collins really with Wildcat wasn't that useful and looking back on it it's not THAT huge a loss it's gone, but it was pretty neat that it still ran basically the same lift line (IIRC) as the second chairlift installed in the US. Germania I miss cause without it you can't really ski via lapping the top side of the Wildcat side. I mean you can try and board at the midstation but it's always a wait, and never really all that helpful, you might as well ski the rest of the way down. Not a big problem, and not saying that it's better or worse than the current set up, but still do miss it.

Millicent (Yan Double) and Evergreen (Riblet Double) at Brighton
Milly I understand wanting to replace and I don't have any problems with the new HSQ, but that doesn't mean I don't miss that old classic Yan chair with the relatively rare centerpole carriers.
Evergreen was a great old classic Riblet that made access easier to a couple really nice runs off to the far right of Brighton. Great lift, good terrain, and a retro trip every time you rode the lift (to board for example you had to climb up a ramp to get on top of the vault drive).
Again I understand why they were replaced, and really it's not any inconvenience with the new chair, but still nostalgia makes us pine for the past eh?

Peruvian (Dopp Double) at Snowbird
This one is the only one of these that I can say they really should have kept. Snowbird being a very tall resort can and does have much of the time vastly different conditions on the top of the mountain versus the bottom. On the Peruvian Gulch side the bottom half of the hill has a very good variety of excellent black runs. Utilizing the old chair you could lap these all day, where the conditions might be excellent instead of getting blown off the chair higher up on the hill, or have bad snow, or bad visibility or what not. Even with the new Peruvian they could have kept the old one, (perhaps with a slight relocation of the bottom station), and that would have enabled the bottom of that mountain to continue to be utilized when the upper half was a mess...

Honorable mention goes to the top half of the old SLI Campbell's Basin lift. I never rode it, nor skied Crystal when it was around but after skiing Crystal these days I can't tell you how handy that little lift would be especially if you were trying to do laps on Powder Bowl for example and you didn't want to mess with the insanity that is the line at Forest Queen.

[boardski]

I enjoy the high speed lifts at Aspen Highlands with one exception and that is Cloud Nine. I don't know why the could not have located the lower terminal lower (same place Exhibition II started). I also miss Grand Prix poma and Olympic chair. Those are two lifts that should not have been removed or should have been replaced with something different. I do like the Deep Temerity chair though. I was sort of hoping that Naked Lady chair would be relocated to the Highlands and re-installed to originate at the former bottom terminal of Grand Prix poma and terminate at the former upper terminal of Olympic. Looks like the lift was sold to Lutsen though. Otherwise, I enjoy the Highlands very much, always a good workout when I ski/ ride there.

[liftmech]

iceberg210, on 02 February 2011 - 03:06 PM, said:

Honorable mention goes to the top half of the old SLI Campbell's Basin lift. I never rode it, nor skied Crystal when it was around but after skiing Crystal these days I can't tell you how handy that little lift would be especially if you were trying to do laps on Powder Bowl for example and you didn't want to mess with the insanity that is the line at Forest Queen.

I wondered that the day they told us they were taking it out. As it was, we only ran it Saturday-Sunday and it was a well-maintained lift. Could have gotten many more years out of it. The strangest part about it is the old liftline run, K2 Face, has been removed from the map and is officially roped off at the top (although you can access it from either of the chutes that surround it). It was also nice to do Bear Pits laps when chair 6 was closed. Oh well.

I can't say as I have many items to add. I echo Erik's sentiments on that one. That being said-- I'm not a big fan of our one and only sixpack. Although I never got to ride them or ski from them, I think our old B and B-1 lifts were better suited for the terrain they serve. There are many good runs in the B-pod, as well as the B-1 pod, but having to ski them end-to-end can get old. We should have built two detach quads there, or had a midstation on the Bee.

Rest in peace chairs 2 and 3 at Crystal. I think Rex is in a better alignment than 2 was, and I enjoy it as well, but there was something about taking a nice ride up Sunnyside (and making the turn off chair 1 to get into the maze was a skill not easily acquired, and thus cherished). As for 3, the new detach is overkill. I understand that 3 was old and tired, probably had more hours on it than any other lift at Crystal, but it wasn't that long of a ride to where one would get cold or impatient.

[Bill]

liftmech, on 04 February 2011 - 06:15 AM, said:

Rest in peace chairs 2 and 3 at Crystal. I think Rex is in a better alignment than 2 was, and I enjoy it as well, but there was something about taking a nice ride up Sunnyside (and making the turn off chair 1 to get into the maze was a skill not easily acquired, and thus cherished). As for 3, the new detach is overkill. I understand that 3 was old and tired, probably had more hours on it than any other lift at Crystal, but it wasn't that long of a ride to where one would get cold or impatient.

Wow, I just thought of this, with the removal of Chair 1 this summer, the original three will be gone. So sad...

[missouriskier]

Old lifts that I love:

Most any old Riblet, especially the ones with the triangular windows in the drive stations. I am looking forward to riding Looking Glass when I go to WP this year.

I am especially glad I got to ride Millicent and Evergreen before they were removed.

I would love to ride the old doubles at Sandia Peak, but haven't been there yet.

The oldest lift I think I have ridden is the little short poma at Sipapu. It was built in 1964.


New lifts that I love:

Poma high speed quads and six-packs especially.

The Super Bee is probably the high speed lift I have ridden the most. Mabye a mid-station would have been good, but I like to ski long vertical descents, so I like that I can just ride one lift from the bottom to the top. I never skied at Copper before it was built, though. I guess it just depends on how long of runs you like to ski.

At other ski areas than Copper, I usually try to ski higher on the mountain rather that coming back to the base every run. In most cases I think it would be better to have an upper and lower lift rather than one.

New lifts I hate:

The Partek Quad at Hidden Valley has slick seats, which I think are a bit dangerous. It seems that you could easily fall out of it. Other than that it is a good lift.