104 replies to this topic

[floridaskier]

Old lifts I love:

Golden Eagle at The Canyons - bad for navigating the mountain, and never open, but still a cool old lift and the first Riblet I ever rode
Mayflower at Deer Valley - Not ancient, but the second oldest lift there, feels like the way skiing used to/should be
Crescent fixed quad at Park City - was in a really useful spot that now requires a big runout to do laps on
Jupiter at PCMR - should never be replaced
Three Kings at PCMR - A dying breed (SLI)
Eagle Express at Solitude - not old either, but the most interesting HSQ I've come across

New lifts I hate:

Silver Strike at Deer Valley - real estate lift whose line took away some fun trees, too much clutter at the top of the mountain

New lifts I love:

Orange Bubble at The Canyons - if you haven't been there yet, this is really cool
Sultan at Deer Valley - the new alignment allows laps on the best run at DV
Lady Morgan at DV - same idea as Mayflower with a higher elevation, faster lift, and better snow
Crescent HSQ at PCMR - almost like a terrain expansion, best idea they ever had

[DonaldMReif]

poloxskier, on 16 January 2005 - 03:54 PM, said:

I like the older dopp HSQs like vail's and keystone's. However I despise the carriers they use. That is unles like at most resorts they have removed the center arm rest.

Vail removed the center armrests in 2006. I don't think Keystone has ever had them, though.

Some other new lifts I love:

Sunshine Express at Steamboat - Great idea for that run pod.

Christie Peak Express - Probably one of the most well-needed lifts at Steamboat, and one of their best ideas (as it eliminated the tangle of beginner chairlifts at the base).

This post has been edited by DonaldMReif: 24 February 2011 - 02:11 PM

[liftmech]

DonaldMReif, on 01 February 2011 - 04:05 PM, said:

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.

Quote

Old lifts that need to go:
H-Lift at Copper (lots of misloads, really slow)

Funny how both you guys mention this the week we announced we were replacing it. Anyway....

[DonaldMReif]

liftmech, on 25 February 2011 - 05:13 AM, said:

Funny how both you guys mention this the week we announced we were replacing it. Anyway....

Some of the other old lifts that really need to go:

Lift A at Breckenridge (long and very, very slow. 14 minute ride).
Lift 6 on Peak 8 might also be good to upgrade, considering that lines there are pretty long on powder days (yes, I know about the part about powder getting tracked out quickly), and also, make it so that one doesn't have to ride an old lift to get to the Imperial lift.

Elkhead at Steamboat also should go. A proposal currently involves replacing the Thunderhead Express lift with a six pack and moving the old lift to the Elkhead line. Of course, I think that the Thunderhead Express is fine and doesn't get much in the way of lines, although it would be nice to construct something that could be a backup for the lift during peak periods (or whenever conditions require them to close the Gondola (personal experience)).

[DonaldMReif]

To add on, a few more new additions:


New that I love:
All four of Crested Butte's high speed quads count.

Prospect, Gold Link and Painter Boy, the three lifts servicing the fixed grip peak are all nice rides. They provide a small break from the high speed quads.

[DonaldMReif]

In the past year, I now have to change some of my perspectives with new lifts that have been built at Breckenridge and Vail:

Old lifts I love:

If "old" means the lift is at least 15 years old, then all Doppelmayr high speed quads at Keystone and Vail.

Old lifts I dislike:

Wayback at Keystone. Wayback feels like a ten minute ride from bottom to top, and it slows frequently. Also, it's your only way back to North Peak or Dercum Mountain when you're done using the Outback Express lift. They repainted the terminals dark green last year, so the lift is probably going to be there for a while. I know that Keystone's master plan as of 2009 does include upgrading the lift to the Wayback Express lift.


