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Snow Cats & Ski Lifts

Lyndon

Bronze Member
GOLD Site Supporter
This was inspired by Pirate Girls 10 Strangest Snow Cats Thread:
I have skiied at roughly 40 Ski areas in the US & Canada since the mid 60's, and Skiing is certainly what led me to my Snow Cat Collecting Career. Even though I favored Snow Trac's, it was seeing Tucker 443 Steel Tracks growling around the slopes that "Set the Hook" as well as Reeling me in!
These are 3 of the most unusual Ski Lifts I have encountered:
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Lyndon

Bronze Member
GOLD Site Supporter
They are still selling the Cars to collectors from this one at Mt. Cranmore, that was in operation when I was a young skiier, but I never rode it.
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Mt. Cranmore, in New Hampshire used to actually be called:"MT. CRANMORE SKI MOBILE" and is still in operation having converted to all current technology cable supported Chairlifts.
 

Lyndon

Bronze Member
GOLD Site Supporter
There were several of these at Mt. Snow in central Vermont. I've ridden this one many times. This type of lift was notorious for dripping snow, water and even greese on you. Not popular with skiiers who are into fancy attire!
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These lifts too, are long gone.
 

Lyndon

Bronze Member
GOLD Site Supporter
This CARLEVARO-SAVIO Gondola was built 68 thru 70. I watched the construction, and skiied the new lift line while helicopters set the towers. The phone company was using a big Muskeg Tractor to bring personel and supplies up and down the mountain. It was an amazing engineering feat! It was 4.5 miles long making it the Longest Lift in North America. Also it was the first Ski Lift Gondola to have Automatic Opening Doors.
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Lyndon

Bronze Member
GOLD Site Supporter
The building of this lift had a substaintial impact on the company and was certainly a contributing factor to their going bankrupt. However some of their patented technology was bought up by POMA and some competitors and is in current use world wide. The gondolas on this lift are carried by a chain assembly similar to the Riblet Chain Chairlift at Mt. Snow in the previous picture, at the loading and unloading facilities only. Then it was accellerated over some pneumatic tires and an elaborate assembly clamped it to the moving steel cable. This allowed it to load at a slow speed, and yet travel at a much higher rate, around 22 MPH. All "Detachable High Speed Lifts" use this technology today. The Killington 4&1/2 Mile Gondola went about a mile and a half up the mountain, turned 30 degrees, traveled another mile, turned again, and on up the rest of the way. I've probably ridden this lift about 50 times. It was taken out of service in 1994. The Gondola Cars for this one have become a collectors item too.
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Lyndon

Bronze Member
GOLD Site Supporter
Here's a detail on how they work: This shows both the chain and the cable at one end of the lift.
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This is the gripper assembly.
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Lyndon

Bronze Member
GOLD Site Supporter
This is the Gripping unit of a NON-Detachable, that is a fixed, permanently attached chair. This type of lift is limited to a much slower speed due to problems with people getting on and off the lift.
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Lyndon

Bronze Member
GOLD Site Supporter
This Tramway at Jay Peak in Vermont goes from the top to the bottom with NO Lift towers!
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Lyndon

Bronze Member
GOLD Site Supporter
Although it's "HISTORY" now, I rode this Single Chair at Mt. Mansfield/Stowe in Vermont many times. When it got to around -30, the operators would throw us wool ponchos for added protection on the ride up.
Chairlift_Stowe_Vt.jpg
When this lift was in it's "Hayday" Tucker Steel Tracks literally "Ruled the Slopes".
 

pixie

Well-known member
SUPER Site Supporter
Great topic, Lyndon !!

I thought the Skimobile was scary to get on or off.

Black Mountain started out with shovel handles attached to a rope.

I grew up skiing at Wildcat Mountain in Pinkham Notch NH. It faces Mt. Washington.
The gondola there was the only one of it's kind in the US. They have slid backwards more than once ! It was taken down several years ago but it outlived the Skimobile by several years !

I have no idea how to paste in stolen pictures but you might find something w/a search. The view of Mt.Washington is fantastic.
 

Lyndon

Bronze Member
GOLD Site Supporter
I Kind of had a feeling that you would be fimiliar with these areas. This is what got me into Snow Cat collecting.
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Lyndon

Bronze Member
GOLD Site Supporter
The Original 1960 Gondola, long gone. The Cars from this are probably a collectors item too.

wildcatgondolacar.jpg
 

Lyndon

Bronze Member
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Cannon, another great Ski area had an old and new gondola's too and isn't too far from Wildcat.

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Lyndon

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GOLD Site Supporter
New England's first ski tow on record, in Woodstock, VT, sold its first ticket on January 28, 1934. Two days earlier, The Ski Bulletin reported 9 1/2 inches with breakable crust at Woodstock. In the years that followed, new ski tows opened all over New England and many of them did not turn a wheel until late January. The Woodstock tow, initiated by Bob and Betty Royce, owners of the White Cupboard Inn of Woodstock, was inspired by Alex Foster's rope tow in Shawbridge, Quebec, which had operated the year before. Three of the inn's regular skiers reported on the Canadian tow, and urged the Royces to build a similar contraption.



The Woodstock tow was an easily repeatable mechanical pattern, and similar operations sprung up all over New England in the next few years. The January 1935 openings of the Travena Hill tow in Lisbon, NH and the 3,000-foot long Mt. Gunstock Ski Hoist in Gilford, NH are just two of many that were unveiled only after snow conditions finally permitted.



The next big step in mechanical skiing took the form of the J-bar, invented in Davos, Switzerland and first seen in America at Hanover, NH in late January 1936. Dan Hatch of the Dartmouth Outing Club had reportedly seen the Davos lift, and had several American companies build a similar installation on Oak Hill. Fred Pabst, of the Pabst brewing family, did likewise at his five areas scattered over New England and Quebec. These J-bars were much easier to ride, and were an intermediate step from the rope tow to the chairlift. The original inventor, Ernest Constam, came to the US in the early 1940s and collected licensing fees from Pabst and Dartmouth, both of whom he claimed had violated his patent.



Within a few days of the opening of the Dartmouth lift--whether before or after is not recorded-- a similar, yet completely original ski tow opened at Moody's Farm in Jackson, NH. This was the brainchild of local inventor George Morton with the backing of Phil Robertson. It was an overhead wire rope from which rope handles hung down, allowing skiers to grab on straphanger style. This proved tiring, and new owners by the name of Whitney soon replaced the ropes with mail-order shovel handles fitted to wooden arms cut from adjoining woodlots. The Whitneys' shovel handle lift became the nucleus of NH's oldest operating ski area, Black Mountain--and no one ever accused them of ski tow patent infringement.

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Lyndon

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GOLD Site Supporter
The overhead cable tow in Jackson, NH after shovel handles had been installed.
Photo from the New England Ski Museum collection.
 

Lyndon

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GOLD Site Supporter
You would be amazed at how many of these websites I've poured over looking for Snow Cat Pictures with very limited success. People just didn't take pictures of the Snow Cats! They took pictures of the lift, the lodge, the trails, and the skiiers, but not the snow cats! I Skiied a bunch of these areas including several on the "LOST" List. They had Tuckers, Snow Trac's and Kristi's, so what gives?
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Lyndon

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GOLD Site Supporter
This one is really "Out There", a transfer lift at Mt. Snow in Vt.
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More than one "Flying Saucer" hoax was based on this lift.
 

KRC

Member
You would be amazed at how many of these websites I've poured over looking for Snow Cat Pictures with very limited success. People just didn't take pictures of the Snow Cats! They took pictures of the lift, the lodge, the trails, and the skiiers, but not the snow cats! I Skiied a bunch of these areas including several on the "LOST" List. They had Tuckers, Snow Trac's and Kristi's, so what gives?
View attachment 31874


heres one

EDIT by Doc: Chris Roth claimed copyright on the photo that was attached here. Sorry.
 

Lyndon

Bronze Member
GOLD Site Supporter
Now thats more like it! This is a correct vintage picture. It has the right drag behind it too. Good one! Thanks.
kristitrip-soda.jpg
 

Lyndon

Bronze Member
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Some ski areas had chairs that one rode sideways. These tended to protect you from the winds a bit better but were hell on loading and unloading.
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I believe Bridger Bowl, outside of Bozeman Montana may have had one of these.
 

Lyndon

Bronze Member
GOLD Site Supporter
A POMA lift was one of the more challenging lifts to ride. One tended to want to 'Sit-Down' and promptly fell right at the 'load-on' point. Also as the spring loaded pole tightened up it wanted to "Launch" the skiier into the air, also resulting in falling off right at the bottom loading facility.
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Lyndon

Bronze Member
GOLD Site Supporter
These POMA Lifts, "J-Bars", and "T-Bars" all took a certain amount of skill to ride. Generally if one could master riding one of these three types of lifts, you could SKI!
Snowmass-Cirque_bottom.jpg

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Lyndon

Bronze Member
GOLD Site Supporter
J-Bar's, T- Bars, and Poma Lifts had a tendancy to Kill lift operators. Every year or so a lift attendant was fatally struck by the "J" or "T" as it was released. Amazingly they are still in opertion at Ski Areas all over the world.
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