Last week, Big Sky Resort announced it was installing the new Dakota Lift for the upcoming season:
The triple chair will improve access to Bavarian Forest and the recently opened 212 acres of Dakota Territories...The Dakota Lift is located on the south face of Lone Mountain below Liberty Bowl. The fixed grip lift will load below the Hippy Highway and the top station is located near Gate 2 of Bavarian Forest...The lift is the first half of a two-lift system providing a second access point to terrain on Lone Peak...The second lift, planned for construction next year will take skiers up to the Yeti Traverse accessing...Marx, Lenin and the Dictator Chutes. (Click on image to see estimated locations of the two new lifts.)
Not long ago, one of the key differences between Big Sky and, say, Jackson Hole was that the high-speed lifts and surplus of experts skiers at Jackson meant that every inconceivable line (and most of the inconceivable lines) are tracked out by noon. Not so at Big Sky. The low capacity of the Tram (as well as the intimidating view from the top of the peak) meant that one could ski fresh lines on the south face for days. The new lifts are going to change the dynamics. On the one hand, the south face is going to become more attractive and accessible to a larger number of skiers. On the other hand, the lifespan of untracked powder is going to diminish.
Click on the image at left to see an annotated photograph of BSSEF's Hangman's race course taken from space, courtesy of Google Earth. That's pretty cool. What's even cooler (at least for us geeks) is the image has imbedded GPS data. That makes it easy to calculate that the vertical drop of GS setup on Hangman's is 250 meters, which is within USSA requirements. The average slope of the course is 19 degrees (31%), which—according to SkiStats—makes Hangman's an upper-intermediate slope. For the sake of comparison, Lenin (off the Tram) is as steep as 50 degrees and has an average slope of 37 degrees.
