Three New Chairlifts In Washington Aim To Up Capacity, Dependability
In an off-season that saw only a dozen new chairlifts go up in the whole of the West, a trio of mountains along the Cascade crest in the state of Washington bucked the trend.
The only chairlifts that went up in the states west of Utah are up and running at Alpental/Summit at Snoqualmie, Crystal Mountain and White Pass. Each replaces an aging predecessor that hauled skiers and riders for decades.
The oldest lift to be replaced is the Edelweiss double chair that first started spinning in 1967. After having to wait in line behind several other replacements at three-section Summit at Snoqualmie, a new triple fixed-grip went in this summer at Alpental (825 a., 2,290 vert.).
The new chairlift will follow the same line up the expert-only shoulder of Denny Mountain (5,610 ft. elevation) as its predecessor. Coupled with the new Internationale chair put in last season, a new Edelweiss will keep the black-run lovers high up on the mountain where the terrain is most challenging.
At Crystal Mountain (2,300 a., 2,472 vert.), the Rainier Express, aka "Rex" -- the oldest high-speed detachable chair in the state (1988) -- came down this summer and was replaced by a mirror image lift. The new lift takes off from the mid-mountain top terminal of the Chinook Express -- one of two lifts out of the busy base area.
Dependability is the goal here, as the lift will take about the same time -- less than five minutes -- to rise 1,600 vertical feet to the 6,872-foot summit.
And at White Pass (1,402 a., 2,052 vert.), the triple-seat Paradise chair -- the oldest lift on the hill (1983) -- will morph into a fixed-grip quad Chair 4.
Now, with an additional seat on each chair, the lift will put more folks on the upper-mountain blues for intermediates laps on the western shoulder of Pigtail Peak (6,000) -- plus giving more of them access to the backside blue glades in the Basin area.
A planned new chair at Bluewood (355 a., 1,125 vert.) has been delayed until next summer. The Skyline Express will be the first high-speed detachable chairlift at the eastern Washington resort. Also on the east slope of the Cascades, 49 Degrees North (2,325 a., 1,871 vert.) has plans to upgrade the circa-1972 Payday chair for next season.