New lifts I love:

The Kensho SuperChair, dead on. Peak 6 was a long-needed expansion to distribute people more evenly across the peaks and thin the crowds at Peaks 8, 9 and 10. Also, the decision to use a custom wooden siding on the lift terminals means that when you are on Peak 6, you are definitely well distanced from the town of Breckenridge and are now in Europe. If only the resort could seefit to have the wooden siding added to every other high speed quad and six pack on the mountain, which makes me hope the wooden design used on the Kensho SuperChair will be utilized when the Colorado SuperChair is built next season.

Also on this list is the Mountaintop Express lift. Upgrading that crowded high speed quad to a six pack was probably the best improvement Vail made to its lift infrastructure since the High Noon Express lift in 2010 (I sort of like Gondola One, but I also miss the Vista Bahn Express). The original high speed quad was overcrowded and that kinda discouraged me from wanting to utilize it for laps, aside from using it to go to the China Bowl, Blue Sky Basin or Two Elk Lodge. The six pack really shortens lines and makes getting through Mid-Vail a lot easier when going east. The loading carpet also makes it kind of unique.

New lifts I hate:

While I outright love the Kensho SuperChair, I am not as fond of Zendo, the lift you have to use to actually get to the Kensho SuperChair. Zendo's a fixed grip quad, and it's a bit of an anomaly when the lifts it is in between, the Independence SuperChair and the Kensho SuperChair, are both six packs. It is supposed to be a six minute ride, but the time I recorded a ride on it, it took more like 8 and a half minutes due to frequent slows. The unloading area is also not as well constructed as the Kensho SuperChair's unload area, as there is little room for you to strap on your snowboard if you are a boarder (the hill you go down to get to the Kensho SuperChair is just long enough to require you to strap in), and the unload ramp almost immediately transitions into the hill that takes you down to the queue for the Kensho SuperChair.

[snoloco]

Old lifts I love.

Little Whiteface at Whiteface. This 1980 Hall double has an awesome view on the upper portion and serves some great runs with no line.

Freeway at Whiteface. This 1980 Hall double serves many great high speed runs that you can take and a scenic ride as well.

D-Lift at Hunter. This is one of POMA's first triple chairs built in 1966. It still runs great, never has a line, and serves some great runs to lap.


Old lifts I hate.

Old Pete at Mount Peter. This 1964 Hall double is unbeliveably slow and it takes 8 minutes to go 2000 feet. There is also no slow on this lift. That means that they have to stop it even for minor accidents. To make matters worse, it has no padding and no foot rest. I don't know why it took me so long to figure out that Hailey's Comet which is a 2006 Partek double gets you up to the same place faster, even with a longer line.

Whistler Triple at Windham. This 1983 Von Roll triple is 5,000 feet long, runs excruciatingly slow and stops all the time. You also get to see the Whirlwind Express speeding by you the entire way which is sheer torture. No matter how long the line is there, it still gets you up faster.

Vernon Triple at Mountain Creek. This 1981 Borvig triple is about 4,300 feet long and has a 12 minute ride with no stops. It has no padding either. Like the last two lifts, you get to see another lift (The Cabriolet) speeding by you the entire ride. It stops so much that I have thought about carrying a rope when skiing it. If I did, I probably would've used it to abandon ship a few times.


New Lifts I hate.
Zephyr Express at Hunter. This 2012 POMA HSQ is the former Snowlite Express which was installed in 1987 on the front side reinstalled on the West Side. I don't know what they were thinking when they put this thing in. It replaced 2 old double chairs; the Y and Z lifts at the same time and was installed on the line of the backup which was Y-Lift. This setup couldn't make less sense. You have to go at dangerously high speeds in order to make it up to the lift (yes uphill). I don't know why they didn't regrade this runout when they put it in. At the top there is also a long skate that you have to do to get back to the trails. Riding it also makes me sad because it takes you over Annapurna and Westway which are some of my favorite trails, but they refuse to blow snow on them. I don't know why they didn't put this lift in on the line of the Z-Lift which had a much better route.

