Just a year after spending C$8 million to build the nearly 2,000 vertical foot, nearly mile and a half long Canadian Rockies Express Quad chairlift, officials at Alberta’s Marmot Basin ski area on Thursday announced another new high speed quad chairlift, this one replacing the Paradise triple.
Both lifts unload in the same vicinity on Marmot’s upper mountain. The existing fixed-grip Paradise triple will be moved to the base area to replace the School House T-bar. Both lifts will be completed in time for the 2011-12 ski and snowboard season.
Despite nearly three times its length, the ride time on the new Paradise lift will be roughly half that of the current chair, at 4.6 minutes.
Since acquiring the ski resort in 2003, Marmot’s shareholders have invested nearly C$25 million to improve the ski area in Jasper National Park, north of Banff and Lake Louise, including a C$1.8 million snowmaking plant. Those improvements have apparently paid off, as Marmot last winter reportedly enjoyed its busiest ski season on record.
