Bubble Blog: Lift 17 Removal
We will be documenting the historic process of the new Bubble lift installation at Mount Snow. Blog posts will be on the front page of the website, but also directly accessible at http://mountsnow.com/bubble/ – important players in the planning and execution of the project will be providing content, and of course we’ll be posting pictures and videos as much as possible.
Site Prep / Lift 17 Removal – Dave Moulton
For those of us that are die hard Mount Snow skiers and riders or for a lot of us that are just interested in how things work (closet Engineers) this blog is all about the lift 17 removal plans. Suffice to say that there won’t be too much tension and drama. Your last chance to ride the summit local will be the upcoming weekend of March 19 and 20, on Monday the 21 we will begin the removal process.
Yesterday, we got started by clearing out some trees near the bottom of Lift 17 where the barn will be built.
As for the removal of Lift 17:
First up will be removing the 269 triple chairs, watch the chair sleighs as they each get skidded to the Sundance Parking lot.
Next will be the preparation of the cable removal. The Cable spool and stand will be set up in a flat area by tower 4 and will look something like this.
The device in the foreground is a gas powered winch that turns the take-up spool. The large loader on the right side out of the photo anchors this rig to keep it from getting pulled over when winching in the cable.
To get to this point we will have to de-tension the cable (haul Rope) from the lift, a bit complicated and time consuming process. In the diagram below showing the bottom end of the lift you will see two attachment points.
A dead hitch will be set up at tower 4 using a plate clamp then using a large block and tackle attached to the base of tower 5 the cable will be pulled to bring as much slack to the bottom as possible. Once we have the upper part of the cable held we can detention the bottom terminal releasing the hydraulic pressure that holds the haul rope tight. As the carriage of the base terminal moves forward the haul rope will slack to a point where we can make a cut.
A look at the dead hitch and plate clamp on the left , the block and tackle on the right. These pictures were of the Tumbleweed lift when the cable was replaced, a slightly different configuration of the same process.
A critical step shown in the upper left photo is the anti-rotation bar and rope slipped in and attached to the plate clamp. When the cable is tensioned the Haul rope slacked the twist of the cable tends to transfer to the hitched points. The anti rotation bar prevents a tangle of the dead hitch and block and tackle. The slacked rope is shown on the right.
Once the rope is cut several wraps will be placed around the take up reel to insure it is held in place around the drum. A separate hold back winch and small 5/8” cable will be spliced to the uphill end of the 1-1/2” haul rope to control the tail end from falling off the towers on the way uphill and to hold the weight if the cable as the tail rounds the top and all heads downhill.With the cable removed and all 14,000’ place on the one reel the take up cable will be wrapped back onto it drum and removed. Next will begin the tower removal.
Towers are being removed now to take advantage of snow depth and avoid tearing up the ground during the spring. Poma of America will be starting in May to lay out the new lift and wants the old towers out of the way.
The communications line attached to the center of each tower needs to be cut and removed in sections between each tower. Then we will precut the tower at the base where the steel tube was poured in place. Several inches will be lect uncut in three positions to hold the tower until the day of actual removal. Bemis line Construction will bring in a tracked crane to hitch off and hold each tower while the final cuts are made. A “hinge” of steel will be left uncut to facilitate lowering the tower downhill to a snow cat outfitted with forks. The sheave trains and axles will be removed and the tower head or “tee” will be chained to the forks of the snow cat and dragged downhill backwards. Sheave trains (the wheels) will be removed via a separate snow cat with trailer.
For early spring work this will be about it until the snow is gone. During the next few weeks while we wait for dry ground we will be disassembling all those chairs, organizing all the sheave trains, removing the axles and packing items up to move or ship to other resorts. The reel and haul rope will stay in position through the spring, weighing in at nearly 30 ton we will need dry conditions before attempting to move it. Stay tuned for the next edition sometime late spring and be watching as the above work will take place between March 21 and April 1. In the mean time we are thinking of some innovative ways to use the old lift.