Superchief at Belleayre. This 2006 Doppelmayr CTEC HSQ is the only HSQ on that mountain and it serves a runs that end in an endless flat runout. It is not enjoyable to lap at all which means that you spend the entire day riding slow fixed grip lifts.

The Cabriolet at Mountain Creek. While this 1998 Doppelmayr Cabriolet gets bodies up the hill very fast, if you ride it on a crowded day, it is reminiscent of a ride on the NYC Subway during rush hour. I don't know why they didn't install a regular gondola there where you sit down and are enclosed.


New lifts I love.

Cloudsplitter Gondola at Whiteface. This 1999 Doppelmayr gondola takes you up 2,400 feet over a length of 8,600 feet in just under 7.5 minutes at 1,200 fpm. It also gives you some amazing views, some of the best in the east from the comfort of the gondola cabin.

Burnt Ridge Quad at Gore. This 2008 Leitner-POMA HSQ serves some awesome high speed cruising runs and is the only lift on the mountain to run at the full 1,000 fpm. Its chairs are as comfortable as couches and it never has a line.

[RibStaThiok]

"Old lifts I dislike:
Wayback at Keystone. Wayback feels like a ten minute ride from bottom to top, and it slows frequently. Also, it's your only way back to North Peak or Dercum Mountain when you're done using the Outback Express lift. They repainted the terminals dark green last year, so the lift is probably going to be there for a while. I know that Keystone's master plan as of 2009 does include upgrading the lift to the Wayback Express lift."

Wayback is a Quad so it's max operating speed will be 400-450fpm compared to the 500 fpm of the non-detatched Doubles and Tripples. Ride time with no stops is about 7-8 minutes. She's only about 21 years old so she's got plenty of spunk left in her.

This post has been edited by RibStaThiok: 16 January 2014 - 04:48 PM

[Backbowlsbilly]

Old Lifts I Love: I'm not sure if this counts but the Falcon Superchair in Breckenridge. I have done so many laps on that lift, racing and freeskiing that I just love it. Also, an inside tip is that Peak 6 has greatly reduced the liftlines on Peak 10, to the best of my knowledge. I was there 3 days after Christmas Day and there was no lines at all. Another one is the Mongolia Platter in Vail. It's slow, has a low capacity, and doesn't go very far up but because you have to take the Orient Express to get there and take a long catwalk to get back out, the three bowls have really good snow very late into the day and there is seldom anybody back there. It's a great lift to a great area. Arrow Bahn in Beaver Creek is another one, too.

Old Lifts I Hate: Twlight Double and Legends Triple at Durango Mountain Resort. Twilight is a slow double that is the only lift they have open during opening weekend and takes forever to get up, a cool old lift but needs to be replaced, especially considering that the nearby Engineer lift is almost the exact same type of lift except faster, shorter and serving better terrain. Legends is a Poma triple that is unbelievably slow and has been talked about for replacement since around 2008. It serves pretty fun terrain but prevents people from going back there because it is so slow.

New Lifts I Love: Vail's Gondola One and Highline Express. Both new, fast Leitner-Poma lifts that have cut down on lines greatly. Highline, in particular, is the fastest way to Blue Sky and China Bowl and almost never has a line. It is by far, my favorite way up the Frontside. Durango's Purgatory Village Express is another one of my new favorites, it's a European style lift because it was built during the Doppelmayr-Garaventa merger but is long, quick, and serves the entire front face of the mountain with never a line in sight. Breck's Imperial Express sldies onto my list too, just because it is so direct and serves the best steeps in Breck and some of the best in Colorado.

New Lifts I Hate: I don't really hate any new lifts, I love the progress and investment that ski resorts show when they build them. However, there are some I prefer much less than others. I'm not big on Vail's new Mountain Top Express, I like how it cuts down on lines but I think that the loading carpet was a little bit much and might actually create more confusion for some tourists than help. I think that Vail paid big money to get that carpet and loading gates, considering that it alters the path of the chair in the loading terminal and forces the terminal the be wider, but not have as much of a great effect that Vail hoped for. When I was on it in early January, it stopped four times on the way up the first time and two times on the second.

