Inside Whistler Blackcomb's Peak to Peak Gondola

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Inside Whistler Blackcomb's Peak to Peak Gondola
When the world's most daring gondola opens next month, it will connect the two massive peaks at the largest ski resort in North America. Passengers will travel for nearly 2 miles between towers, dangling in cabins more than a thousand feet above the valley floor. Here's how it works.
By Paul Tolme


If you’re afraid of heights, forget about riding the new Peak to Peak Gondola at British Columbia’s Whistler Blackcomb ski resort. Passenger cabins hang as high as 1427 ft. (higher than four-and-a-half Statues of Liberty) and travel nearly 2 miles without passing a single support tower. It’s the longest unsupported span of any lift of its type. Construction of the $52 million gondola began in 2007 with its steel towers. This year, five monstrous spools of cable were shipped from a Swiss factory, through the Panama Canal, and up to Washington state. A train then took them to Whistler, where they were loaded onto a 48-wheel trailer that was pushed and pulled by haul trucks up a winding gravel road at an average speed of 1 mph. It took three months, and the help of helicopters, to string the cables across the valley. The gondola, which opens in December, will allow visitors to the largest ski resort in North America to move quickly between Whistler and Blackcomb mountains, and ski both, without having to descend to the base area. The Peak to Peak should get plenty of use: The resort will host the alpine skiing events at the 2010 Winter Olympics, which will be based in nearby Vancouver.

1. Drive System
A 2400-hp drive terminal on Whistler Mountain powers the gondola. Under normal operations, it runs at about 900 hp—the extra capacity is required for startup. The drive’s two AC motors spin a 15-ft. bull wheel, which serves to move the haul rope—the cable that pulls the passenger cabins along stationary track ropes. A hydraulic-mounted bull wheel at the return station on Blackcomb keeps proper tension on the haul rope.

2. Towers
The cables are sup-ported by four galvanized steel towers (two on each mountain) that were raised in sections by a boom crane and bolted together by a team of Swiss climbers. The highest tower tops out at 213 ft. Combined, they weigh 441 tons and sit atop 141,000 cu. ft. of concrete poured into foundations.

3. Sky Cabins
The gondola’s 28 sky cabins travel at 17 mph, clearing the 2.7-mile gap in 11 minutes. Each holds 28 passengers, allowing the system to carry 4100 people per hour. Two cabins have glass floors, giving thrill seekers a view of the valley below. When a cabin reaches a station, it detaches from the haul rope and slows as spinning pneumatic tires carry it through the terminal on a guide rail, allowing passengers to exit and board. It then accelerates to the speed of the haul rope, at which point it reconnects and whisks off over the void.

4. Rescue Vehicles
In the event of a power failure, a 270-hp diesel-powered backup drive can send four rescue vehicles out on the track ropes to retrieve stranded cabins. “If all else fails, we can get people out of that big span,” says Warren Sparks, the general manager of Doppelmayr CTEC Ltd., the lift’s manufacturer. Each rescue vehicle has an arm that can latch onto a cabin and pull it back to a tower, where passengers are lowered by rope and harness from heights that can surpass 200 ft.

5. Early-Warning System
To avoid catastrophes (such as when a jet severed a gondola cable in Italy in 1998), the Peak to Peak has an early-warning system known as OCAS, or Obstacle Collision Avoidance System. OCAS uses radar to track nearby aircraft. If it detects a threat, flashing lights are activated on the towers and an audible warning is broadcast on all aircraft radio frequencies. “The typical red balls you see on electrical wires are less effective for high-speed airplanes,” Sparks says.

6. Cables
Cables
Most chairlifts use a single cable. The Peak to Peak uses four stationary carbon-steel cables (or track ropes) to support the cabins—two for each direction—and a circular cable (haul rope) to pull them. “The track ropes are basically rails across the valley,” says Wayne Wiltse, the resort’s lift maintenance manager. Each 97-ton rope can support 767,723 pounds and stretch to a length of 15,092 ft. with sag. The multiple cables help prevent swaying, allowing the gondola to operate safely in winds of up to 50 mph.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/tech...n/4289647.html
You would have to crazy to go on this !!!!

[SPK-250]

Jesus wept!

I want to go to Whistler to ride the bike park but i probably wont go on that thing as it would be a long way down to change my jocks.

[SM1DY]

You'd never catch me on that thing. I wont even ride the skylift at Dreamworld and thats 20m above the ground and only spans about 40m(maybe more, maybe less) between towers.