Snow sports: Ski resort lift upgrades should boost industry in New England

The most despised lift in New England ski country is no more.

The ponderously slow, sometimes treacherous summit triple chair at Attitash that has long been a staple of hardcore Massachusetts skiers and snowboarders, is gone.

"No one ever thought this was ever going to really happen," Brandon Swartz, general manager of the Mount Washington Valley classic ski area in Bartlett, New Hampshire, told me. "I just couldn’t be more excited to help build the lift that no one ever thought was going to get built."

Whether the old summit lift's swift new replacement, the high-speed detachable Mountaineer quad, will be ready for Christmas week as Colorado-based owner Vail Resorts expects, is yet to be seen as Attitash is still furiously working on it in the eighth month of the project. But it's the most welcome ski-lift replacement in our region in decades, I think, finally providing convenient access to the passel of glorious snaking steep and challenging intermediate runs from the top in half the 16-18-minute ride time of the old 1986 triple.

As for capacity from the summit with high-speed access, Swartz noted that Attitash long ran an old double — which shut down in 2018 — to near the top as well as the summit triple, giving the ski area an effective uphill capacity of 2,450 people per hour, slightly less than what the Mountaineer will provide. Also, Attitash has regraded and enlarged the summit landing area, making it easier for people to step off.

"There's plenty of space up there to be able to accommodate the increased capacity that we're going to have up in that space," Swartz said.

The success of these changes to the summit ecosphere depend somewhat on Attitash's ability to reliably keep open an expert trail to skier's left: Wilfred's Gawm, on which snowmaking was installed two years ago for the first time, and another short expert drop, Humphrey's Ledge, to take pressure off the pod of two intermediate and two expert runs to skier's right from the summit. Swartz said Attitash will focus on putting good cover on those runs as much as the other descent routes.

Local upgrades

Meanwhile, closer to home, Wachusett Mountain in Princeton over the spring, summer and fall completed a full-scale renovation of the Minuteman high-speed quad. It's an important lift that goes to mid-mountain and serves the Challenger race hill, terrain park and beginner learning terrain. It had been experiencing electrical problems stemming from an outdated high-voltage control system in recent years.

The work, done mostly by Austrian lift manufacturer Doppelmayr with some help from Wachusett staff, came in at just under $1.5 million, which was what the Crowley ownership family spent to build it in 1999. Today, the cost for a similar new lift would be closer to $10 million.

Many skiers and riders won’t immediately notice because most of the upgrades are internal parts and mechanisms, but this is basically a full-scale modernization that brings the lift to current operating standards. In addition to a new voltage control system, the Minuteman received new drive motor hydraulic units for the tensioning system, a new summit terminal control shack and an interior redo of the base terminal shack with a new touchscreen control board.

"The biggest thing is improved reliability," Wachusett spokesman Chris Stimpson said. "Upgrading it to the new electrical system just allows us to have better support from Doppelmayr and just eliminate those problems in the first place."

By the way, over at Ski Ward in Shrewsbury, they don't have a new lift. But they do have a new snowmaking machine, a $600,000 Latitude 90 unit that can make snow, or something like it, in temperatures as high as the 70s. Ward opened for paying customers on Oct. 22, technically making it the first ski area in the county to open for the season this year.

Owner John LaCroix, a snowmaking and grooming genius, made some nice looking turns on a surface that may have been closer to shaved ice, but he and a few customers who bought $5 lift tickets helped Ward make national headlines. The ski area, known for getting kids into snow sports affordably and high school ski racing, opened again for at least a day this month.

For me, you have to stay open to really be able to claim the first opener crown, as Sommet Saint-Sauveur in Quebec has done since it opened on Nov. 2, Killington since its opening day on Nov. 3.

For Killington, opening early is critical if it is to build a big enough base on its famed race trail, Superstar, to hold the women's World Cup slalom and giant slalom races on Thanksgiving weekend as it has since 2016. When I skied there Sunday, Superstar shone from afar on the drive up the access road, a long swath of deep white amid a vast mountain landscape of mostly green and brown, closed to the public until after the races. It's ready. Good luck, Killington.