[DonaldMReif]

You're definitely right about Peak 6 thinning the lines at the Peak 9 and Peak 10 lifts. I was noticing that when I went up on December 26, the day after Peak 6 opened. I never saw a line at the Falcon SuperChair, nor at the Mercury SuperChair, and short lines at the Rocky Mountain SuperChair and Independence SuperChair. The only two long lines I ran into were: the Colorado SuperChair (to be alleviated with the upcoming six pack), and the Kensho SuperChair itself (but that was only on the first time, because it broke down around the same time we got off Zendo, so the lift was closed for about 15-20 minutes while they fixed a safety switch; fortunately, it meant lines were non-existent once we did our second trip up the lift because a lot of people decided to bail out and return to Peak 7). The Kensho SuperChair is good as a "new lift I love", it's just that the singles line should be moved across to the far side of the queue, since if the singles line goes out of the ropes, that cuts off people trying to get in the regular line.

[SkiDaBird]

iceberg210, on 25 February 2005 - 07:42 PM, said:

New Collins lift at Alta. It's not just that I'm sentimental to the old lifts it is also that it is a pain to ski the upper mountain now as they only allow you to load on a free chair which never comes so it forces you to ski all the way down which increases the already long lines at the bottom. Also the midstation sits right in the middle of the ski run. I'll get some pics the next time I'm up there. Wildcat muct be the lift for me I guess...

They need to make every 5th chair a mid load and do it from 9, not 11. Also, the stupid thing breaks more than any other lift ever.

[snoloco]

Skitheeast, on 19 April 2004 - 04:51 PM, said:

A newer lift I hate is the Ramshead express quad at Killington. Express Quad? It's so slow!

Ramshead is rated for 1,100 fpm and I have seen it run this speed and ridden it at this speed. Is it running slower now?

[DonaldMReif]

Maybe Collins needs regulating gates, like the Peak 8 SuperConnect uses for its midway load. Snowflake doesn't have gates to regulate its midway load, but it's a double and it isn't heavily used, so it's not a problem.

[RibStaThiok]

SkiDaBird, on 20 January 2014 - 11:06 PM, said:

They need to make every 5th chair a mid load and do it from 9, not 11. Also, the stupid thing breaks more than any other lift ever.

It does???

[boardski]

I decided to purchase an A-Basin pass instead of Loveland this year due to my frustration about lift 1. Great steeps and bumps but always crowded, lots of beginner traffic= hardly ever a non stop ride. After being hit by ski poles and almost pushed off the chair by two giggly girls who did not wait for my chair to pass before advancing to "load here" and did not even apologize, the decision was easy. The lift changes proposed in Loveland's master plan regarding replacing lift 2 (the other lift out of the base) with an upper and a lower lift should fix some of this issue and get beginners off of chair 1 but who knows when any of that will be implemented. When it is, I might be back if I am still young enough to enjoy the sport. Lifts 2A and 2B at Loveland will be two lifts I WILL love. Hopefully the lower terminal placement of lift 2B (the upper) will be such that it can be accessed from south and north chutes and all upper trails without the need to ski to the base. Hopefully this will be the first project.

This post has been edited by boardski: 24 January 2014 - 08:28 AM

[DonaldMReif]

snoloco, on 22 January 2014 - 01:08 PM, said:

Ramshead is rated for 1,100 fpm and I have seen it run this speed and ridden it at this speed. Is it running slower now?

The Ramshead Express runs at a slower "normal" speed at peak times due to increased beginner traffic.

[Ski The East]

Old lifts that I love,
Outpost Double at Pico Carlevaro Savio
Snowdon Triple at Killington Heron Poma
Single Chair at MRG
Killington Gondola at Killington Carlevaro Savio (gone)
2000' Double at Suicide Six

[SkiDaBird]

DonaldMReif, on 22 January 2014 - 04:58 PM, said:

Maybe Collins needs regulating gates, like the Peak 8 SuperConnect uses for its midway load. Snowflake doesn't have gates to regulate its midway load, but it's a double and it isn't heavily used, so it's not a problem.

