PEAK 2 PEAK GONDOLAThe Peak 2 Peak Gondola is a record setting 3S (3 ropes) aerial tramway that was constructed by Doppelmayr during the summers of 2007 and 2008. This lift connects the Rendezvous Restaurant on Blackcomb Mountain with the Roundhouse Restaurant on Whistler Mountain in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada.
The total length of this new lift is 4.4 kilometers and the twenty-eight passenger gondola cabins will traverse the Fitzsimmons Valley in approximately eleven minutes. The highest point off the ground, in the center of the span, is 436 meters above Fitzsimmons Creek. The Peak 2 Peak Gondola will hold four new world records:
- 4.4 km – longest lift of its type
- 3.024 kilometers – longest length of unsupported freespan
- 436 meters – highest point above the ground for a cable system
- 13.56 km - longest connected touristic ropeway system
History – The Big Idea
The genesis of the Peak 2 Peak Gondola occurred on February 17, 1997 when Hugh Smythe, President of Intrawest Resort Operation Group and Paul Mathews, President of Ecosign Mountain Resort Planners Ltd., based in Whistler, British Columbia, were on a technical visit to Switzerland. The pair had just inspected the new 150 passenger aerial tramway from Blauherd to Rothhorn in Zermatt and after that were in a helicopter on a flight towards the famed Matterhorn, Mathews pointed out to Smythe a silver thread in the sunlight which linked Trockener Steg station to the Klein Matterhorn. Mathews commented that the distance between the last tower on Mayer’s Plateau to the Klein Matterhorn was 2.7 kilometers. Smythe asked the relevance of that fact and Mathews replied, “That is the same distance from the bottom of the Harmony Chair on Whistler Mountain to the bottom of The 7th Heaven Express on Blackcomb Mountain.” The Big Idea for the P2P was born that day.
Mathews’ company, Ecosign, has been responsible for Master Planning at Whistler and Blackcomb since the mid 1970’s. Home from Switzerland, Mathews and Smythe commenced drawing up the first concepts linking the two mountains.
With the technology available in 1997 it was possible to achieve a capacity of 1,125 persons per hour with a 125 passenger aerial tramway cabin or 1,350 persons per hour with a 150 passenger cabin. The thought in those days was that this would just be a link for skiers and snowboarders during the wintertime. This would have been a freespan installation with no intermediate support tower across the Fitzsimmons Valley. The cost of about CAD $15 million dollars (1997) seem astronomical at the time, yet the concept was intriguing.
Is the Peak 2 Peak a Ski Lift, a Transportation Solution or just a big WOW Factor?
Actually, Ecosign and Whistler/Blackcomb believe that the Peak 2 Peak Gondola is all three.
A Fantastic Ski Lift
Hugh Smythe has always described Whistler and Blackcomb Mountains as two large mushrooms sitting side by side. There is the slender stalk up to a large cap on each mountain; the stalk representing the access systems from the valley floor and the mushroom caps the large alpine bowls on each mountain. Both Whistler and Blackcomb have three major climatic zones, delineated by elevation; the lower mountain, from 775m up to about 1,250 meters; sub-alpine, from 1,250 up to 1,900 meters; and the alpine, rising up to 2,250 meters. Blackcomb has two access systems, the Excalibur Gondola from Whistler Village with an angle station at Base II and the Wizard Chair from Merlin’s Daylodge. Blackcomb has four high alpine zones including 7th Heaven, Jersey Cream Bowl, The Horstman Glacier and the Blackcomb Glacier. The capacity of the high alpine on Blackcomb Mountain is 13,500 skiers per day. Whistler Mountain currently has three access systems; one from Whistler Creekside at 650 meters up to the top of the Roundhouse at 1,835 meters. There are two systems from Whistler Village; the Whistler Village Express Gondola and the Fitzsimmons and Garbanzo detachable quad chairlifts. Whistler has five alpine bowls: West Bowl, Whistler Bowl, Glacier Bowl, Harmony Bowl and Symphony Bowl. Whistler has a capacity of about 18,000 skiers per day in these five alpine bowls. Hence, the reference to two large mushroom caps.
The mountains are so large and the travel time from Whistler Peak or Blackcomb Peak down to the Whistler Village and back up to the companion mountain are so long that skiers are faced with a dilemma and generally make a decision to choose one mountain over the other on any given day. It is not that convenient to change from one mountain to the other in case of conditions such as fog, blowing snow, wind or simply crowding. The Peak 2 Peak Gondola will change all of that forever! Customers will be able to change mountains in the high elevation, from one mountain restaurant to the other in just eleven minutes.
As a Transportation Solution
Concurrent with the first idea for the Peak 2 Peak Gondola, Ecosign was hired by the Resort Municipality of Whistler to complete a Comprehensive Transportation Strategy for the resort. The thinking then, was that it would be necessary to build a road from Function Junction, at the entrance of the Resort Municipality of Whistler, that by-passed the Whistler Creekside to move large flows of traffic directly to Whistler Village. This by-pass road, including intersections and bridges, had an estimated cost of about CAD $85 million (1997 dollars). It was also considered that Highway 99 within the Resort would almost surely have to be widened to four lanes to accommodate the ever increasing amounts of traffic. Armed with the new idea of the Peak 2 Peak, Mathews and consulting transportation engineers Reid Crowther built a transportation and traffic model that proved that with the Peak 2 Peak, it was unlikely that these large and expensive highway upgrades would be necessary. If the Peak 2 Peak tramway were built, day skiers and overnight guests could simply go to the lift closest to their parking or accommodation and quickly access the mountain of their choice or in fact ski both mountains.
Whistler and Blackcomb have five entry portals: Whistler Creekside, Whistler Village to Whistler Mountain, Whistler Village to Blackcomb Mountain, the Wizard base to Blackcomb Mountain and Base II on Blackcomb. Without the Peak 2 Peak, people parking or sleeping in any one of these five neighbourhoods or entry portals normally must move by car or bus to the portal of their choice. The transportation model proved that cables strung across the valley connecting the two mountains could save the Resort Municipality of Whistler the huge expense and the environmental impacts of a four lane highway bisecting the Whistler Valley. While certain people wonder at the cost of the Peak 2 Peak Gondola, Whistler/Blackcomb may well have saved local taxpayers in the order of CAD $100 million.
A Big WOW Factor
We are confident that the Peak 2 Peak Gondola will bring a new attraction to Whistler and Blackcomb. By traveling up the Wizard and Solar Coaster high speed chair lifts to the Rendezvous Restaurant on Blackcomb Mountain, then across the Fitzsimmons Valley to the Roundhouse Restaurant on Whistler Mountain and back down 5 kilometers on the Whistler Express to Whistler Village, tourists in summer and winter will have traveled 13.6 kilometers on a connected aerial ropeway system. The views of the resort development in the valley and the pristine wilderness of the glaciers in Garibaldi Park will provide unsurpassed views and unique mountain experiences for people of all ages from around the world.
Ecosign’s Responsibility on the Peak 2 Peak
- Development of the General Concept
- Refinement on the concept with the Whistler/Blackcomb Management Team
- Evaluation of Different Systems
- Detailed Terminal Site Planning
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