November Construction Re-Cap
12 December, 2013
Even though the summit received its first bit of snow for the season, the weather continued to be in our favour, and the construction crew continued to make great progress!
First snowfall of the year came on November 2nd.
All of the gondola towers and tower heads are now in place and are properly aligned. The haul rope was installed earlier in the month and after some fine-tuning we hung our first gondola cabins. Another major milestone in the project!
“Strawing” the haul rope into place, a complicated process.
The first gondola cabin on inaugural trip to the top!
Although the first gondola cabins were on the line, no one was allowed to ride the gondola until our custom evacuation system was commissioned. In order for the system to be commissioned, the Sea to Sky Gondola team had to undergo extensive training by one of Doppelmayr’s training engineers who came over from Austria specifically for this reason. A very unique winch system is now operational in case of an emergency. In the words of one engineer, “This is a gnarly lift travelling over gnarly terrain!”
The evacuation procedures are practiced on the ground first.
Evacuation training in progress - 300m up in the air!
Incase you were wondering how he got on top of the gondola in the picture above.
The next big step for the lift line is installing the communication line. A very specialised but critical step. The communication line will be wrapped around the messenger cable that is currently running from top to bottom down the middle of the tower line. The communication line is very important as it is the communication link of the lift between the upper and lower terminals and all the towers in between. It also houses the fibre optic cable used for a variety of data uses.
Communication line has been delivered and is ready to be installed.
The Summit Lodge continues to move towards finishing. All of the windows have been installed and we started installing the doors this week. Siding is next, and then the finishing interior work begins. A long but now warmer scenario with the building sealed up!
The Summit Lodge is starting to take shape.
Our facilities at Basecamp are also coming along well. Our retail store, Basecamp Cafe and Administration building which includes washrooms have been painted and are only waiting a few final touches before we start furnishing it. We expect to be in our offices at Basecamp by the end of February!
Blocks that will simulate lift passengers when load testing starts.
We would like to thank everyone for their continued support and recent annual pass purchases. Everything on-site is moving along as planned and we are still looking great for our May 16th, 2014 opening!