Construction Site

Snowmass

This summer, more likely than not, the hikers up at 12,000 feet in the bowls of the Cirque at Snowmass, Colo., were actually construction workers. The new Poma detachable platter lift was built by crews walking the 4,000-foot-long liftline to avoid scarring the fragile, high-alpine tundra with truck traffic. Lichen-covered rock and wildflowers still exist within six inches of the tower foundations. As much work as possible was done over snow at the end of the season: tower holes were dug the day after the area closed, but were formed entirely by hand this summer. The dirt from the tower holes was loaded into a dump truck bed on the back of a snowcat and transported off the slope. All the towers and bolts were hauled up over snow, and helicopters were used to pour concrete for the 14 towers. Eighty carriers will rise 793 vertical feet at 770 fpm. Before, the bowls of the Cirque were only accessible on foot or by snowcat, which transported a mere 15 people every half-hour. The new lift, for a cost of approximately $550,000, increases capacity to 450 pph.

Shanty Creek

Schuss Mountain in Shanty Creek, Mich., grew 40 feet after crews trucked 300,000 cubic yards of dirt from a new golf course to the mountaintop. At least six trails will be lengthened—some gaining as much as 300 feet. When the added vertical threw off the existing lift configuration, management decided to remove the old lifts—three doubles and a triple—and add four brand-new fixed-grip quads from Garaventa-CTEC. Two of those lifts will service 12 new runs designed by Sno.engineering, adding over 22 acres of terrain. New trails mean more snowmaking, of course, so 22,000 feet of pipeline are being tied into the existing system along with a Flowtronex pumping station, quadrupling capacity to 3,600 gpm. The resort will also add 25 of their own fan-style snowguns to cover the new terrain. As the snowmaking is installed, the mountain is simultaneously being wired for night skiing—20 acres this year—to be expanded eventually to the entire 40 acres of skiing terrain. The $9 million of improvements are largely financed by real estate sales along the new golf course where 330 lots flew out the door in 50 days.

Kirkwood

A $1 million children’s center and an $11.5 million lodge will be ready this winter at Kirkwood, Calif. The lodge, located at the base of five major lifts, is Phase I of a proposed ski-in/ski-out mountain village. The four-story condo will have 19 units ranging from one to four bedrooms, as well as the resort check-in center, retail space and a real-estate office. The 4,300-square-foot children’s center has its own check-in area, rental shop, lunch room and play room. The 2,800-square-foot Adventure Center is new, too—summer home of rental mountain bikes and a climbing wall, it serves as a snowboard center come winter. Crews are finishing up last year’s snowmaking project—the first ever at Kirkwood—with 25 Ratnik air/water guns and 3 Flowtronex pumps. Construction was halted last year because . . . it was snowing too hard.

Snow Valley

BM Lifts is building Canada’s first fixed-grip, six-passenger lift at Snow Valley, Ontario, with a vertical rise of 233 feet, a slope length of 1,063 feet and a capacity of 3,600 pph. The lift will be accompanied by a conveyor-belt loading device built by Snow Valley’s owners, Barrie Welding and Machine Company. The belt—40 feet long and 20 feet wide—will run at half the speed of the lift, accelerating skiers for easy loading. After visiting several stateside tubing operations, Snow Valley is building their own—faster, steeper and longer than most of the operations they tested, according to management. The $750,000 (CDN) snow tubing park boasts two new BM surface lifts, seven runs, 300 Tough Tubes and a new snow tubing chalet that will seat approximately 400 people. The runs are graded at 25 degrees, with 300 feet of slope and 600 feet of outrun. Rumor is that daring snowtubers will fly down the 10-story drop at speeds of up to 43 mph.

Lake Compounce

While building the Skyride, a fixed-grip quad, as an attraction at Lake Compounce amusement park in Bristol, Conn., Garaventa-CTEC crew member John Dearborn told a local paper that “no ski area would be built on a hill like that.” The first 1,000 feet from the base was a sheer ledge, evening out slightly on the way to the top. The only way to reach the top for construction work was on a mile-long path with a Polaris six-wheeler, which traveled 600 miles during the 40-day project. There was no access at all to the liftline. Anything too big for the Polaris had to be flown in to the top and anything needed on the liftline had to be carried up by hand—this included all the forming material and anchor bolts. Four out of thirteen tower footers had to be dug by hand, while the rest were rock-anchored. To drill the rock anchors, the crew stationed a 1,300 cfm air compressor at the bottom of the hill and stretched 3,000 feet of hose to the top. The lift has a slope length of 2,328 feet and travels 225 fpm. The crew did pick up some new skills on this non-ski-related project, however. “By the end,” said Dearborn, “we were all rock climbers.”

Snowbird

Pieces of a new bottom terminal were lifted into place on the first detachable ever installed at Snowbird, Utah. A 6,800-foot-long Garaventa-CTEC detachable quad, to be exact, that reduces a 15-minute ride to six or seven minutes and increases capacity from 1,200 to 2,000 pph. An old midway unloading terminal was removed and a new top terminal was added to complete the new lift, Gadzoom—a name derived from an old mining term. In the spirit of economy, 25 of the 27 towers from the old double were retained, with the addition of four new towers, all new crossarms, chairs and a new haul rope. The old haul rope wasn’t just chucked out, however: using an electromagnetic inspection machine, crews located the best 8,500 feet out of the 14,000-foot-long cable, spooled it off the old lift, ran it sideways 100 yards and simultaneously fed it straight onto the bullwheel of the adjacent Mid Gad double. Snowbird is also doubling snowmaking coverage to 60 acres, adding 2,500 feet of pipe, three new SMI fan guns and a Flowtronex booster pump with a capacity of 400 gpm.

Steamboat

Building plywood forms for tower footings gets to be old hat when you’ve got 18 of them to do. Paul Gruber is pounding together forms for the new Thunderhead Express, a 5,537-foot-long Doppelmayr detachable quad at Steamboat, Colo., which will replace the Thunderhead double and the Arrowhead triple. Capacity for the new lift is projected at 2,400 pph, almost equivalent to the two lifts being replaced, but hopes are that the high-speed lift—1,000 fpm—will draw skiers to Thunderhead Mountain, improving overall skier distribution at the area. In addition to the new lift, major snowmaking improvements are being made to the Concentration trail with a 5,100-foot-long installation of snowmaking pipe and new Larchmont hydrants. North of Storm Peak, 110 acres of trails and a liftline for another proposed detachable are being cut on Pioneer Ridge, giving this winter’s skiers a glimpse of things to come. Total cost of capital improvements being made for this season is approximately $3.3 million.