217 replies to this topic

[boardski]

Those over-pond rescue pictures for the Orange bubble chair are pretty neat. I was actually only kidding earlier when I said the seat cushion could be used as a flotation device. I borrowed that idea from my last airplane flight. Their system looks much better, hopefully they will not have to use it, but if they do, at least they are prepared.

This post has been edited by boardski: 11 December 2010 - 07:38 PM

[floridaskier]

Here's the top terminal of the gondola. The three terminals are all different colors. Bottom is the same color as the cabins, middle is light gray, and top is this dark brown/gray color.

[floridaskier]

Today they put up a lightly updated website with the new logo and colors. The new logo is pretty sharp

[DonaldMReif]

floridaskier, on 27 August 2010 - 05:40 AM, said:

4. Silverado lift added to make it easier to do laps on the north-facing side of Lookout Peak. ParkWest had a lift in this alignment.

It was a Garaventa CTEC fixed grip quad and it was called Raptor. It ran somewhere near the Lookout Ridge trail.

[DonaldMReif]

Looking at all of the criticisms about The Canyons, here's what I would do:

1. Extend the Super Condor up to the top of Murdock Peak.
2. Move the bottom of Snow Canyon/Sun Peak to the bottom of Super Condor and extend the lift further up to the top of the ridge.
3. Extend Saddleback to the top of the ridge.
4. Adding a fixed grip quad on the north side of Lookout Peak, in the old Raptor lift's alignment.
5. Peak 5 upgraded to a high speed quad and some actual runs cut around the lift line.
6. A new high speed quad runs from Red Pine Lodge to the top of Peak 9350, the 9350 lift, servicing intermediate terrain in the area below 9990 and above Tombstone.
7. A high speed six pack from the bottom of Iron Mountain to the top of Peak 5 with intermediate and advanced trails.
8. Upgrading the Dreamcatcher lift to a detachable.
9. Dropping a lift into Big Cottonwood Canyon, providing a connection to the Solitude ski resort on the other side.
10. Adding another lift on the opposite side of Iron Mountain from the existing runs that connects to PCMR, starting near the bottom of King Con.

[floridaskier]

I skied at The Canyons today and checked out the changes firsthand. Thoughts:

- The Orange Bubble lift is really cool. Sure it's gimmicky, but it really does make it more comfortable. The Uni-G terminals look really sharp, and if they'd had all the terrain open in the Golden Eagle pod, it would have been even better. It's a very long lift, with 30 towers and 183 heated, European-made bubble chairs that say Doppelmayr all over them. The stickers inside the bubbles are all in German. Must have cost a few bucks. It's much faster to ride it all the way to the top and ski down to Red Pine than to take the gondola. The bubbles open and close automatically, and if you get off at the midstation, an automatic rail drops down to lower the bubble to keep the chair covered. Fantastic addition, and everybody I talked to was really excited about it. It completely changes the feel of the base area and draws the crowds away from mid-mountain.

- They're saying early January for Iron Mountain. The terminals and towers are up, the comline has been strung, and it looked like they had recently pulled the pilot line on the ground through the snow. You can't get too close to it, but it looked like there were trucks up by the top terminal. It's too bad, because there looks to be enough snow to open the runs now. It's the first non-real estate terrain expansion The Canyons has done since 9990 back in 1998, and the runs look like they're going to be really good.

- Gondola relocation is great too. The cabin refurbishment went a long way. Towers A, B, C, D, and E have been added, and it's nice and smooth making the turn on the uphill side, but it's rough on the downhill side (inside of the turn). They could use some paint on the terminals to make them match the rest of the lifts, but the new alignment is great. Orange Bubble makes the gondola almost irrelevant. The midstation looks like it was put in last week, which it was. They could use to move some dirt around and dress it up a little.

- The ski beach isn't really there yet. They were blowing snow in the area, and the old paved path to the gondola is still there. The Canyons is sorely lacking a real day lodge at the base now that you can ski to the bottom more than just the last run of the day.

- Orange Bubble is going to be a maintenance hog. It was stopping all day, and there were mechanics up on one of the towers all morning. There are a whole lot of moving parts on there, and I wonder how long the bubbles are going to last. The grips have an attachment to charge the batteries, there's a roller to automatically lower the bubble, and the footrest is spring-loaded. While it's gorgeous now, I remember how nasty the Vista Bahn looked in the last few years it had bubbles.

- Golden Eagle base terminal is still standing, and a few sawed-off tower bases are poking out through the snow. It looked like they piled some of the old parts just north of the Frostwood gondola line, along with the old gondola shack. The bubble chair makes it feel like they just expanded into that entire area for the first time.

- The new snowmaking pond has bubble making machines at the bottom so it won't freeze over. It's pretty cool to ride over it

- The general consensus among locals I talked to was "The new stuff is great, but I'm not buying a Canyons pass again"

- The overriding impression of the entire place is that it's a work in progress. Nothing is completely finished. There's a big hole in the ground at the base area, they were blowing snow on the ski beach, the Cloud Dine lodge is at least six months away from completion, and it looks like Orange Bubble will have automatic chair parking at the top terminal, but not quite yet. There are footings poured at the top for more parking rails and a chair maintenance shed, but it's not done yet either. The gondola has a half-finished new parking area at the top terminal. Hardly any trail maps on the mountain show the new additions, and nowhere on the mountain is there a sign indicating the Iron Mountain area.

- They should have either gone all in with the new logo, or not bothered at all. The only place is shows up is on the printed trail map. They haven't replaced a single existing on-mountain trail map to show the new additions or the new logo. Not even the sign on 224 shows it yet. Nearly everything has the old branding

Some pictures from today. More if you want:

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[Peter]

Great pictures, thanks. Have any more of the lift line of the lower section of Orange Bubble? How hot are the heated seats?

