Some interesting lift history

I always wondered why Whiteface has the Mountain Run and Little Whiteface doubles which share the same set of towers, but are slightly different in design, and why they seldom need to run both.  I've figured it all out.

The Little Whiteface side was originally built in the 60's by Riblet.  In 1978 in preparation for the Olympics, Hall replaced most of the lift, except for a few towers.  Around that time, the double double where Facelift is now was built by Hall.

Skilifts.org lists 1989 as the year of construction for the Mountain Run side.  That confused me because that lift uses many Hall parts, which weren't being manufactured by that time.  Here's what happened.

In 1988, CTEC upgraded the left side of the double-double to a triple.  The Hall parts from there were used to build Mountain Run the next year.  They reused the chair seats, drive, and line gear.  CTEC replaced the hanger arms and chair frames from the double double and installed tandem towers with the Little Whiteface double.  They also used a CTEC top return and a couple towers near the top.

The reason that lift was built, even though it is so seldom used now is as follows.  In 1988, there was no gondola.  That double double was the only way out of the base, and according to my dad, who skied WF at that time, it could run a 30+ minute line.  CTEC upgraded half of it to a triple to increase capacity.  Since the gondola wasn't there yet, the LWF chair was your only way to the top of Little Whiteface.  Because of the trail acreage up there, I'm guessing that the lift always had a long line, and some capacity was wasted with people getting off at the mid station.  Adding the Mountain Run lift meant that they could use all the capacity of LWF to get to the top and put anyone going to mid station on the other lift.

When the gondola was installed in 1999, it provided a one seat ride to the top of Little Whiteface, greatly reducing the load on the existing chairlifts.  This meant that the LWF chair could handle the entire load without too much of a line.  With that, there was no need to use the Mountain Run chair unless it was a super busy weekend and LWF had a big line, or LWF and/or the gondola was on wind hold.  It's not easy to remove and sell because it's attached to the LWF chair (which is a VERY essential lift), and it still provides some redundancy for wind hold days and extra capacity for president's weekend.  I'm guessing that at this point, it logs more hours running for maintenance than revenue hours.

In 2002, the Facelift HSQ replaced the double-triple.  The CTEC parts went to Gore, and were combined with Hall towers, either from the lower portion of the LWF chair before Mountain Run was installed, or from the North Double at Gore.  The Hall parts were most likely scrapped.

Trivia:  And which lift did that become at Gore?

Reborn as the Topridge Triple!

Simplified version of what happened to which lifts when.

Valley Double

Installed:  1976
Removed:  1988
Manufacturer:  Hall
Ancestors:  New Install
Descendants:  Mountain Run Double and Valley Triple (Whiteface), Topridge Triple (Gore)


Midstation Shuttle:

Installed:  1976
Removed:  2002
Manufacturer:  Hall
Ancestors:  New Install
Descendants:  Scrapped


Little Whiteface:

Installed:  1978
Modified:  1989, 2011
Manufacturer:  Hall, CTEC, Doppelmayr
Ancestors:  Little Whiteface (Riblet)
Descendants:  Topridge Triple (single towers below midstation)


Valley Triple:

Installed:  1988
Removed:  2002
Manufacturer:  Hall, CTEC
Ancestors:  Valley Double
Descendants:  Topridge Triple (Gore)


Mountain Run:

Installed:  1989
Manufacturer:  Hall, CTEC
Ancestors:  Valley Double

Thanks Sno!  Having skied WF since the mid-80s, and having had the experience of unloading at the "mid" station of what is now the Face Lift and only being able to get to the LW summit via a long, cold lift ride, this is a nice stroll down memory lane!

Can someone describe where the Mid Station Shuttle let you off?  I can't really see an obvious location on google earth.  I was like 3 years old when Facelift was installed, so I never rode it's predecessor, ans never saw it in person.  It was built without the midstation for a couple reasons.  The first one is that it was too expensive on a detachable lift.

