264 replies to this topic

[timberlaker]

Good riddance to those King Con towers. The nearist one in the photo gave me a hematoma crawling from the chair to the tower.

[SkiDaBird]

floridaskier, on 28 June 2015 - 08:03 AM, said:

Yes, they're rebuilding the old Snow Hut restaurant on that spot, looks like it's a biggger footprint lined up differently farther down the hill. Hard to tell where the gondola base will be - there isn't much room down there. It looks like they've moved quite a bit of dirt around already. That area is laid out really awkwardly now, which is bad because it's the most crowded spot on either of the two mountains. It looks like they're filling in the gully at the bottom of King Con run (where before you had to go down and back up to get to Silverlode, and the Silverlode line would often extend all the way back to the Snow Hut ski racks.

Has anyone seen if they've done anything else on the gondola so far? A little surprised we can't see anything there yet

Guardsman is open, I might take a detour after a hike some time this week. Try and grab PC and Summit pictures.

This post has been edited by SkiDaBird: 28 June 2015 - 08:55 PM

[floridaskier]

If there was any lingering doubt about whether King Con will be reused as Motherlode at PCMR:

https://instagram.com/p/4Zs91uCuXp/

PCMR seems to be posting more pictures of this on Instagram - they have one of the Crescent painting in progress there that didn't show up on the blog or on Facebook

[Backbowlsbilly]

Had a chance today to go up to Vail and check out the progress on the new Chair 2 Avanti Express. Towers are still in, the bottom station is completely gone but they are still working on disassembling the top terminal, today they were using a crane to take the diesel engine out of the top terminal but the bare bones skeleton of the terminal including the bullwheel is still in place. A staging area near the top terminal has the old chairs and new parts from Doppelmayr. There are many trees along the line marked with either blue ribbons or blue paint, indicating that there will have to be some significant tree removal for the new lift line. I would guess the construction timeline for the new lift will be very similar to Chair 4 Mountaintop Express two years, it'll really pick up in the late summer.

Pictures 1,3,4,5,7,8 and 10 are various pictures of the towers standing without cable.

Picture 2 is of the top terminal skeleton.

Pictures 6 and 9 are of the new Doppelmayr parts near the top terminal.

Attached File(s)

•  photo 1(7).JPG (446.28K)
  Number of downloads: 166
•  photo 4(5).JPG (350.24K)
  Number of downloads: 220
•  photo 1(8).JPG (121.55K)
  Number of downloads: 180
•  photo 2(7).JPG (359.57K)
  Number of downloads: 151
•  photo 2(8).JPG (76.7K)
  Number of downloads: 143
•  photo 3(8).JPG (465.41K)
  Number of downloads: 142
•  photo 3(9).JPG (120.83K)
  Number of downloads: 128
•  photo 4(6).JPG (116.92K)
  Number of downloads: 123
•  photo 5(3).JPG (276.16K)
  Number of downloads: 134
•  photo 5(4).JPG (108.58K)
  Number of downloads: 103

This post has been edited by Backbowlsbilly: 29 June 2015 - 07:07 PM

[DonaldMReif]

I'm wondering if Vail will reuse the tower foundations from the old lift. I don't know why I think that. On a related note, I don't think I've ever gotten a chance to see what that part of the CLD terminal's interior looked like.

[boardski]

Is old lift 2 being reused or sold to another area?

[NHskier13]

DonaldMReif, on 29 June 2015 - 08:59 PM, said:

I'm wondering if Vail will reuse the tower foundations from the old lift. I don't know why I think that. On a related note, I don't think I've ever gotten a chance to see what that part of the CLD terminal's interior looked like.

This video below is of #10 at Telluride. I think it uses somewhat similar terminals to the ones at Vail, only the exteriors are a little more squared off.
https://www.youtube....h?v=EUsYzY6ZJ7I

[DonaldMReif]

I believe the original Mountaintop Express was sold to Mount Brighton in Michigan. If someone bought the old Avanti Express, I have a feeling that someone would have mentioned something on the Internet somewhere.