[floridaskier]

The seats aren't very hot. You notice it a little when you first sit down, but it's not that warm to the touch. It's sealed off from the air except for your legs, and the bubble blocking the wind really makes a difference. It's very comfortable in there, especially with the high-back padded seats. The bubbles make the chair swing a lot more in the wind. It's not earth-shattering, but it spoils you for your next lift ride

A couple more from the first stage. There is a really steep section where the lift goes straight up Silverado Bowl. None of that terrain is open yet, which is a darn shame. You can see the old Golden Eagle lift line in the last one

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The old bottom terminal of Golden Eagle. A long way to go until they can open this area to skiers. For a while the old tension tower of Raptor's bottom terminal was there. Does anyone know if it still is?

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A few more

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Some scenery

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[SkiLiftsRock]

Just Found this on Doppelmayr's Website

http://www.ropetrans...Popup.php?id=61

13.12.2010: Canyons Resort unveils North America's first UNI GS with Orange Bubbles & HEATED seats




Canyons Resort in Park City, UT opened for the season on Friday, December 10th following an aggressive summer expansion program that included (2) new 4-CLD Doppelmayr installations.

Excitement surrounded the grand opening of North America's first 4-CLD UNI GS with Orange Bubbles & HEATED seats! Passengers began lining up - in the dark! - at 5:30 AM for the 9:00 AM opening! To commemorate the occasion, Canyon Resort gave away orange Oakley ski goggles to the first 100 lucky riders on the "Orange Bubble Express"!

Lift statistics:
Top Drive
Bottom Tension
CCW rotation
41mm Haul Rope
DT104 grip
Horizontal length 8562'
Vertical rise 1523' 2400 pph capacity
Ride time 9.41 minutes
186 carriers w/Orange bubbles & heated seats
24 towers plus mid-station unload only
Lohmann Bosch-Rexroth GPW270 SR78 gearbox
(2) ABB AC HDP 404kW electric motors

The second lift, Iron Mountain Express 4-CLD, serves an entirely new expansion area for Canyons Resort and is scheduled to open soon.

[DonaldMReif]

The lift looks nice! Iron Mountain sure does look like it will be excellent when it does open. Maybe if it had just a few more runs and the runs were longer, it would be the icing on the cake of the resort.

[skierdude9450]

Is the midstation higher than the top on the Orange Bubble?

[DonaldMReif]

skierdude9450, on 20 December 2010 - 10:21 AM, said:

Is the midstation higher than the top on the Orange Bubble?

It looks like it.

[floridaskier]

It's only a little bit lower than the top, but the top is higher than the midstation. It goes down slightly after the midstation and then goes up a little bit more over the pond and right before the top terminal. The top terminal is intended more for access than for skiing. From there, it's just downhill to Red Pine, and in the other direction are the Snow Canyon and Super Condor runs. It's a much-needed backup in case the gondola goes down, and it just about doubles capacity out of the base, which has been something The Canyons has needed since the beginning.

[floridaskier]

A few cam shots of the renovations, from the resort website:

Ski beach and Orange Bubble base



Looking down the line on Orange Bubble just below the midstation's breakover towers




Iron Mountain as seen from Doc's Run underneath the gondola. Report from visitors to the Facebook page is that chairs are up, no official word yet

[floridaskier]

Iron Mountain load test is today. Should be up and running really soon now.

[Kicking Horse]

Iron Mountain opened up today.....

[timberlaker]

will still never ski the canyons

[Kicking Horse]

timberlaker, on 09 January 2011 - 06:20 PM, said:

will still never ski the canyons

Why is that?

[Walt Askier]

My $.02 on the Canyons: I skied it for the first (and almost certainly the last) time this past tuesday. It is obvious that they've been spending a lot of money on the place, but it reminds me of the days when I used to work as a stagehand in the theatre - producers would dump a ton of money into a lousy show thinking that if they just inject enough cash somehow the turkey will shine. It almost never works, and it doesn't appear to be working at the Canyons.

It really is the worst laid out resort I've ever skied (and I've skied over 100 throughout North America). This may be due to topography, but it strikes me that they laid out the real estate first and then figured out how to put lifts and ski runs around it, instead of the other way around. The new layout may well be much better than what was there before, but the whole place just seems like a kludge.

Since I had never skied there before, I asked the mountain guides for advice on where to ski. There's obviously a party-line that the guides are instructed to say, because every one of them pushed two things:

• The runs through the real estate under tombstone and peak 5 lifts. I guess they're trying to sell houses, but this area is hardly the most interesting skiing you're going to find in Utah. Don't get me wrong - I actually enjoy easy trails that wind through the ski-in ski-out access as a change of pace. But as the signature you-gotta-go-here runs? You've got to be kidding.
• Their awesome rope tow. After hearing three different mountain hosts wax eloquently about their new wonderous, amazing, thrilling rope tow, I had to check it out because I couldn't imagine that a simple rope tow could be all that exciting. It's not, it's just a friggin' rope tow, the same thing that every mom-and-pop ski resort in the midwest has in spades. I guess it's better than hiking out to get back to the base, but seriously people...

Of the 11 days I skied Utah, the Canyons was inexplicably the most crowded - more crowded the Tuesday after New Year's Day than Brighton, Solitude or Alta was during XMas week. Go figure....

[floridaskier]

I think it would appear more crowded than other places because only a small fraction of the mountain is worth skiing on. Tombstone, Saddleback, and probably now Orange Bubble and Iron Mountain lifts are the only ones that are interesting to most skiers. Half of their acreage of cattracks between the houses, so they can crow about being the biggest resort in Utah, but it feels a lot smaller than Park City, where all of the terrain is worth skiing