Bogus Basin, ID
Nonprofit Bogus Basin replaced two aging chair- lifts with Skytrac fixed-grip quads this summer. The mountain’s 2015 master plan listed both replace- ments as detachable quads. Since that time, bids to replace the Coach chair ballooned from around $4 million to north of $6 million. Bogus opted to make Coach a fixed-grip lift and add another Skytrac for roughly the same cost as a single detachable. The second lift replaces Bitterroot, a 1973 Riblet double. Coach is the area’s traditional bunny slope chairlift. Bogus extended its alignment and added a new trail. The quad chair runs 1,276 feet, about 50 percent longer than the prior 1981 Yan. The Coach’s Corner run, previously a straight, treeless promenade, has been transformed into a much longer, meandering trail. That and a new low intermediate run open up 12+ acres of groomed and gladed terrain. Workers used torches to cut down both terminals and remove towers on the Coach lift in April. In July, Timberline Helicopters flew concrete for the two lifts’ 20 towers. Timberline returned in late August to set towers, and Coach was spliced in September. The new lift will move 2,200 pph and
rise 314 vertical feet at 450 fpm. An in-house crew crafted the new Coach’s Corner run, using four excavators, three dozers, and one rock truck. The crew did two sections of blasting, roughly 200’ x 70’, to smooth the grade. About 125 loads of rock and dirt were removed and reused to create the top landing for the new Bitterroot lift. A team from Mackenzie Welding worked to install 1,300 feet of 6-inch steel water pipe for snowmak- ing for the Coach-area terrain. Bogus installed seven new hydrants in underground vaults, along with 11 new 360-watt lights from Simply LEDs and
electrical infrastructure for both systems.
» cont. The 3,450-foot-long Sunrise Quad serves BigRock’s entire 930-foot vertical in a ride time of just eight minutes. The lift’s 81 chairs are designed to carry a modest 1,200 pph, which is more than ample for the area’s typical guest volume. And though the lift project was huge for a small ski area like BigRock, the mountain also invested in six new TechnoAlpin TR10 fan guns and pump upgrades this offseason, quadrupling its snowmaking capacity. tion. BigRock general manager Aaron Damon notes they were able to avoid blasting with some “expert rock drilling.” Bedrock was drilled, then excavated to make way for tower foundations. Doppelmayr mobilized in early June, assembling tower crossarms and creating forms for each tower footing. Once concrete was poured in late July, they utilized a crane, material movers, and a dozer to set all 13 towers. Damon called that work a “feat of engi- neering and collaboration that is truly humbling.” In late August, the Doppelmayr crew ran a small feeder line around the towers and top bullwheel. The motor room and bottom bullwheel arrived and were set in late September. As of press time, haul rope splicing was scheduled for early October. The new Bitterroot lift serves Bitterroot Basin and will operate seven days a week. The old lift only operated on weekends and holidays. The old lift closed on March 24 and maintenance personnel handled demolition. The new lift was realigned, requiring some tree removal and grading, and a second new trail was built to improve access. Felled timber was donated to the Shoshone-Paiute Tribe for use as firewood. The lift runs more than 2,400 feet and climbs 550 vertical feet with a capacity of 2,200 pph and speed of 450 fpm.
BigRock Mountain, ME
the old lift will remain in place as a backup option.
BigRock began fundraising for a new base-to-sum- mit lift in 2021. Located in eastern Maine just two miles from Canada, BigRock sees the first sunrise in the U.S. each morning. As such, the community ski area opted to name its new Doppelmayr quad Sun- rise. It effectively replaces a Mueller double, though
The bottom drive, bottom tension terminal is right in front of the main lodge; a new lift line was chosen to extend higher up on the mountain for better ter- rain access. BigRock selected two local contractors, MCR Electric and McQuade Groundworks (both run by BigRock skiers), to handle site work and excava-
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