Building a ski lift?

M

MacGodwin

New member
Here's the back drop:

An insatiable love for skiing, lives in the center of Saskatchewan. The Canadian prairies putting 10 hours between Me and the nearest mountain.

This means when I do head out i usually stick to big mountain skiing and stay out of the park for fear of cutting my trip short with a broken limb.

With skiing being so far i figure i can bring the park home to change it up. With a couple decent hills on our farm i think a 4-600 ft "J bar" lift would make for some short glades skiing and a small park for practicing. I built a 200 ft rope tow for a bunny hill of sorts last year; it's only got the juice for one skier at a time and the hill is pretty flat.

So for questions:

I was looking at about 10 feet/ second for lift speed. Any thoughts on whether that will be too fast?

A 6 foot bullwheel will leave me with close to 3000 ft lbs of torque at the center to pull 5- 200lb skiers up the hill. Not sure if if 3 feet from cable to center of tower will be a little tight on the way up. I havent got a clue what most t bars are for width. Opinions?

Open to suggestions on construction/ alternatives to a j bar.

Thanks!

Mac
 
I was going to suggest building a rope tow instead, but since you already have, hmmmm.

I've been to a couple of places that ran old tubing lifts for the park. Not as nice as a tbar, but better than a rope tow. Maybe if you get a cable, you can buy some of those hooks and set it up. Wouldn't need that many if it's low capacity. Would probably be much easier to build than a tbar, but it seems like you like a challenge.

Props to anyone who builds their own fucking lift though. I'd say +K but I don't think that exists anymore.
 
I think some sections are a little steep for a rope tow. The other reason against the rope tow/ tubing lift is the lift line changes grade way too much. The rope would rub off the crests of the hills and be 8 feet high at the flat bits.

Whats the +K ?
 
Maybe try to find an old Poma lift somewhere? Something you could scrap off an abandoned/soon to be abandoned ski resort.
 
I live in Saskatoon, but everything fun happens at the farm an hour north of here haha. I've been watching resort bone yard pretty steady, but it looks like it will be 20k for a decent rope tow nevermind a tbar. I figure i can build it for under half of that
 
Haha dads got his 1A and work has a low boy we could borrow for a bargain. But i dont see that lift giving up its lot in life too easily lol. Plus a sketchy t bar is way safer than a sketchy chair any day of the week! Appreciate that find though!
 
13849582:MacGodwin said:
Haha dads got his 1A and work has a low boy we could borrow for a bargain. But i dont see that lift giving up its lot in life too easily lol. Plus a sketchy t bar is way safer than a sketchy chair any day of the week! Appreciate that find though!
Click to expand...

You almost might want to look around and see if any resorts are selling some sort of sketchy surface lift. That definitely does happen from time to time, and perhaps you could get something for crazy cheap. 100% correct though that you want it to be surface, because a chair lift has a whole world of safety concerns. :)
 
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