Skilifts.org / SORT Forum

So I wanted to create a thread that documented the area around lifts as they have been replaced. Here is one of mine from my area: (though there will be more soon)
Ragged Mountain, NH (Spear Mountain Triple / Spear Mountain Express Quad)
Top Station Before:  Spear Mountain 2013 Top.png (1.39MB)
Number of downloads: 139
Top Station After:  SAM_1977.JPG (468.88K)
Number of downloads: 167
Halfway Up Before:  Spear Mountain 2013 Line 4.png (1.76MB)
Number of downloads: 153
Halfway Up After:  SAM_1924.JPG (469.19K)
Number of downloads: 116\
Some notable changes : The new quad runs a little farther left than the triple did. Also, the tower before the incline is now a compression assembly, versus the former depression assembly. The tower after is also now a compression assembly, whereas the towers on the old triple were support assemblies.

Sadly, for now this is all I have to contribute. My Before and After images of the Sun Bowl Quad need a little fixing before they can be posted- I need to shop out some of the lens flare and frame them a little better.
Also, feel free to show images of before and after a lift before it's been relocated- sometimes you can find that the appearance has changed a little during the reinstallation.

Here's one:

Breckenridge, CO (Colorado SuperChair quad / Colorado SuperChair six pack):

Tower 10 (before):


Tower 10 after:


As you can see here, the current Colorado SuperChair reuses the tower foundations of the original, but has one fewer lift tower due to the modification to the lift profile at this point on the lift line. Instead of a hold-down tower at tower 11, the original tower 11 was scrapped and this section has two compression towers (towers 10 and 11).

Upper terminal before;


Upper terminal after:

Another one from the Colorado SuperChair:


Tower 15 (before):


Tower 14 (present):


The noticeable difference is that tower 15 on the original lift had hold-down wheels on the uphill side only. Those hold-down wheels were only added in 2012 when the original lift's Arceaux chairs were replaced with Omega chairs. The Omegas later were moved to the Beaver Run SuperChair in 2014 when the original Colorado SuperChair was upgraded.

The same season that the Colorado SuperChair was upgraded, the Beaver Run SuperChair received new chairs.


Competition chairs (before):


Omega chairs (after):

Vail, CO (Mountaintop Express HSQ, Mountaintop Express HSS):


Before:


After:


You can't really see it, but instead of a depression tower (tower 6) like the quad had, the six-pack uses two compression towers (towers 5 and 6). Also, the lift has been slightly realigned (see next set for details).

Mid-Vail is the portion of Vail that's seen the most lift upgrades in the last six years, including this year's upgrade of the Avanti Express lift to a high speed six pack. In this case, it's easy to see what's changed in this photograph here:

Vista Bahn Express HSQ, Wildwood Express HSQ and Mountaintop Express HSQ (2007):


Gondola One HSG10, Wildwood Express HSQ and Mountaintop Express HSS:


Of the three lifts at Mid-Vail, the only one that hasn't changed since 2007 is the Wildwood Express lift, due to the Vista Bahn Express being upgraded to Gondola One in 2012 and the Mountaintop Express being upgraded to a high speed six pack the year after that. Also, when the Mountaintop Express lift was upgraded, the bottom terminal was moved east by about 90 feet, to ease congestion around the two chairlifts. On an unrelated note, the Tenth Mountain Restaurant in the 2013 photo was built in 2011, between the Wildwood Express lift line and the exit from Look Ma.
This post has been edited by DonaldMReif: 10 June 2015 - 06:45 PM

For a relocation one:

Tombstone at Canyons was opened in 1997 as a Poma high speed quad. In 2006, the lift was upgraded to a Doppelmayr high speed six pack, while the original lift was relocated to Steamboat and became the Sunshine Express lift, replacing a Doppelmayr triple chairlift.