[Peter]

Some pictures of Snow King's new lift which passed its load test last week and will open Friday.

http://liftblog.com/...s-this-weekend/

[Backbowlsbilly]

DonaldMReif, on 30 June 2015 - 07:58 AM, said:

I believe the original Mountaintop Express was sold to Mount Brighton in Michigan. If someone bought the old Avanti Express, I have a feeling that someone would have mentioned something on the Internet somewhere.

Parts from Chair 4 (mainly chairs) were used at Mt. Brighton to build two new lifts. However Vail owns Mt Brighton so it wasn't sold and the new lifts are fixed grip, using new Doppelmayr terminals.

[DonaldMReif]

Thanks for the clarification. I guess the right word would have been "recycled".

I'd think, looking back through the hundreds of photos I've made on the old Avanti Express, that the most significant tree removal work for the six pack would have to be between what were towers 9 and 19 on the old lift, especially on the stretch between tower 11 and 15.

[DonaldMReif]

I went to Breckenridge today. While driving past Loveland, I could see the construction work done so far on Lift 2. All of the towers above the reload station are gone, although if you look in this photograph, you can see that the upper station is still there:

[Backbowlsbilly]

boardski, on 30 June 2015 - 05:53 AM, said:

Is old lift 2 being reused or sold to another area?

Likely used for parts on the other CLD-260 lifts at Vail Resorts (Orient, Northwoods, and Game Creek at Vail, Arrowbahn at Beaver Creek)

[boardski]

DonaldMReif, on 01 July 2015 - 08:27 PM, said:

I went to Breckenridge today. While driving past Loveland, I could see the construction work done so far on Lift 2. All of the towers above the reload station are gone, although if you look in this photograph, you can see that the upper station is still there:

Maybe they are planning to move the upper terminal directly to the new location when it is ready. I am thinking the new upper terminal will be in the former "reload" location. Seems like a little more room. Prior to the installation of the mid-unload terminal, the reload was used for unloading instead of reloading late season and it seemed to work out great. On Loveland's facebook page, people seem rather negative about the removal of the poma lift and shortening of lift 2 but they (Loveland) had to do something, lift 2 has been the most dysfunctional lift in the state for quite awhile. The 20 minute ride from the reload to the top was no fun. It would be nice if they would relocate that platter lift to the top of the ridge though as was suggested on their FB page. Loveland did not have a response for that. Maybe the platter lift is too old to be recycled.

This post has been edited by boardski: 02 July 2015 - 08:07 PM

[DonaldMReif]

PCMR is continuing progress on the Interconnect. Looks like they're preparing the foundations.

This post has been edited by DonaldMReif: 04 July 2015 - 11:09 AM

[DonaldMReif]

The newest photo as of this morning shows some trucks with parts for the new King Con and/or the Interconnect gondola.

[woofydoggie]

Old tubes going away at the Hermitage Club
https://instagram.co...y=hermitageclub

[Andy1962]

woofydoggie, on 08 July 2015 - 08:44 AM, said:

Old tubes going away at the Hermitage Club
https://instagram.co...y=hermitageclub

would have been more useful to include this link below:

http://hermitageclub...-ski-lift-poles

instead of the instagram link which only had one photo. The link to the Hermitageclub.com page was on the instagram page referenced on the first link..

This post has been edited by Andy1962: 08 July 2015 - 12:26 PM

[DonaldMReif]

This photo was taken on Canyons' Facebook page showing that terminal footers are in place for the Iron Mountain terminus of the interconnect.

 InterconnectCanyons.jpg (133.86K)
Number of downloads: 103

[Peter]

I walked the new Pinecone Gondola line and took some pictures. It's coming along but of course there is lots of work left to do. I'll post some pictures of King Con and Motherlode when I get a chance in the next few days. Lots of lift painting going on around PCMR as well.

http://liftblog.com/...necone-gondola/