Ski Snowstar, Illinois
Ski Snowstar Winter Sports Park is completing a four-year effort to upgrade its facilities and “provide as much customer service as we can,” said general manager Ed Meyer. The project began with the purchase of an 825-foot long double-double chair, a used Borvig originally installed in 1981 at Ski Butler in Kentucky. The Borvig made sense for Snowstar because it already had a Borvig quad chair, which uses the same grips and sheave assemblies. Snowstar installed one-half of the double-double four years ago, then focused on snowmaking upgrades. Now the area is putting in the other half of the double. Since the towers were already in place, Snowstar simply had to sandblast and paint the old metal, install the top and bottom terminals, provide power to the upper terminal and set the counterweight at the bottom. Power comes from a 75 hp motor and Fincor DC drive inherited from Butler. The area has also completed a renovation of the base lodge, more than doubling the indoor cafeteria area, and created a 60-foot by 80-foot outdoor patio. With a glass windbreak, the patio is protected on three sides, and the patio’s new firepit adds an outdoor dining option.
Bear Creek, Pennsylvania
Bear Creek Ski and Recreation Area, within an hour’s drive of Philadelphia, Allentown and Reading, has been on a development tear. Last year, it installed a tubing park and expanded its terrain park, halfpipe, and snowmaking. This year it is installing a new Doppelmayr CTEC fixed-grip quad. The new quad is 2,740 feet long with a vertical rise of 460 feet and has an uphill capacity of 1,700 people per hour. It has a 125 hp motor and DC Eurotherm bottom drive terminal. It replaces a double chair that had an uphill capacity of 845 people per hour. Other lifts are being upgraded; the area is redoing the electrical controls on one double and one triple, and installing a new Fincor DC drive on another double. Stationed just a few feet from the edge of Bear Creek’s lodge, the quad will open up the base area of the mountain. That, along with a new 66-foot Kaser Carpet moving sidewalk, provides an expanded teaching area for the Ski and Snowboard School. Other improvements for the upcoming winter season include a third terrain park, expanded day care facilities, and increased electrical capacity to provide a 40 percent increase in snowmaking capabilities. Next year’s plans call for a 55-room hotel, new rental building, and a new, full-service base lodge.
Mountain Creek, New Jersey
Mountain Creek first built an inground standard halfpipe just above the base area two years ago. Last winter, by piling up machine-made snow, the area transformed its standard pipe into the only Superpipe south of Vermont in the East. Now the area is excavating a full-on Superpipe and putting up TV-spec permanent lighting. To craft the pipe, Mountain Creek has moved 35,000 cubic yards of earth to form a giant trench 450 feet long, 60 feet wide and 16 feet deep. The TV lighting comes from 60 1,500-watt Hubbell Lighting fixtures. The new pipe will be the scene of the Grand Prix of Snowboarding finals next February, an event that will showcase the new pipe on NBC and, the area hopes, encourage other event organizers to take advantage of the TV-friendly site. To help ensure ample snow, the area has begun a multi-year upgrade of the snowmaking system, replacing the area’s original, 35-year-old snowmaking pipe and adding eight SMI Super Wizzard cannons. The work involves replacing 30,000 feet of pipe and building new valve blockhouses. Snow Mountain Engineering is performing the renovation.
Okemo, Vermont
Okemo is investing $50 million to expand its new Jackson Gore base area. Projects include a detachable quad, a conveyor lift, seven new trails and 250,000 square feet of base facilities and residential units. Base area development includes the Jackson Gore Inn, with 117 slopeside units ranging in size from standard rooms to three-bedroom suites. Styled after traditional New England architecture, it houses a full-service restaurant, Corner Store Sundry Shop and health club. The new Jackson Gore Base Lodge features The Roundhouse, a 390-seat food court located on the first floor of the lodge, and The Vermont Pizza Company, a 280-seat pizza pub and lounge situated on the second floor. The Jackson Gore base area also includes ticket windows, guest services center, group sales office, conference/meeting facility, day care center and children’s learning center, real estate sales office, ski/snowboard shop, equipment rental/repair shop, administrative offices and video arcade. The new Leitner-Poma detachable quad begins just outside the Jackson Gore Inn’s front door and is 2,569 long with 390 vertical. It moves 2,400 people per hour at 1,000 feet per minute. Okemo is also adding seven new trails, including a 9,600-foot long novice run that runs from the top to bottom of the mountain peak, and a 400-foot-long carpet lift on the gentle terrain at the base for beginners. The increase in terrain brings Okemo’s skiable acreage to over 600 acres, 95 percent covered by snowmaking.
Sunshine Village, Alberta
Sunshine Village is located in Banff National Park, where environmental protections restrict development—especially in the sub-alpine and alpine zones, where many lifts terminate. And there’s a ban on construction roads above the sub-alpine area. How to install a lift, then? Thanks to its location high on the Continental Divide, Sunshine’s snowpack often remains into June. So the area moved the terminal and the heavy equipment needed to install the area’s new Leitner-Poma detachable quad over the snow. This equipment included tracked excavators as well as a 25-ton crane. Excavation work for the new Standish lift started in late April, the top terminal concrete was in place by the end of May and the terminal was erected by June 10. All the equipment was moved off the mountain by the middle of June while the snow still covered the ground, leaving the general area largely untouched. The new ABB DC bottom drive, 400-hp installation is 2,800 feet long, will transport 1,800 skiers per hour (with an eventual capacity of 2,400), travel at 1,000 feet per minute and have a ride time of 2.8 minutes. It replaces an old double chair—a Timberland Ellicott that was Sunshine’s first chair when it was installed in 1965. It was upgraded a few years later with a Hall drive, and was refurbished a second time in 1983 by Mueller Lifts. With the addition of this new quad chair, Sunshine Village has a total of 12 different lifts, including seven quads.
Jiminy Peak, Massachusetts
Jiminy Peak is developing the final two buildings in its Village Center this summer and fall (completion is scheduled for November). The two buildings combined include 30,000 square feet, split evenly between commercial space and 12 residential condos. The cost of the project will approach $5 million. On the ground floor of one building, the new 6,500-square-foot Burbank Children’s Center will accommodate up to 350 children. It doubles the capacity of the existing children’s facility and adds lunch facilities, a kids’ rental shop and a large playroom for non-skiing kids. There is also a 2,000-square-foot retail shop in the kids’ center. In the second new building, the ground-level Paul Major Welcome Center will house a group ticket outlet, guest services office, ski and snowboard school desk and a coffee shop. There will also be a new “Just Jiminy” logo gear store. The 1,100-square-foot condos are two-bedroom, two-bath slopeside units with an average selling price of $230,000. Architecturally, the goal is to create memorable spaces, inside and out. For example, the Welcome Center’s coffee shop has a comfortable Starbucks-style atmosphere, but with more of a European or elegant old New England feel, with lanterns, chandeliers, and soft plum and green tones. It’s intended to be a place where visitors will want to linger for 10 or 15 minutes. Outside, heated Boston pavers keep the buildings’ upper and lower courtyards clear of snow. Old-style lamp posts and park benches invite guests to hang out and create an intimate, dare we say romantic, effect.
