Big Sky Resort’s new Lone Peak Tram on schedule for winter debut
BILLINGS – In years past, while riding up Big Sky Resort’s Lone Peak Tram, it was hard not to marvel at the engineering and construction required to safely haul humans up the steep mountainside.
“Wow! It’s imposing,” Hans Schernthaner, Big Sky’s Snowsports School director told the Gazette in a 2006 interview. “You go up that sheer vertical face and it feels like you’re going to crash into the rocks.”
This ski and snowboard season, Big Sky patrons should be in awe once again as the resort unveils its new tram, capable of hauling 75 people instead of 15, and climbing 4,612 feet compared to 2,800 feet in the old tram. Even though the distance is farther, the trip will take only 4 minutes, climbing at a speed of 22 mph.
“It’s pretty spectacular,” said Taylor Middleton, Big Sky’s president and chief operating officer. “Everything about this tram is much bigger. Everything is supersized.”
“Tram installations are rare – Big Sky’s is the first tram built in North America since 2008 – and Taylor is lucky to have seen two of them,” said Stacie Mesuda, public relations manager for the mountain.
Middleton has been working for the resort since 1981, and was around when the first tram was built in 1995. Back then, John Kircher, who was general manager, order the tram construction without consulting with his father, who owned the business, he said in a 2020 video. That caused a heated discussion, but Kircher noted his father didn’t pull the plug on his big adventure. The result was a signature lift that highlighted the mountain’s more extreme terrain and drew lots of attention.
Kircher won’t be present to witness Big Sky’s newest tram. He died of cancer in January.
2025 vision
How Boyne USA Resorts, Big Sky ski area’s owners, can afford so many upgrades as construction costs rise astronomically seems like a heavier lift than the tram’s. Yet the company has filled all of its promises so far on the way to building out its 2025 vision, which they announced in 2016.
“Three new state-of-the-art chairlifts, Ramcharger 8, Powder Seeker 6 and Challenger, and Swift Current 6, preceded the tram build,” Emily Stifler Wolf reported. In March, Levinski Lodge, the first apartment-style housing for resort workers was completed. Two others will open this winter.
The costs for all of the projects were originally estimated at $150 million, but that was before the pandemic and prices for many materials skyrocketed by up to 40%.
The ski area bears little resemblance to what one-time television newscaster Chet Huntley and his partners conceived when the resort was founded in the late 1960s.
Michigan-based Boyne Resorts took over in 1976 and slowly the transition has been made. Now a high-end enclave – situated in a once-remote Madison Range basin – the community has been supersized, all built around recreation and access to rivers, forests and mountains where grizzly bears still roam. As environmentalists cringe, millionaires continue to buy in. Big Sky is on everyone’s radar now; just look at the airport outside of Bozeman for proof. In addition to the crowded parking for private jets and planes, 20 nonstop commercial flights service the community.
“It’s now a lot easier for guests to get here, from around the nation and the world,” Middleton said.
Over the past years, he said visitation has continued to grow despite the pandemic and the economic turmoil it created. Last season, heavy snowfall motivated locals to show up.
“These capital investments – making the skier experience better, improving the hospitality in our community, creating a more viable, fun, mountain town destination – all of these things are making Big Sky more attractive, and we’re very grateful that our visitation has been growing,” he said.
Tram tower
Highlighting the tram construction is its stunning location, which comes with incredible challenges. At 11,166 feet, the top of Lone Mountain can conjure storms out of blue sky days.
“The changes in weather are incredibly difficult up at the peak,” said Chad Wilson, vice president of construction.
About 600 feet below the mountain’s peak, the new tram’s lone 100-foot tower was assembled over the summer, necessary to cross over a ridge just before the tram reaches the top. Work started last summer as more than 50 holes were drilled into the rock 50 to 70 feet deep into which steel anchors were glued to hold the tower. More than 250,000 pounds of steel and 300 cubic yards of concrete were used, the resort said.
By early August, the tower was completed and work began to string the tram cables. A helicopter flew in a smaller cable to pull up the permanent ones. These permanent cables include a haulage rope weighing 38,000 pounds that will pull the tram up the mountain. The four track ropes, on which the tram rides, each weigh 56,000 pounds. Although called ropes, they are cables as thick as a man’s wrist.
A tram differs from a gondola in that it rides on the fixed cables, Middleton explained. A separate cable pulls the cabin up and down.
On schedule
Complicating the work, Middleton said, is that this has been one of the dampest summers in his memory.
“The logistics of working in a wet, cold environment is not for everybody,” he said.
The stress of keeping the more than 200 workers safe during the summer, as they walk along the metalwork of the high tower or helicopters lower heavy parts, has been “nerve wracking” for Wilson.
The crew has included two different electrical contractors, two general contractors and a lift contractor. Workers had to assemble a crane on the mountaintop to build the tram’s one tower. Five different helicopter services were hired.
“Specialists from seven U.S.-based construction companies and Garaventa in Switzerland worked with Big Sky Resort team members to achieve this high-alpine feat of engineering,” the resort boasted.
So when it rained or there was lightning and no one could work, it was maddeningly frustrating. Despite June’s wet weather delays, workers were able to make up time and the job is on schedule, Wilson said.
The tram will take off from a new area below Lone Mountain, lower than the old tram and also featuring dining venues with large windows. Once a new gondola is built from the base area, riders will be able to travel from bottom to top in summer or winter.
“It’s Montana’s highest scenic overlook,” Middleton said. “And getting there gets a lot easier when you board a beautiful, fast, 10-person gondola, and that gondola takes you right to the terminal for the tram, and you walk from the gondola immediately into the tram and continue your journey to the top of 11,166-foot Lone Peak.”
Unlike the past, tram tickets will need to be purchased for each ride, and the cost will fluctuate somewhere between $10 and $40 per trip depending on snow conditions, the number of trails open, weather and visibility. Normal season passes or daily lift tickets will not include tram access.
Also new for riders this year, the mountain is guaranteeing an annual opening date from now on – the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. This year, that will be Nov. 22. The season will extend to April 28
“Our shift to an earlier opening gives our guests and team members more time to celebrate opening day and Thanksgiving with family and friends, and more skiing to look forward to in November,” said Troy Nedved, general manager, in a news release.
Work on the new tram will continue into the ski season, Wilson said, with no firm date on when skiers, snowboarders and thrill-seekers will be able to ride to the top of Lone Mountain for the surreal view and expert ski runs.
Before the finishing touches are added, use of the old tram will discontinue.
Wilson said it has been a great asset for hauling workers to the mountaintop. Before the old tram was built, the only way to the summit was via a helicopter or hiking.
“Standby, we’ll be announcing our 2035 Vision sometime over the next 18 months to let you know what’s next,” Middleton teased.