Northern Rockies/Alberta Big Sky Tram Article

[Nathanvg]

Interesting story on Big Sky's tram (link below). It's written by the ski area so it may be a little rose colored but not too bad. They made an interesting point about the 80's and early 90's being the dark ages of skiing when fear of litigation resulted in few expert runs and building even small ski jumps could get your pass pulled. That's my recolection as well.

The new expert terrain was visionary and a wise business decision but they overstate their leadership. Jackson, Snowbird, Squaw and many others had been expert skiing havens well before. And other ski areas were making similar moves such as the North Face expansion at Crested Butte which predated the Big Sky tram by a decade.

As cool as the Lone Peak skiing is, I often think of the Tram as a blunder due to lower cost options and the very low capacity. Waiting in line for an hour really spoils the fun. Alternative options would have gone up the south face at <15% the cost and provided 10x the capacity. Regarding wind, trams are better than chairs and T bars better than both. I hope they add a T bar up the back side soon. I don't plan on going back until they find a solution.

Big Sky - COURAGE AND THE LONELY MOUNTAIN

COURAGE AND THE LONELY MOUNTAIN

bigsky.com

 

[mdf]

Alternative options would have gone up the south face at <15% the cost and provided 10x the capacity.

Big Sky - COURAGE AND THE LONELY MOUNTAIN

COURAGE AND THE LONELY MOUNTAIN

bigsky.com

The article claims "it's a feature, not a bug" because too much uphill capacity would destroy the snow surface conditions up top. That said, it seems likely that the point where skier traffic would degrade the surface is still quite a bit above the actual tram capacity.

The situation at ski areas near large urban areas with lots of uphill capacity can serve as cautionary tale -- the crowds that were in the lift lines in the 80's are now on the slopes. Uphill capacity should not exceed downhill capacity.

 

[Itinerant skier]

Wait, the base terminal has moved 25 feet in 25 years????? Glad the cable keeps up with it, but how sustainable is that? Will the rate stay the same, or as seems likely given every other icy cold thing on this planet, accelerate?

 

[scott43]

I remember in the 70's when I was learning there were jumps everywhere and we used to hit them all. We used to tree ski..nothing was marked, everything was open. I never really thought about it but yeah, maybe the climate changed in the 80s and 90s...

 

[DanoT]

Big Sky - COURAGE AND THE LONELY MOUNTAIN

COURAGE AND THE LONELY MOUNTAIN

bigsky.com

I found that Lone Peak Tram install story an interesting read. I am pretty sure that Dave Hamre, mentioned in the story as one of the lead guys from Dopplemayr, was a ski patroler at Tod Mountain (now called Sun Peaks) in the late 70s. I bought a Lowe Expedition back pack from his wife, which I still have and is one of my oldest possessions.

 

[Andy Mink]

Uphill capacity should not exceed downhill capacity.

We're seeing the difference this year during limited lift capacity. Less crowded slopes, longer wait times in the corral. What was, is.

 

[BS Slarver]

Not coming back till they update the tram ?
Guess we won’t see you for sometime then

In case you change your mind Management will allow you bootpack up from the top sheddy to yetti traverse, shorter than waiting in line now that it’s down even more capacity with C-19 - 1:45 wait today. IKON hasn’t helped matters but I’m not going there.

Lone peak is a special place and putting more people per minute at the top will surely F things up and besides the big and North Summit only take 2 every 15 minutes
You found no interest in headwaters, challenger, sheddy or Dakota ?

Lapped Challenger all afternoon today, skied right on every lap. I’m in awe listening to the old timers about hiking that terrain and the peak before either had a lift, we’ve got it good IMO.

 

[Nathanvg]

Not coming back till they update the tram ?
Guess we won’t see you for sometime then

In case you change your mind Management will allow you bootpack up from the top sheddy to yetti traverse, shorter than waiting in line now that it’s down even more capacity with C-19 - 1:45 wait today. IKON hasn’t helped matters but I’m not going there.

Lone peak is a special place and putting more people per minute at the top will surely F things up and besides the big and North Summit only take 2 every 15 minutes
You found no interest in headwaters, challenger, sheddy or Dakota ?

Lapped Challenger all afternoon today, skied right on every lap. I’m in awe listening to the old timers about hiking that terrain and the peak before either had a lift, we’ve got it good IMO.

Maybe I was a little harsh... If I'm in the area I'll definitely swing by but otherwise I'm just more likely to go elsewhere. Without the Tram, there just isn't that much steep skiing or big vertical. Don't get me wrong, Challenger/headwaters has legit steeps and good vert (steep for 1000 vert). Shedy and Dakota were fun but not all that steep. They remind me of a smaller version of Vail's back bowls but with a little less steepness and less vert. Maybe the image below helps, which shows all the black level steeps in red (24 degree or more). It's very limited outside of the Tram and Challenger.

Part of it might just be exceptions. You hear about a 5.8k acre, 4k vert ski area but without the tram that drops to 2.4k continuous vert (including long run out) and somewhere around 10% of those acres are harder blacks to expert level that can be accessed without the tram.

Too much traffic on expert runs can ruin snow conditions but I'd think that threshold is much higher than now. The snowfields and a few other routes might require some type of limited access but most of the stuff off the yeti traverse should be able to take a lot more traffic. In a non-covid year, the tram has a very low 200 person per hour capacity which is 20% of a 50 year old double's capacity. Is the terrain really that different than other areas with 5 to 10 times as much capacity such as Crested Butte's North Face, Aspen Highland's Termerity, Squaw's KT, Fernie's Polar Peak, Breck's Imperial or Bridger's Schlasman's? I'd think not and therefore adding a lift up the south side, even if it ended short of the summit would be a huge benefit. If some terrain can't support the capacity, can we have a lottery or some other approach so that you don't kill 30% of your ski day in line? Just my suggestions...

 

[ejj]

It’s an interesting question. I love skiing the tram. But the line kills it for me. I end up skiing the Headwaters hike area—but I miss skiing Marx/Lenin and the Snowfield. I just can’t justify the wait time to myself. (Non-resident and parent with limited time for my selfish needs)