40 replies to this topic

[DonaldMReif]

For Colorado ski resorts this season, Beaver Creek upgraded the Centennial Express to a chondola, while Breckenridge installed a new high speed six pack and modified one high speed quad.

Colorado SuperChair:

The Colorado SuperChair opened this past November, replacing the original high speed quad that lasted there from 1986 to 2014. It is Breckenridge Ski Resort's fourth high speed six pack and the first one to feature a loading carpet. The lift starts and ends in the same locations as the original, and in fact also reuses most of the original lift's tower foundations.

The lift has 20 towers and 132 chairs, and an uphill capacity of 3,600 pph. For comparison, the original quad had 21 towers and 153 chairs, and an uphill capacity of 2,800 pph.


Bottom terminal:

The first thing one notices is that the Colorado SuperChair uses the same wood-panel siding that the Kensho SuperChair from last year uses, just with a darker shade of wood.



Looks like the ski patrol stages their injured skier toboggans here.

This post has been edited by Kelly: 04 July 2015 - 05:18 AM

[DonaldMReif]

Lower lift line:


One thing you will notice is that the plastic mapholders that the Colorado SuperChair has have also been added to the Rocky Mountain SuperChair this year. They've also been added to the Independence SuperChair (so the only four superchairs on the mountain not equipped with the bar-mounted map things are the Falcon SuperChair, Mercury SuperChair, Imperial Express SuperChair and Kensho SuperChair).




While identical to the Kensho SuperChair in that both have the same tower design, LPA terminals and grips, and LPOA chairs, the Colorado SuperChair's towers have catwalks to allow mechanics easy access to the sheaves (these catwalks can also be found on such lifts as Vail's Leitner-Poma built high speed quads and Keystone's high speed quads, for example). I think this is the first lift on the mountain to feature such a thing.


Aside from the plastic maps, the chairs are basically the same although they rotate opposite ways.

This post has been edited by DonaldMReif: 21 December 2014 - 07:37 PM

[DonaldMReif]

The Tower 11 climb:

As a quad, the old Colorado SuperChair had no combination assemblies, so at the point where the lift line begins climbing up Spruce, there was a hold-down tower at tower 11. The new Colorado SuperChair has two 4S4C (in both direction) combination towers for this section. This small change in how the line profile has changed is similar to what happened at Vail when the Mountaintop Express was upgraded: where an intermediate hold-down tower existed on the original lift, they replaced it with two combination towers. The old tower 11's foundation appears to have gone unused.

Tower 10:


The old Lift 2 lift line is untouched:




Tower 11:

This post has been edited by DonaldMReif: 26 December 2014 - 04:46 PM

[DonaldMReif]

Tower 14:

There is a third combination tower on the lift, and that is tower 14. Tower 14 exists on the foundation of what was tower 15 on the original quad. On the quad, tower 15 was unique as, when built, it simply was a 4S tower in both directions. When the original Colorado SuperChair's Arceaux chairs were replaced with the Omega chairs in 2012, two years before the lift was ultimately replaced with the current one, tower 15 received a set of hold-down wheels on the uphill line. The resort must have recognized that this particular tower would need to remain a combination assembly due to the change in steepness on this part of the lift line, so tower 14 on the six pack is a combination tower, however, it has hold-down sheaves for the downhill line as well.



Tower 13:



Crossing over Callie's Alley:



Tower 14:

This post has been edited by DonaldMReif: 21 December 2014 - 07:42 PM

[DonaldMReif]

Upper lift line:

[DonaldMReif]

Approaching the top:

Tower 18:


Tower 19:


Below the "Check For Loose Clothing and Equipment" yellow sign, you'll notice a red "Which way are you going? Discuss plans before unloading" sign:



Tower 20:

[DonaldMReif]

Unloading:

As you can tell, the Colorado SuperChair's upper terminal is placed on top of what used to be the motor room for the original quad, as the quad was a vault drive lift. The six pack has its drive machinery housed in the new terminal structure, and the former vault is now storage space

[DonaldMReif]

Upper terminal:





The LPA grip:

[DonaldMReif]

Beaver Run SuperChair:

Well, this is not a "new" lift but more of a modified lift. The Beaver Run SuperChair is a 1990 Poma high speed quad with 32 towers and 186 chairs. With the original Colorado SuperChair getting replaced with the six pack, Breck management clearly realized that it was a bit of a waste to have replaced the Arceaux chairs of the quad with Omega chairs, only to tear the lift out and upgrade it within two years. So they had a lot of Omega chairs in good condition, and decided to put them on the Beaver Run SuperChair to replace the Competition chairs on that lift. There were 153 chairs on the Colorado SuperChair quad, so an additional 33 chairs were ordered in order to match the number of Competition chairs being replaced (the interesting thing is that one Competition chair remains on the mountain, and that is the one on the ski patrol evac training line just past where the Beaver Run SuperChair goes under the Peak 8 SuperConnect).