The second reason is because of how the mountain was fundamentally changed with the installation of the gondola.  Before the gondola, the quickest way to the LWF Summit via consecutive lifts on the mid station shuttle and LWF chair.  The quickest way to the true Summit was via consecutive lifts on the Valley Triple and Summit Quad (or whatever it replaced).

With the gondola, that was by far the fastest way to LWF from the base.  The only people riding the LWF chair were those wanting to lap the upper trails and not go to the bottom.  That eliminated the need for the mid station shuttle.  The only people that were going to be riding the Facelift were those lapping the  lower mountain, or those going to the Summit Quad (and later Lookout Triple) who needed to go the full way up anyways.

Some people wish that the gondola went to the true Summit instead of LWF.  I think it's best where it is.  The gondola serves more skiable acreage where it is than if it went to the summit.  Also, the route would've cut through some of the Little Whiteface trails and Summit trails.  Where it is now, they could keep the route out of the way.  It's pretty easy to get to the summit via Facelift and the Summit Quad.  They didn't need another way.  They did need a quicker way to Little Whiteface.

I think it may be impractical but I would love if the gondola had a second stage that went all the way to the top of the summit chair. They could design it so the upper half could be shut down during wind events while still running the bottom part. It would allow them to concentrate their snowmaking on the upper mountain for early and late season too. You would take the Gondi up in the morning, ski the summit chair and then download on the Gondi at the end of the day. Having a lift that services the entire vertical could be a big marketing advantage too.

Everything works the way it is now but if I could wave a magic wand and change one thing, that would be it.

A gondola going directly to the summit would bisect Mountain Run, Mac, and Empire.  It would also have to cross over 3 lifts (Facelift, LWF, and Mountain Run).  A lift crossing over another is usually to be avoided because it means that one has to be really high up which creates wind problems.  The gondola already crosses over the Bear double, but it's at low elevation, so the wind isn't an issue at that height.

I always think of Whiteface in terms of it's 3 summits, LWF, Lookout, and the true summit.  Little Whiteface is the lowest, but is the only one that you can get to in one lift.  The other two are higher up, and you can't get to them in one lift, but they are both consecutive lifts, so it's pretty easy.  I want to see that 3rd trail go in on Lookout ASAP.  They had it on the map as proposed terrain ever since that section opened, but took it off last year.  I'm guessing that's because it wasn't an accurate routing (it crossed under the lift at the bottom, even though Hoyt's already occupies the same acreage).  According to Z, that trail is next in line for large improvements, as all the lifts are up to date.

The shuttle lift ended just above the mid station lodge in line and to the left side of the Facelift in a simaliar fashion as to how the LWF and Mt Run chair mid station and terminal did.  The right side that went up to the top had a mid station that was the demise to thousands of rental poles.  If you think the Facelift is bad on a windy day imagine spending like 10 mins to get to the top of it from mid.  That lift was slow and stopped a ton.  When you are skiing down Valley there is a slight drop off above and skiers left of the lodge.  That is where the lift ended.  They graded out the bump where it ended.

WF has no need for capacity to the summit.  There seldom is any line on the summit quad.  Pretty much only on Slides days and in the late Spring does that happen.  The need for future lifts is out of the base area.  There is talk of replacing the Bunny Hutch with a HSQ with a mid station that would continue farther up.  That might divert som skiers over there lightening the crowds on the main side.

I was about to say, "hence the magic wand", but then I retread your post and realized you weren't responding to what I actually proposed. I'm talking about leaving the gondola in the same place it is now but adding another stage to get you to the same area as the top of the summit quad . You wouldn't have to cross over any lifts. Some towers would go in around excelsior and parons run and the rest would be in the woods, maybe alongside cloudspin. If you send it to the true summit, the towers could be more out of the way, along the edge of the resort. I don't want it to go directly to the top. I'm talking about a two stage gondola like the skyeship at killington. If the winds are blowing too hard, just shut down the upper half of the line.