Modernizing more lift infrastructure

I wrote pretty often in this column years ago about what was then a rapidly aging and outdated ski-lift infrastructure in New England. That situation is no longer the case.

The projects at Attitash and Wachusett are among new and repurposed lifts going up now or already set for the ski and ride season happening across Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

This season's improvements are part of a wave of lift infrastructure modernization that has swept New England over the last decade and are critical to the growth of the ski industry in the region. The two things skiers and riders most care about where they ride is the quantity and quality of the snow and lifts.

In Massachusetts, one project in particular I never thought would happen is the construction of a high-speed lift at the formerly throwback Berkshire East in Charlemont. It's expected to open this season.

But, indeed, that Leitner-Poma detachable quad, strung along the woods to skier's right on the edge of the ski area's signature Comp trail, is nearly done and makes Berkshire East only the third ski area in the state with a high-speed lift. Jiminy Peak has a high-speed sixpack, and Wachusett has two other high-speed quads.

Elsewhere, at Magic Mountain, the low-tech classic skier's mountain in Londonderry, Vermont, it looks like after four long years of delays and problems, the fixed-grip Black Line summit quad, which came over from Stratton, will finally spin this season.

It will be Magic's first-ever four-person lift the top, replacing a long disused old triple. In recent years, only a creaky double has transported skiers and riders to the summit of this quirky and tough southern Vermont gem.

Meanwhile, in another New Hampshire lift development, Loon Mountain in Lincoln in December will open a new fixed-grip quad with conveyor loading belt at South Peak.

Perched at the Escape Route parking lot a half-mile from Main Street, the Timbertown lift for the first time makes it possible to start skiing right in downtown Lincoln. It will serve 30 acres of new beginner and intermediate terrain and provide easy access to the trail pod around the Lincoln Express quad, and from there, a link via the cross-mountain Tote Road quad to Loon Peak and North Peak.

What is probably the Granite State's most expansive and varied skiing and snowboarding terrain is now even bigger.

Maine advancements

The wave of new lifts also hits Maine this season.

At Sugarloaf, which hasn't seen new lift construction in a while (other than a mid-mountain-to-summit poma surface lift a few years ago), the 450-acre West Mountain expansion and a dozen new ski trails brings the advent of the (partly) new Bucksaw Express high-speed quad.

Some components that make up the lift come from an older quad at owner Boyne Resorts' Big Sky property in Montana, while other systems in the lift are new. As part of this project the West Mountain double chair is being shortened to mid-mountain.

The expansion and new lift represent long-overdue progress at one of the Northeast's most iconic ski areas. While Boyne has rapidly built up the lift fleets at its other New England resorts, Loon and Sunday River, as well as out West at Big Sky, Sugarloaf has lagged but for the opening of the Brackett Basin sidecountry terrain. That is probably because the 'Loaf has lacked infrastructure, as in beds and other visitor amenities.

The West Mountain expansion addresses that lack and now maybe more lifts will follow, including a much-needed reliable summit lift and a replacement for the Superstar Quad.

In any event, Sunday River gets a breakthrough lift this year with a new high-speed, heated and bubbled, and more wind-resistant sixpack on frigid and exposed Barker Peak.

This is a big deal for Sunday River and New England skiing as the Doppelmayr D-Line lift, with its ergonomic seats and automatic restraining bar and other advancements, represents the latest and greatest ski technology available and points to the future.

Sunday River is also opening another lift to service a condo area, a triple chair.

Early-season skiing

I wish I could say the skiing on Nov. 19 was better than it was at Killington and Okemo when I hit both ski areas on the same Sunday for a few runs.

But any skiing is good skiing, and your worst day skiing is better than most of your days in the office.

At both places, the snow was a bit too thin to groom, resulting in big, off-kilter slushy and icy moguls and swarms of skiers and riders on narrow ribbons of snow.

The stoke level was high, though, for this annual rite, and people were in a good mood.

That feeling of sweet anticipation is what early season skiing in New England is all about.

—Contact Shaun Sutner by e-mail at s_sutner@yahoo.com.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Ski resort upgrades lift industry in New England