There are ski lifts and then there are ski lifts. We take a look at 10 of the world’s most remarkable lifts up the mountain …
1 – Tschuggen Express, Arosa, Switzerland
Sadly (for those not lucky enough to be staying there) only available for use by hotel guests, this remarkable mini funicular railway links the 5★ Tschuggen Hotel to the ski slopes a kilometre or so away. On a track something akin to an uphill roller coaster, the plush cabins, which resemble an upmarket Bond villain’s private underground lair access, open at the bottom station of the lift by the hotel’s ski room when a hotel guest waives his personal access card at it. Whizzing up the slope, seats tilt to allow for the gradient.
2 – Va et Vient, Portillo, Chile
Portillo is famed for its expert terrain but some of that is prone to avalanche meaning that any fixed lift of the conventional sort risks damage and long periods of repair. So the great lift-designing mind of Jean Pomagalski, the original owner and boss of the famous POMA lift company, was set the challenge, and he came up with the “Va et Vient” (“come and go”) lift. A kind of half cable car, half drag lift, it has no towers but three bull wheels, one at the bottom of the slope and two at the top. Two tow bars with up to five platter-style button seats attached are connected to this contraption pulling up to five skiers, side by side, up the slope quickly, an experienced likened to uphill water skiing.
3 – The Rotair, Engelberg, Switzerland
The latest revolving cable car opened on the Italian side of Mont Blanc earlier this year (see our separate report), but the original opened at Engelberg way back in 1992. In fact the Swiss resort is already on to its second ‘Rotair’ cable car after the success of the first, and is due to unveil the new lift this season. “The new Rotair has more glass, so our guests can see much better the beautiful panorama,” said Engelberg’s Dominik Ettlin. “Also new is that the whole cabin rotates, not only the floor as in the old one.”
4 – Vanoise Express, Paradiski, France
Built a little over a decade ago at a reputed cost of around €50 million, the Vanoise Express is remarkable for several reasons. First of all, it has double-decker cabins; second, they can travel independently of one another, rather than needing to counter balance each other as with most cable cars; third, the 200-person cabin capacity is the world’s biggest; and fourth, the lift was built to link the ski areas of La Plagne and Les Arcs to create Paradiski, one of the world’s three largest ski regions.
5 – Sauna lift, Ylläs, Finland
The Scandinavian obsession with saunas has reached new heights in the Lappish ski resort of Ylläs where a special gondola cabin, wood clad inside and out, is available to hire. The cabin travels up to the lift’s top station at 718m, where there is a main sauna at the top of Ylläs Fell, available for private use. From here you can leave your belongings and rent the sauna gondola from 7–9pm and experience the most unique sauna ever. The sauna gondola can take four people at a time, catering for up to 12 people during a two-hour session. The idea is to take it in turns with two rounds each, whilst friends relax in the main sauna at the top station.
6 – Car Carrying Lift, Sochi, Russia
Before the 2014https://www.inthesnow.com/resorts/resort/dachstein/ Winter Olympics, Russian ski areas in Sochi put in world-record-breaking orders for more than 50 state-of-the-art lifts – big fast chairlifts and gondolas on the whole. Some of these were the finest examples of the lift builder’s art yet seen and included the world’s longest and fastest tri-cable lift (ultra-stable, high-speed, high-capacity gondola) ever built and another tri-cable lift equipped to carry motor cars up the mountain if an oligarch or emergency vehicle wants to avoid the crowded mountain roads.
7 – Dachstein Cable Car, Austria
The new cable car that opened a couple of seasons ago to access the year-round Dachstein glacier has a state-of-the-art design, but also an unusual attraction. Users can ride on the roof. There’s no extra fee or special requirements, apparently, to make use of this service; you just go to the special loading point in the bottom station for roof riders and, if you’re one of the first there, you’re on. We’re hoping this one wasn’t announced on April Fool’s Day.
8 – Dagu Glacier, China
OK, this is actually just a regular eight-passenger gondola built by Doppelmayr, the world’s leading lift manufacturer. It makes our list, however, as it’s currently the world’s highest lift, climbing 1226 vertical metres to its 4843m top station – which could stretch those not used to high altitudes – it’s nearly 1000m higher than the highest lifts in Europe. There’s snow but no authorised skiing at Dagu; however, the highest ski lift, also in China, is at Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, a mere 4600m up.
9 – Porsche Chairlift, Laax, Switzerland
When car designer Porsche was commissioned to design a new chairlift a few seasons back, some people wondered what a car designer could teach a lift designer. The answer appears to be both cool style and innovative design. The lift not only looks good but its individual chairs can tilt 45 degrees outwards, giving you the chance to look out at the scenery, not just watch the people on the chair in front to see if they drop their phone or gloves.
10 – Solar-powered lift, Gerlos, Austria
This 180m-long covered carpet lift may not look anything special, but its clear gallery cover is. In fact, covered in photovoltaic cells, it actually generates more electricity than it uses to operate – 70% more in its first year of operation, to be precise. The lift generated 27,000kWh of electricity in its first 12 months but only used 16,000kWh itself. This means the lift “overproduced” power by about 70% with the “spare” 9000 kWh of clean energy fed into the power grid. Emanuel Wohlfarter, CEO of lift developer Sunkid, now anticipates worldwide demand for the new system, due to the quick return on investment costs as well as the extremely low operating costs.
