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Resorts across the country get long-awaited additions.


SLEEPING GIANT, WYOMING
After lying dormant for five years, this local’s area is coming back to life. The non-profit Yellowstone Recreation Foundation has raised a total of $2.1 million to complete the renovations that it began over a year ago, when it cleared the liftline and built and poured tower foundations for a recycled lift (the former Chair 26 at Mammoth, a Yan). The new installation uses a few towers and the front portal from another recycled Yan, the Cyclone from Steamboat. The haul rope served previously on the Peruvian lift at Snowbird. Joe Gmuender, who did the engineering on the lift, also helped assemble the various parts.

The 2,385-foot triple chair replaces an aged T-bar and extends the line by 450 vertical feet, giving the area (and the lift) a 900-foot vertical. The lift has new grips and a new control, DC drive and 125 hp motor. It’s a bottom-drive, bottom tension setup. It also has a midstation, as the top 450 feet of vertical is quite steep. The midstation serves novice and intermediate terrain. The lift will have a 5.7 minute ride time and handle 900 people per hour. The area also plans to install a 300-foot conveyor for beginners and has updated a second chair. As a result, visitors will have expanded terrain to play on: the old area encompassed 47 acres; it now offers 180.

As part of the renovation, Sleeping Giant rebuilt a 30 x 100-foot bridge over the Shoshone River, and is installing a TechnoAlpin lance system. It has two lines with 28 guns each. The vaults were crafted from old chairlift towers. The pumping capacity will be between 200 and 400 gpm. The Foundation has also updated the base lodge with a woodburning furnace and new kitchen equipment, built a sun deck facing the slopes, and purchased new rental inventory (Elan/Dalbello). A local rental shop got 100 Burton LTR setups for the area as well. Last year, the area constructed a 40 x 60 maintenance building to house/maintain groomers, made with energy-efficient structural insulated panels (SIPs).



MARMOT BASIN, ALBERTA
Marmot is installing what will be the longest high-speed quad chairlift in Alberta, a Leitner-Poma with slope length of approximately 7,600 feet and a vertical rise of 1,955 feet. The Canadian Rockies Express replaces a combination of chair and T-bar, which ran on the same alignment and will completely change the face of Marmot Basin, enhancing the overall skier experience exponentially by providing a 7.5-minute base to summit ride. There is terrain for all at the top of the lift, with runs up to 2.5 miles long. It handles 2,400 passengers per hour. The 800 hp, top-drive lift will operate at 1,000 ft/min and will be ready for opening day November 2009.

Marmot Basin’s new shareholder group has injected more than $8 million over the past five years in new developments and infrastructure, and is spending an additional $8 million dollars on the new lift system.

“We are very pleased to have completed our Vision Statement and Site Guideline agreements with Parks Canada—all parties involved worked tirelessly to achieve an appropriate balance for both our ski area and for Jasper National Park,” says Dave Gibson, resort president. Marmot is the first of four winter resorts on Parks Canada land to complete the process. The agreements commit Marmot to a policy of minimal impact on the environment and to reduce, reuse and recycle wherever possible.



GORE MOUNTAIN, NEW YORK
Gore continues to expand and work toward reconnecting the old North Creek Ski Bowl with Gore itself. Since 1999, the area has balanced expansion efforts with modernizing the on-hill infrastructure. The area has first focused on lifts and snowmaking and is now shifting focus to the lodges and other buildings.

But first, it is completing the snowmaking expansion. Snowmaking is being installed on "Sagamore," an expert trail on Burnt Ridge Mountain that covers more than 1,400' vertical. Burnt Ridge is Gore's newest lift and trail pod, featuring a high-speed quad and a mix of more difficult and most difficult terrain. It installed snowmaking on some trails last year, but left Sagamore for this summer. “We’ve been using a combination of Snow Economics HKD and Ratnik guns, with some SMI fans,” says GM Mike Pratt, and Sagamore will get more of the HKDs and Ratniks—about 35 in all. The area is also putting in 12,000 feet of pipe, including a main line up the mountain that complete’s last year’s installation.

The final piece in the interconnect will be to take out a 1946 T-Bar at the old Ski Bowl and replace it with a chair; that will be done for the 2010-11 season.

In the meantime, Gore is renovating the base lodges at both North Creek and Gore. The latter has new infrastructure, roofing and heating systems, and expanded retail and rental operations. At North Creek an 80 percent larger lodge will feature new restrooms, modernized foodservice, better seating, updated ticketing, and more. In all, Gore will invest $3 million over this year and next.



RED RIVER, NEW MEXICO
Red River, which celebrated its 50th anniversary last winter, is replacing its main lift from the base, a 35-year-old center-pole Riblet double chair, with a new Doppelmayr CTEC triple. The lift will be the third to occupy this key alignment. The 5,590-foot-long chair will rise 1,515 vertical and carry 255 chairs. It increases uphill capacity by 50 percent, to 1,800 an hour. It has an AC top drive configuration with 355 hp motor. The new chair also opens up space on the hill, as it uses just 25 towers compared to the Riblet’s 44. Red River will be able to expand its terrain park as a result. The new lift does share one feature with the lift it replaces: a midstation.

Red River hopes to sell the old lift, but if there are no takers, will keep the lift for spare parts. The area still has three other Riblets, including two center-pole chairs. And given the Riblet’s longevity and place in the hearts of locals—the lift starts right in town, and has achieved iconic status—the area may also sell old chairs to the public. Either sale avenue would help defray the cost of the new lift, estimated at between $2 million and $3 million.



NORDIC MOUNTAIN, WISCONSIN
Nordic Mountain has built a snowmaking pond and, not coincidentally, installed a Sesitec System 2.0 wakeboard cable system, the first of its kind in the Midwest and only the seventh installed nationwide. The system replaces a boat and tow rope with an overhead cable system connected to a tow handle that comes down to the water. The system consists of two 18-foot towers that can be positioned anywhere from 300 to 700 feet apart. The cable runs between the two towers through a large pulley on the top of each one. The drive tower has a 7.5 hp electric motor on it. A variable frequency drive runs the motor. Installation is very simple; an experienced crew can complete it in one day.

The idea came from park manager Scott McCune, an avid wakeboarder. Nordic plans to set up a wakeboard park, with hits and jumps not unlike a terrain park.

Nordic had dug the pond before it knew about System 2.0, but the pond happens to be the perfect shape—roughly 1.5 acres, 400 feet long and 150 feet wide, and about 20 feet deep. It will hold about 10 million gallons of water for snowmaking. The pond cost is roughly $100,000; the System 2.0 is $32,000 plus shipping from Germany.