Chairs on on and Ready to Roll

Once the towers had been set and all of the helicoptering of components had been done, it seems like the finishing touches on the lift took such a short time to complete.
The top and bottom terminals were assembled and the haul rope pulled and spliced. Then the chairs were hung. Currently they are load testing using barrels of water. The planned opening of the new lift is slated for Friday 12/23 (as long as there is snow to ski on…). I’m sure there will be a more “official” opening with dignitaries and such at some point in the near future. I plan to be there first thing Friday morning to ride this new attraction.

In the meantime here are some pictures from Saturday afternoon:

Burke HSQ Towers are up

Last week, the helicopter came in and set the towers that could not be reached by a ground based crane. I checked in Saturday and the new towers look great. I was not able to drive to the summit due to snow closing the toll road (and I didn't have time to hike).

The bottom terminal mounts have been installed along with the construction of the base control building. Some more peices are sitting in the parking lot.

Many of the chairs have been assembled as well (hooray for foot rests!)

The lift line has been widened a bit over the rough cutting that was done last spring. From the long view, it looks like a lot of the rocks have been readjusted.

Initial Cut:

Now:

Blow up to see the rocks. Tower 11 is going to have a nice kicker:

The Poma lift (adjacent to the HSQ) is sporting a new paint job and some new pieces. Additionally, the exterior of the new race timing building is almost done.

While there Saturday it looked like much of the overhead utilities were being put underground. Currently tower 4 is VERY close to the overhead power lines that go over toward the snowmaking pond and the Willoughby Quad.

More pictures here:

from_the_nek/HSQ

Rerun before it was a Lift Line

The lower 2/3rds of the new lift line is going to be named Rerun. This was the name of the unofficial glade that used to be between Dougs Drop and Upper Warren's Way. Here is a short video showing what it looked like skiing there before the lift construction began.

Burke HSQ Update 10/26/11 Towers are going up.

I apologize to all of the readers that have been visiting my blog and found nothing going on for the last few weeks. My weekends have been filled with a garage building project. I was able to get up to the mountain for a few minutes after work this week. Lots of work has been done since my last visit a month ago.
Sorry for the dark/grainy pictures. This time of year it gets dark fast! Looks like all of the footings have been poured and cured and the towers have started going up. The are currently setting the towers that can be reached with a truck mounted crane. This includes the first three towers (towers 2-4) and the towers near the toll road crossings on the upper mountain. Burke's Flicker page has some really good pictures of the lift build.

Lift towers in the parking lot. I counted several multi-sectional towers:



Tower tops:

Towers 2 and 3 (Tower 1 is part of the base terminal)

Tower 3 and the Mid-Lodge

HAUL ROPE!

Tower 4

(I'm not sure how this is going to work yet)

New Race Timing Building

Some of the chair components look to be in as well:

Burke HSQ Update September 18th

Finally got around for an update. These are some old pics from over a month ago.

Picture dumping for now...

Burke HSQ Construction Update (September 10)

It official, Burke has finally put out a press release about the new summit lift.
Burke Press Release

Work on the new quad (now rather generically named the "Mid Burke Express") is progressing. This past Saturday, I decided to check out the steepest section of the lift line. From my vantage point I could see that there was a crew working again near the area at the bottom of the Poma lift. It wasn't clear from halfway up the lift line if they were working on tower footings or prepping for a new Race/Timing building.

According to the press release, the trail formed by the new lift line is going to be divided into two parts, Upper Lift Line (Intermediate rating) and Rerun (Expert rating). Rerun was the local name of the former unofficial glade that existed between Doug's Drop and Upper Warren's Way. The new Rerun will apparently run from the top of the Poma lift all the way to the bottom. Technically, Burke could get another "trail" out of this setup. The section of lift line below the intersection with McHargs Cutoff could have its own name. Rerun as I figure it will exist is modeled here in bright green in Google Earth:

Upper Lift Line (another generic name) will be the section of the lift line that starts at the summit and ends at the last Toll Road (Deer Run) crossing. It will cross the Toll Road three times.

On the steepest section of Rerun, the holes for the tower footings have been blasted and leaving lots of  jagged rocks. Hopefully, some of these will be cleaned up when they pour the concrete and back-fill. Otherwise it is going to be a mine field in there. Moving machinery around on this steep slope has to be a bit hair-raising as well.

Down:

Up:

Blasted hole

View of Jay Peak from Rerun:

As mentioned in the press release, the Powerline has also offically been added to the trail map. With the addition of the wind tower at the summit, the power line had to be upgraded. This included removing brush and replacing the old short rotted poles with taller new ones. The wire will hopefully be high enough that ducking isn't required. This is a very tight line and has some rather sketchy crossings with the toll road. When skiing this trail this winter, please use caution at the crossings and look out for guy wires.

It was a beautiful day in the NEK. There was a swarm of paragliders and hang gliders riding the updrafts above the northwestern side of the mountain.  It looks like a lot of fun!

(Click on any of the pictures to enlarge them)