Powder: Mountain: new detachable, high-speed quad lift

Skiers at Powder Mountain will be moved quicker 
Powder Mountain Winter Resort has received approval from Cache County officials to replace its Hidden Lake chairlift with a new detachable, high-speed quad lift that will get more skiers and snowboarders up the mountain in less time next season. 

The lift, expected to be in operation by December of this year, will be named Hidden Lake Express. 

Its four-person chairs will be able to handle 2,400 visitors per hour, up from 1,200 with the previous double chairlift.

The new lift will follow the same path as the existing lift, and will not add or subtract from the area's 5,500 total skiable acres, Powder Mountain marketing director Marc Paulsen said. 

While the existing 30-year-old lift has not experienced any major malfunctions, Paulsen said other ski areas have been adversely affected by lifts going down in the middle of the ski season. 

"If we lose Hidden Lake because of something that can't be fixed, we lose our season," he said. "We want to make sure we have a brand new lift in for the upcoming season." 

The new lift, while adding reliability to daily operations, will also be more convenient for customers, he said. 

"It will be easier for beginner and intermediate customers to load and unload, and they will get up the hill in half the time," he said. 
A ride on the new lift will take about eight minutes, compared with 15 minutes on the old one. The total cost of the project will reach about $4.5 million when installed, Paulsen said. He declined to speculate on whether that expense might affect ticket prices next season. 

Detachable lifts feature a fast-moving cable that runs the length of the lift and separate, slower-moving cables at the bottom and top terminals. Chairs approaching the terminals on the fast-moving cable are temporarily moved to the slower cables to allow passengers to load and unload, then moved back onto the fast-moving cable for the trip up the hill. 

Engineers at Powder Mountain, which closed for the season on Sunday, will begin disassembling and removing the existing lift soon in preparation for the upgrade. The resort has no plans to install the lift elsewhere on the mountain. 

Powder Mountain purchased the new lift from Doppelmayr CTEC Inc., the Salt Lake City-based division of Doppelmayr/Garaventa Group, which is headquartered in Austria. Doppelmayr will handle the installation.