This is the upper terminal when the lift was at The Canyons:



This is the upper terminal as the Sunshine Express lift:


Besides the change in paint, the Sunshine Express lift has footrests on its chairs. It did not feature these when it was Tombstone.
This post has been edited by DonaldMReif: 10 June 2015 - 06:54 PM

As promised, here's the Sun Bowl Express
So first of all, this lift was relocated from Okemo (VT) to Sunapee (NH) at the conclusion of the 2014 season.
You can see that the terminal was repainted and that the underside of the terminal was converted from the corrugated metal stuff to wood. It definitely looks a lot more attractive with green and a wood contrast versus all gray.
Here's the top before it was moved:


And the top station as the Sun Bowl Express:
 SAM_1579.JPG (481.18K)
Number of downloads: 46  SAM_1562.JPG (480.59K)
Number of downloads: 72
Bottom Station (Sorry for the different camera angles... so I took 2 of the "new" lift
Before:  Sun Bowl 2013 Bottom.png (1.31MB)
Number of downloads: 85\
After:  SAM_1570.JPG (478.83K)
Number of downloads: 77  SAM_1606.JPG (1.52MB)
Number of downloads: 66
After Crossing the Stream
Before:  Sun Bowl 2013 Line 2.png (1.13MB)
Number of downloads: 63
After:  SAM_1556.JPG (460.25K)
Number of downloads: 68

Note the different placement of the towers, and the change in tower numbers. The old quad's portal tower at the base did not count, whereas the new one did.
Also, the rotation is different now. The new one goes counterclockwise, where as the old one went clockwise.

Top Station
Old Entry:  Sun Bowl 2013 Line 5.png (779.16K)
Number of downloads: 71
New Entry:  SAM_1560 (1).JPG (472.92K)
Number of downloads: 70

Old From Unload Spot:  Sun Bowl 2013 Top (1).png (1.78MB)
Number of downloads: 59
New From Unload Spot:  SAM_1581.JPG (474.63K)
Number of downloads: 43

Sorry I couldn't get to the Sunburst Six at Okemo yet... coming soon :3
This post has been edited by NHskier13: 11 June 2015 - 05:40 PM

Liberator Express at Mission Ridge started it's career as the Summit Express at Winter Park.



The return terminal at Winter Park.


And at Mission Ridge.
This post has been edited by Snowy Ferries: 12 June 2015 - 10:40 PM

I thought they painted it blue, not green? Or did that change?

This is awesome! I got some perfect shots for this! I actually have a (small) collection of before and after shots on my hard drive.

Mount Snow's Exhibition chair from the late 50s or 60s. Long gone now. The barn for the Bluebird is where the base terminal was. The line is still clearly visible.

 1a Exhibition.jpg (452.5K)
Number of downloads: 197

 1bMount Snow April 133 - Copy.JPG (1.11MB)
Number of downloads: 232


This is the original Summit Double at Mohawk. Late 60s maybe? The next shot is of the Mohawk triple that follows the same line and the Arrowhead Triple.

 2bmohawk24502.jpg (141.04K)
Number of downloads: 197

 2aGOPR0316 - Copy.JPG (1.01MB)
Number of downloads: 131

I take it Exhibition was the monorail chairlift? I'm judging based on the line and abundance of support towers. I never knew particularly what lift that was. Great images by the way.

NHskier13, on 15 June 2015 - 12:29 PM, said:

Standard was the name of the monorail in that picture (aka #2). The other lift was #9 Snowdance, which was later changed to Standard. #9 was eventually replaced by the Canyon HSQ along with the Canyon double.

jaytrem, on 15 June 2015 - 05:35 PM, said:

Yep. You're right. IDK what I was thinking.

One from a couple years back, Mt. Seymour in Vancouver's Mystery Peak Chair. The Murray-Latta double chair was replaced after the 2011/2012 season with a Doppelmayr detachable quad.

Don't have any photos handy (on an external drive... somewhere) so we'll go with some moving images instead:

BEFORE, recorded on April 15th 2012, the old lift's last ever day of operation:
https://www.youtube....h?v=WKqjg562L6U

AFTER, recorded April 28th, 2013, the final day of the new lift's first season:
https://www.youtube....h?v=sS-A2G5jkKI

EDIT: A few photos I managed to dig up

Bottom (drive) station before:
 IMG_3980.jpg (470.51K)
Number of downloads: 44

Top (return) station Before:
 IMG_3934.jpg (390.46K)
Number of downloads: 55

Bottom (drive) station after:
 IMG00043.jpg (336.79K)
Number of downloads: 51

Top (return) station after:
 P4280166.jpg (191.77K)
Number of downloads: 36
This post has been edited by Mike12164: 07 September 2015 - 05:45 PM

DonaldMReif, on 10 June 2015 - 06:27 PM, said:

The 153 chairs from old Colorado (replaced in ~2010) were moved to Beaver Run. A total of 33 more chairs had to be added for a full complement.