Coach Z wrote

The shuttle lift ended just above the mid station lodge in line and to the left side of the Facelift in a simaliar fashion as to how the LWF and Mt Run chair mid station and terminal did.  The right side that went up to the top had a mid station that was the demise to thousands of rental poles.  If you think the Facelift is bad on a windy day imagine spending like 10 mins to get to the top of it from mid.  That lift was slow and stopped a ton.  When you are skiing down Valley there is a slight drop off above and skiers left of the lodge.  That is where the lift ended.  They graded out the bump where it ended.

WF has no need for capacity to the summit.  There seldom is any line on the summit quad.  Pretty much only on Slides days and in the late Spring does that happen.  The need for future lifts is out of the base area.  There is talk of replacing the Bunny Hutch with a HSQ with a mid station that would continue farther up.  That might divert som skiers over there lightening the crowds on the main side.

I think I know what location you're talking about.

If that lift is built near Kids Kampus, would that mean any extra trails?  If so, I don't want it to happen because the Lookout area should get it's 3rd trail.

The bunny Hutch used to go higher and there are some adbandoned upper sections of Gold and Bronze or what ever stupid animals marketing renamed them.   I doubt those extentions would put WF over the limit.

You can access Bronze thru the farest skiers left of Sugar Valley glade with some bushwacking.  With some work this could be good.  Upper Gold you can get to from that jug handle on the left of the bottom of Wilmington trail.  

Yes I see that on Google Earth.

Why build a HSQ on a route under 2,000 feet?  I think replacing it with a fixed grip with a loading carpet (like Stowe has) would work fine.

A loading carpet or conveyor would not work well with little kids and beginners to load and would unload much too fast
That lift would be the primary teaching lift as they are talking about moving all ski school activity over there
It s going to go up to above mid not sure where but I heard it might end near the bottom of the Lookout lift following lower Boreen.  That would be very wind sheltered and mesh with a mission to serve the ski school clientele serving the best green teaching terrian on the Mt.

Not sure I'm really fond of putting another lift in where there is already limited trail acreage.  If they add anymore trails, then they won't be able to add the 3rd Lookout trail.  Just seems like a really weird routing that wouldn't be all that useful to most skiers.

The lift at Stowe I'm referring to is the beginner lift.

Widening Upper Boreen would make it much more usable and would not add to trail mileage.  It currently has a green pitch but it is much too narrow for use by novices.  It also allows the Boreen headwall to be by passed.  Upgrading that would be a huge improvement in WFs green trails.

Does Upper Boreen have snowmaking?  I don't think that River Run does.  That could help ease congestion on Valley to add snowmaking to there.

Upper Boreen has snowmaking.  River Run doesn't.

Does anyone know why portions of the trails above Kids Kampus were abandoned?  The lift over there definitely should be upgraded, but I don't think it at the top of the list for ORDA lift upgrades.  Gore should replace High Peaks and Belleayre should replace the double double at the bottom first.  After that, I could see upgrading the Kids Kampus lift at WF and the Sunway lift at Gore.

Doppelmayr replaced almost all the original Hall parts on the LWF chair in 2011.  Only the chairs and drive/return terminals are still Hall (the double double towers are CTEC).  I was kind of surprised that they didn't just replace the whole lift, but they had to do it on a moment's notice (when it died in the middle of the 10-11 season).  Also, it's attached to the Mountain Run Lift, which doesn't run many hours and has plenty of life left in it, even though it is actually an older lift than LWF.

Found a 1963 video showing some footage of Whiteface's old lifts.  In this video, two Riblet doubles are shown, one where the Facelift is now and another where LWF is now.  These appear to be the two original chairlifts on Whiteface as it exists today, they may have even been installed used from Marble Mountain.

https://youtu.be/-dlbeW7RwNc

According to Skimap.org, Whiteface had these two chairlifts, a T-bar where Bear is now, and a J-Bar where Mixing Bowl is now when it opened.  Hall replaced the lower chairlift in 1976 and sent the old one to open up the Summit terrain, the first Olympics related terrain expansion.  They replaced the LWF chair with the current one (which was since heavily modified).  I'm guessing the Riblet became the original Kids Kampus lift (which was replaced with an 80's model Riblet triple), but I'm not sure.