for construction to proceed. The two-story bottom station will have restrooms and ticketing housed beneath the lift loading platform. Normally, a build- ing of this size would take at least a year to build. To shave three months off the timeline, designers opted for pre-cast concrete walls, fabricated off site. Each piece was brought in by truck and tilted up on poured foundations. Doppelmayr flew 16 of the lift’s 18 towers in May, uti- lizing a Chinook helicopter flown by PJ Helicopters. Flying towers in early spring at 9,000 feet meant working through snow and mud to set towers weighing up to 14,000 pounds. Some spring challenges were unrelated to weath- er. Doppelmayr manufactures many components for D-Lines in Austria and Switzerland, so rapidly changing tariffs on E.U. imports caused supply chain challenges. Despite the trade war, construc- tion remained on schedule as of late July, with a load test scheduled for early December.
four-place bubble chair—run on ridgetops and reg- ularly close in high winds. This prevents uploading but also much-needed downloading (a large can- yon separates Red Pine Lodge from the village). Park City and Leitner-Poma designed the 10-pas- senger Sunrise to be sheltered from the north, with shorter towers and heavier cabins than the Red Pine Gondola. Once complete, the machine will span 6,500 feet with 1,091 feet of vertical. Park City worked with the Canyons Village Manage- ment Association for partial funding and settled on a two-year build schedule to ensure timely com-
pletion. In summer 2024, crews completed initial excavation and utility relocation around the bottom terminal, all while keeping the prior double chair intact. An excavator with masticator attachment cleared vegetation from the lift line and a spider excavator followed, digging line tower foundations. Leitner-Poma completed many of the tower foun- dations nearly a year prior to vertical construction. Work paused over the winter, and the old Sunrise lift closed in late March for construction to begin anew. Laborers removed the old lift by crane, and Park City auctioned its chairs to benefit local non- profits. A contractor brought the grade of the bot- tom terminal site down about 20 feet, matching the level of several new hotels. At the top terminal site, Park City staff moved a beginner conveyor to make room for the drive terminal, which houses Park City Mountain’s first-ever direct drive motor. The 38,000- pound motor assembly was transported to Red Pine Lodge using both a dozer and military-style truck. Most of the new gondola’s 24 towers were flown by helicopter in June and July. Cabins arrived in containers from France and were staged near the bottom terminal. As of late July, only one tower still needed to be set along with the return terminal. The haul rope was already on site, ready to be pulled much earlier in the fall than with a typical one-year lift build.
Park City Mountain, UT
A new signature lift will debut on Park City Moun- tain this winter for the first time in 10 years. The Leitner-Poma-built Sunrise Gondola replaces a short double chair of the same name but continues higher up the mountain, terminating at Red Pine Lodge. This provides a third people mover between Canyons Village and mid-mountain.
The two other lifts providing egress from Canyons Village—the eight-place Red Pine Gondola and a
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