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Are you considering selling any of the chairs to the customers? I know if the article you mention you will be packing up the items and shipping them to other ski areas. Just wondering if you would consider selling a handful, or better yet, have some sort of auction of a few chairs and send the proceeds to a local charity. I would love one for my yard!
Diane, stay tuned. we’ll be announcing some things as it gets closer. thanks!
Yep – we’d be up for buying a chair (we’ve spent long enough on them in the past)
Great info and interesting. Maybe figuring how to setup a time lapse cam near the base and first tower and one looking up the line might be fun.
IN the meantime keep up the info great reading.
It would be cool if you could relocate one of the cams to watch the process.
We will be pointing the summit base cam at the triple and will be capturing some time lapse as we go
Awesome!
http://mountsnow.com/the-mountain/maps-media/live-cams/
I agree
At the Passholders event we were told the #50 ‘gold chair’ would be auctioned for charity
Chris, that is the plan.
While my long time Mt. Snow family (1960s) is super excited for the new bubble chair we will be sad to see the Summit local go. It has been known as the chair to take your boyfriend to to the top since it is a slow cold ride and you can get cozy. I always new if one of my sisters liked the guy if they took the summit local.
It won many a races against the line of the grand summit express. It lost more but was always entertaining for those involved especially five year olds.
The summit local makes a waffle from the waffle house taste so much better. You can also take great photos from it and talk to the chair behind you (when you weren’t freezing- Thank God for helmuts)
I’ll miss you Summit Local. You have always been the dependable but slow trip to the top. Thanks for giving us so many nice memories.
Lots of fantastic memories!
curious where te storage will be for the bubbles, is it a barn?, or underground?
I would love to have a chair for under my deck!!!
Lots of good childhood memories at Mt. Snow.
So when will the lift be operating if everything goes smoothly?
when we open next season!
Are there still shirts around commentorating the closing of the old lift. I took my last ceremonial, slow ride to the summit the week before the promotion was advertised [ not in Vermont the following week].
Any thoughts on letting the non-skiing public ride the lift this weekend. You could offer the rides like you did during the warm weather.
Thanks for the great update Dave! I’m really looking forward to seeing (and hearing about) all the technical aspects of this whole process between now and November!
I would love a chair for my yard! how do I get one?
Dave – While they are running the new communications line up to the top, have you considered running an addiotional cable to offer wireless connectivity at the summitt lodge? Cell phone connectivity has always been a problem at the top and offering guests a wireless network connection would be wonderful for folks like myself that try to “work” from the hill on Fridays.
when will u be pointing the camera to the lift
GREAT idea ! Might be nice.. and you would get more of us who try to sneak off on a Friday…
I think that is going to be really cool, however why not just put in a small gondola or something more modern and fast. I also was wondering if the chairs from the triple lift will be available to take or purchase, I would love to have some of Mt. Snow’s history hanging in our yard near our fire pit.
The only chair from the Summit Local that will be sold off is the number 50. The rest are going to be reused along with other parts of the lift at other Peak Resorts. Our reason for not putting in a gondola is that we feel with only a seven minute ride time, we would rather not have our guests spend time taking off and putting their equipment back on. Not removing equipment means more time skiing/riding.
Here’s a question about the cable. Every so often while riding up, I look for the splice joint, but I’ve never seen one. Are lift cables manufactured for a given continuous length, and woven so there is no definitive splice point and then set and tensioned?
Here is how they splice the cable… just like any other multi strand rope :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGQS1nD_vfA
Very interesting. So the ends of the individual strands are staggered. Although the video didn’t mention it, I’m guessing there is a spot weld at each strand end to insure the whole thing doesn’t unravel.
No welding necessary. The tail of each strand is tucked into the rope. A short section of the rope core is removed to make room for the tail. The tail is straightened and wrapped in tape until it is the same diameter as the core.
Even with your somewhat deatiled explanation I still do not understand how you guys the cable down? Once it is cut it seems like the weight alone would drop the entire length. So now you say you attach a rope? to hold it up how can it do that it is so heavy? PLus once you cut it how do you put it back together to use somewhere else. As a person before said I have never seen any splices???
Why not take the triple chairs and use them to replace the doubles on bear trap and heavy metal?