Arizona Snowbowl: Arizona Gondola

Installed in 2020 to replace a CTEC triple that suffered a catastrophic mechanical failure resulting in most of the last season being missed, this Leitner-Poma chondola serves advanced terrain. Contrary to its name, it is indeed a chondola, using LPA six pack chairs, Sigma 8-passenger cabins, & LPA detachable grips, but it is run as a gondola lift only in the summer months. The lift uses as stated before, Sigma 8-passenger cabins, LPA six pack chairs with elongated hanger arms, LPA detachable grips, standard LPA sheaves, assemblies, & lifting frames, a fixed LPA top drive with a Leitner Direct Drive, and a tensioned LPA bottom return with an internal carriage opposed to the whole terminal moving like most LPAs, this is due to the gondola loading and unloading area needing to be fixed in place. The top four towers are also supported by two massive towers with extra side bracing, similar to Revelstoke’s Revelation Gondola. This is the lowest capacity chondola I have ever seen, while this makes sense for Snowbowl’s low terrain capacity, another downfall is the distance required to travel between the top terminal and top towers due to stopping distance required in the event of a grip fault, this results in the last five towers/three tubes being extremely tall and exposed to high wind, this is almost always Snowbowl’s first lift to go on wind hold. This is an artery of Snowbowl’s lift system as it serves the most coveted terrain on the mountain, I expect to see it last at least 30 years.

Manufacturer: Leitner-Poma
Length: 6,445ft
Vertical: 1,977ft
Drive: Top
Tension: Bottom
Design Speed: 1,000fpm
Recorded Speed: 1,000fpm
Capacity: 1,200pph