Sun Valley at 75

Lifts no longer carrying people like bananas!

By Peter Schroeder

The Roundhouse Gondola is Sun Valley’s first gondola system.

Sun Valley, the opulent jewel of northwest skiing, has finally added the one high-end amenity it has been missing: a gondola. In celebration of the resort’s 75^th season this year, the new Roundhouse Gondola will whisk passengers 2,000 vertical feet up the flanks of Bald Mountain in a mere eight minutes.

Connecting the base at the River Run Plaza to the mid-mountain Roundhouse Restaurant, the 56 eight-person gondola cars are in stark contrast to the beginnings of elevated transportation at the mountain back in 1936 when Sun Valley was founded.

World’s first chairlift

A hard-nosed vice president of the Union Pacific Railroad was not in favor of plans in 1936 that would build the world’s first ski lift on a 4,300-acre ranch deep in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains. He became even more dubious about converting this ranch into the country’s first destination ski resort, Sun Valley.

But the apprehensive vice president was overruled by his boss, Union Pacific’s board chairman, Averell Harriman, who directed construction crews to build a resort worthy of this majestic setting. He also ordered the railroad’s engineering department in Omaha to develop a mechanical device to haul skiers up the mountain.

The railroad engineers, none of whom had any knowledge of skiing and whose only experience with snow was frustration while removing it from the tracks, set out to build what would become the world’s first chairlift.

The design selected came from James Curran, a self-taught engineer who had previously worked with an overhead cable system that used hooks to load bunches of bananas onto cargo ships.

His thinking was straightforward: replace the hooks with chairs, and think of people simply as heavier loads of bananas. He envisioned happy skiers dangling from an overhead cable on chairs swinging up the hill like rows of bananas.

Given that planning and design took place during summer, the engineers had no snow for testing their design. Instead, they ran a truck around Omaha with a cable hanging from a support bar on the side, which suspended a chair on which a man was perched. They determined that six miles an hour was the maximum speed for taking corners without losing the passenger.

After simulating a skier on skis by using a person wearing roller skates, they concluded the maximum speed to scoop up a skier was 450 feet a minute (which is quite close to today’s loading speed of 500 feet per minute).

When the details of the design were complete, the Union Pacific engineers went to Sun Valley in the summer of 1936 and constructed the world’s first two chairlifts: one on Dollar Mountain and another on Proctor. At the time, Bald Mountain, Sun Valley’s main ski area today, was considered too steep and dangerous for skiing.

In late 1936, after only seven months of construction, Sun Valley opened as America’s first destination ski resort. Complete with glass-enclosed pools, it served fine cuisine, featured impeccable service, and offered top entertainment — not to mention downhill skiing.

Chairlift upgrades through the years

The success of those first chairlifts convinced the naysayers, and in 1939, the first of the five single chairlifts was installed on Bald Mountain to access its 9,150-foot summit. In 1957, Sun Valley took another innovative step in upgrading its chairlift capacity by installing its first two-passenger chairlift. Not only was the double faster, it was cheaper to maintain and offered a smoother ride.

Sun Valley established another industry standard in the late 1980s with its network of express chairlifts. Its first three high-speed quads — Christmas, Greyhawk and Challenger — were installed in 1988. Four others followed, practically one each year. Then in the early 1990s, all seven were replaced with newer design high-speed lifts — all in one season.

The newly installed Roundhouse Gondola this year is just the first phase of the resort’s 50-year master plan, which eventually calls for three additional gondolas. Although still in the conceptual stage, one is scheduled to connect from the Roundhouse to the top of the mountain. Another will replace the Challenger Lift on the Warm Springs side of the mountain, and a third will connect the River Run Plaza with the town and the beginner area at Dollar Mountain.

Gondola opens up other activities

When plans were originally announced to build a gondola, critics reasoned that since the gondola runs parallel to two quad chairlifts to the same part of the mountain, there would only be a savings of a few minutes.

“The gondola isn’t just for the convenience and comfort of skiers and snowboarders,” says Jack Sibbach, Sun Valley’s director of sales, marketing and PR. “We did it, in part, to open the mountain to a new clientele. This past summer it operated for hikers, mountain bikers, and sightseers. Now skiers and non-skiers alike can use the gondola to access the restaurant for lunch, snacks and drinks. In addition, it gives skiers and boarders easier and quicker access to Seattle Ridge and other upper-mountain terrain.”

In less than a year of operating, the gondola has been acclaimed a total success.

The Roundhouse Gondola rounds out a proclamation from Sun Valley founder Averell Harriman 75
years ago:

“It is not enough to build a hotel and then mark with flags and signs the things you propose to do in time to come,” he was quoted. “When you get to Sun Valley, your eyes should pop open. There isn’t a single thing that I could wish for that hasn’t been provided.”

Certainly, if Harriman were to return today and see the new gondola carrying 1,800 passengers per hour up the mountain, compared with the original 1936 single-passenger chairlift with a capacity of 300 passengers per hour, his eyes would indeed
pop open.

Roundhouse Lodge/Restaurant Facts

During installation of the Roundhouse Gondola, Sun Valley also restored the Roundhouse Restaurant, built by the Union Pacific Railroad in the late 1930s. In addition, the new bar called Averell’s was added. America’s first on-mountain ski restaurant, the Roundhouse, was featured as the warming hut in the 1941 movie, Sun Valley Serenade, starring Sonja Henie. Sun Valley’s Gretchen Fraser, who acted as Henie’s skiing double, went on to win America’s first Olympic ski gold medal at the Winter Games at St. Moritz, Switzerland, in 1948. Roundhouse Lodge has served skiers for more than 70 years.

Peter Schroeder is the Ski Editor of Outdoors NW and its sister publication, Western SnowSports.

 

 

 

 

 

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