This post has been edited by DonaldMReif: 21 December 2014 - 07:47 PM

[DonaldMReif]

A before and after comparison to show how the tower 11 part of the Colorado SuperChair used to look like, compared to on the current lift. When you look at it, I think there was little to no tree clearing necessary in order to accommodate the wider towers and wider chairs, at least in the upper half of the lift from tower 10 up.


Before:


After:




At the top, a different before and after. This one better shows that the original foundations were reused:

Before:


After:

This post has been edited by DonaldMReif: 21 December 2014 - 07:29 PM

[DonaldMReif]

One more before and after, and that's a comparison of the Beaver Run SuperChair with its original chairs to with the new chairs. These two photos were taken in almost the exact same place exactly one year apart:

Old chairs (photo taken December 21, 2013):


Current chairs (photo taken December 21, 2014):

[NHskier13]

Interesting. Do you have any images of the one competition chair?

[DonaldMReif]

NHskier13, on 22 December 2014 - 03:46 PM, said:

Interesting. Do you have any images of the one competition chair?

It looks like this.



This is a photo from January 2013, but this Competition chair is still there today.

[DonaldMReif]

The Colorado SuperChair actually has its name placed on both sides of the upper terminal and the downhill side of the bottom terminal. That contrasts with the original lift, where the name plate was only placed on the downhill side of the bottom terminal, and with the Kensho SuperChair, where the lift name letters only appear on the uphill side of both terminals.






In addition to the bar mounted maps, the Rocky Mountain SuperChair's terminals have had some minor repainting:

This post has been edited by DonaldMReif: 23 December 2014 - 04:30 PM

[Backbowlsbilly]

DonaldMReif, on 22 December 2014 - 08:14 PM, said:

The Colorado SuperChair actually has its name placed on both sides of the upper terminal and the downhill side of the bottom terminal. That contrasts with the original lift, where the name plate was only placed on the downhill side of the bottom terminal, and with the Kensho SuperChair, where the lift name letters only appear on the uphill side of the upper terminal.

Donald, I was at Peak 6 on Sunday and they've added the name on one side of the bottom terminal too at Kensho, obviously the side that faces Zendo. I believe they've added that this year, the altitude of the lift has also been put along with the name at the top terminal.

[Lift Dinosaur]

Backbowlsbilly, on 23 December 2014 - 09:35 AM, said:

Donald, I was at Peak 6 on Sunday and they've added the name on one side of the bottom terminal too at Kensho, obviously the side that faces Zendo. I believe they've added that this year, the altitude of the lift has also been put along with the name at the top terminal.

The name and elevation were on the top terminal when I was there last April....
Dino
 Kensho 4-4-14.jpg (239.07K)
Number of downloads: 36

[DonaldMReif]

I only noticed that the Kensho SuperChair name has been placed on the bottom terminal today (I had to brave subzero temperatures to make it to the top of Peak 6 three times today. But I also see that the red "Which Way Are You Going" sign has been added to the Kensho SuperChair, where it's on tower 21, the tower with the "Prepare to Unload Raise Bar" yellow sign.

And the upper terminal name letters have been on the lift since last year. They're only on the uphill side, and not on the downhill side. Photos later.

Back on the Colorado SuperChair, it seems like the six-pack is a lot faster than the old lift. I have even had at least two no-stop rides on it this week, even with the carpet.

[DonaldMReif]

Backbowlsbilly, on 23 December 2014 - 09:35 AM, said:

Donald, I was at Peak 6 on Sunday and they've added the name on one side of the bottom terminal too at Kensho, obviously the side that faces Zendo. I believe they've added that this year, the altitude of the lift has also been put along with the name at the top terminal.

I have seen that now:


Also, the "Which Way Are You Going" signs have shown up on the Independence SuperChair and Kensho SuperChair.

On the Independence SuperChair, the sign is on tower 23:


On the Kensho SuperChair, it's on tower 21:

[Backbowlsbilly]

Lift Dinosaur, on 23 December 2014 - 10:55 AM, said:

The name and elevation were on the top terminal when I was there last April....
Dino
Kensho 4-4-14.jpg

Yep, I didn't remember that the elevation was there last year, my bad. Someone has probably said this before but the wood panels on Colorado look darker than the one on Kensho.

[DonaldMReif]

Backbowlsbilly, on 23 December 2014 - 06:22 PM, said:

Yep, I didn't remember that the elevation was there last year, my bad. Someone has probably said this before but the wood panels on Colorado look darker than the one on Kensho.

On a second analysis of my photos, I think you're right. I think it's more noticeable when there's good sunlight shining directly on the lift.

Here's what the wood panel on the Colorado SuperChair look like:





For comparison, the Kensho SuperChair: