Ski resort readies for new chair lift

Crews at Whitefish Mountain Resort cleared a path of trees on the lower half of Big Mountain last month in preparation for a new chair lift that is slated to be installed next summer.

The resort bought the used 1972 Hall fixed-grip triple from Holiday Mountain Ski and Fun Park near New York City. The lift was never installed at Holiday and was previously used at a small East Coast ski hill that went out of business.

Whitefish Resort spokesman Donnie Clapp describes the lift as, "used, but not very."

The lift will take skiers from the Base Lodge to the Bad Rock slope just above Russ's Street. Its bottom terminal will be near the Huckleberry Patch slope. It will be about 1,600 long, with about 500 feet of vertical rise.

The resort needed to install an additional lift at the Base Lodge to alleviate congestion in the area on busy days, Clapp explained.

"The idea is to provide a second path from the Base Lodge to the rest of the mountain," Clapp said. "On busy days, like President's Day and Christmas week, it will mitigate the bottleneck that happens at Chair 6."

Chair 6 is currently the only access from the Base Lodge to the upper village and Chairs 1 and 2. The resort is unsure about the new lift's capacity or how many chairs it will service, but it's likely it will nearly double the uphill capacity out of the Base Lodge area.

Plans as to how often the lift will run are still up in the air. On busy days, the resort will likely run all lifts. On slower days, it's not been determined if the new lift will run while Easy Rider is closed, or vice versa.

Concrete pads for the chair will be poured this fall and a few towers are likely to go up as well. The resort hoped to have the chair installed before this winter, but the timeline was slowed due to delivery delays and maintenance concerns. The lift has multiple layers of paint that need to be sand-blasted off, Clapp said, which will take many hours of work.

Until then, skiers will be able to ski the cut slope from Russ's Street to the Base Lodge. The run hasn't been named yet although Compression Alley has been suggested. It will be rated as a double black-diamond run.

"It will be a very difficult thing to ski well, as it is steep, off-camber, and crossed by two severe road-cuts," Clapp said.

The new lift is the first step in a long-term plan to improve the flow of skier traffic across the mountain. The resort has plans to eventually move Chair 5 and extend the length of Chair 4 to the top of Inspiration. The relocated Chair 5 would run from near the bottom of MoeMentum up and over the East Rim to the bottom of Ant Hill.

¥ In preparation for the upcoming ski season, Forest Service crews cleared brush and small trees from the Connie's Coulee area. Clapp notes that the work will open up new ski lines in the Hellroaring Basin area.