Into the champagne powder at high speed

In the middle of the Rocky Mountains, at an elevation of over 2,000 meters, lies one of the largest ski resorts in North America: Steamboat in Colorado. Six mountains with over 160 runs offer more than 1,350 hectares of moguls, wide groomed runs, steep slopes, narrow gorges and open meadows. The "champagne powder", a particularly fine, dry and light powder snow, which is very common here, is legendary. Another highlight of the ski resort: the fastest cable car in North America, called Wild Blue.

Wild Blue – designed by the Austrian aerial lift manufacturer Doppelmayr - can boast some impressive figures:  

• With a length of approx. 5.6 kilometers, Wild Blue is the longest gondola in North America.  
• It transports guests from the Steamboat Square valley station to the mountain station near Sunshine Peak located at 10,384 feet within 13 minutes and travels at a speed of 23 feet per second.
• Each gondola has room for ten people. The 171 gondolas in the ski area can now transport 10,000 people up the mountain per hour - before Wild Blue, the figure was 6,000.  

The ropeway has the world's largest direct drive for a gondola system, the Doppelmayr Direct Drive. The gearless drive concept connects the electric engine directly to the drive pulley that moves the haul rope. According to the manufacturer, the drive is particularly low-vibration and low-noise, energy-saving and easy to maintain.“Wild Blue has provided a huge jump in our out-of-base capacity on high visitation days,” said Corey Peterson, Vice President of Mountain Operations, Steamboat Ski & Resort Corp.

mtu gensets provide emergency power at elevation

Doppelmayr has installed three mtu emergency gensets with Series 2000 engines to ensure that no customer gets stuck at lofty heights because the ropeway comes to a halt. Each of the mtu generators provide 2,800 horsepower and offer a standby mode capacity of 1010 KVA and a prime mode capacity of 800 KVA. To ensure the Wild Blue is never without power, the gondola’s operators can start up the generators within 60 seconds via the system’s manual transfer switch if grid electric service goes down. Even at elevation, the mtu units still provide enough output to power the fully loaded gondola system. “Meeting the system's power requirements was further complicated by the need to adjust for the reduced air density at the higher elevation of Steamboat,” explains Darrell Caldwell, mtu Engineering Sales for Smith Power. The Rolls-Royce sales and service partner planned and implemented the project together with engineers from Rolls-Royce and Doppelmayr. “It was an exciting journey watching the project come to completion and we're looking forward to visiting each winter to see the new system in full operation", said Caldwell.  

Already having a full season of operation under its belt, the Wild Blue stands ready to delight and transport skiers and riders during the 2024-2025 ski season - at high speed into the champagne powder.