It has a laser at the mid so the gates open if the chair is empty. At the bottom, they just don't put anyone on every 10th chair. The problem is that if anyone is actually at the midstation, it's faster to ski the bottom, even if its like 60 and the snow sucks at the bottom.

[DonaldMReif]

Backbowlsbilly, on 16 January 2014 - 05:00 PM, said:

Old Lifts I Hate: Twlight Double and Legends Triple at Durango Mountain Resort. Twilight is a slow double that is the only lift they have open during opening weekend and takes forever to get up, a cool old lift but needs to be replaced, especially considering that the nearby Engineer lift is almost the exact same type of lift except faster, shorter and serving better terrain. Legends is a Poma triple that is unbelievably slow and has been talked about for replacement since around 2008. It serves pretty fun terrain but prevents people from going back there because it is so slow.

I know the master plans approved years back called for Twilight to be upgraded to a triple chairlift and Legends to be upgraded to a high speed quad. Maybe the new management will put that on the fast track in a couple years.

Quote

New Lifts I Hate: I don't really hate any new lifts, I love the progress and investment that ski resorts show when they build them. However, there are some I prefer much less than others. I'm not big on Vail's new Mountain Top Express, I like how it cuts down on lines but I think that the loading carpet was a little bit much and might actually create more confusion for some tourists than help. I think that Vail paid big money to get that carpet and loading gates, considering that it alters the path of the chair in the loading terminal and forces the terminal the be wider, but not have as much of a great effect that Vail hoped for. When I was on it in early January, it stopped four times on the way up the first time and two times on the second.

I think one will have to learn to get used to them, since the Colorado SuperChair has a carpet and Vail's blog posts have said that the Avanti Express lift is going to have a carpet when it is upgraded to a high speed six pack this summer. With the Colorado SuperChair it seems there's a little less confusion because the lift has in-line loading (as opposed to the Mountaintop Express lift's 90 degree loading) and rotates counterclockwise just like the quad it replaced (meaning there's no real change to the way the line is configured other than telling people to group up before they get to the gates). I'd expect that the Avanti Express lift will also have inline loading like the quad it's going to replace, so that might also alleviate troubles there.

Just for the record, the Colorado SuperChair is on my list of "new lifts I love." It really cuts down on lines at Peak 8 base, and cosmetically, the wood siding looks awesome. I have taken to using the lift to make laps a little more. Back when the Colorado SuperChair was a quad, I really only used it to transit over to Peak 9 and Peak 10 and usually I always had more check-ins at the Rocky Mountain SuperChair than at the Colorado SuperChair. With the recent upgrade, my number of check-ins at the Colorado SuperChair has increased to be a bit more equal to my number of check-ins at the Rocky Mountain SuperChair.

I'm also putting the Avanti Express lift on the list of new lifts I love preemptively even though it hasn't yet been built since it's the lift that you use to lap some of my favorite trails at Vail (Lodgepole, Columbine, Pickeroon, Avanti).

[NHskier13]

Old(ish) Lifts I love:
Peak Double, Pat's Peak
 Peak Double Carrier & Sheaves.JPG (219.87K)
Number of downloads: 23
Single Chair, Mad River Glen

Sunnyside Triple, Waterville Valley
 Sunnyside Triple Lift Line (2).JPG (250.23K)
Number of downloads: 31
High Country Double, Waterville Valley
 High Country Double Lift Line.JPG (171.83K)
Number of downloads: 35
Duckling Double, Sunapee
 SAM_1584.JPG (1.52MB)
Number of downloads: 31

New Lifts I Hate:
I'm not exactly sure of any I could name, because I don't mind too much if a lift gets replaced, unless it is truly a classic.