Breckenridge Ski Resort opened for the season this past Friday (11/10). With the launch of their opening day, Breck offered immediate access to the brand new FIVE SuperChair. I headed to Breck for opening weekend, and I can confirm that the new lift is solidly running as planned!
The FIVE SuperChair is a high-speed quad which replaced the unbelievably old 5 Chair double. This new lift closely follows the original towers, though the new towers are to the side of the alpine slide instead of directly over it. This new lift doesn’t access any new terrain and strictly serves as a capacity improvement.
Having used the original 5 Chair, I would say this new lift is a huge improvement for the resort. The FIVE SuperChair now allow’s Breck to boast that all of the Peak 8 base area lifts are at least high-speed quads. Breck anticipates this improvement (along with last year’s opening of the new Rip’s Ride) to allow for quicker egress out of the base area and shorter lines.
An immediately evident improvement was the ride time. The previous ride time was over 7 minutes, and the new ride time is just over 3. I would anticipate this ride time improvement to actually be greater during peak season due to reduced stopping. The previous lift had the typical swing of a fixed grip, and this swing paired with the tight two-person fit caused a lot of beginners to completely biff loading the lift. This lift used to stop all the time, and hopefully that will be less of an issue in the future.
Another huge improvement to the beginner experience is the unloading pitch. If you’ve ridden the old chair, then you know just how surprisingly steep the unloading zone was. Beginners would fall constantly, and skiers/snowboarders would crash into each other all the time. The new pitch is much more mellow and wider to accommodate the new lift. While this won’t prevent all newbies from falling, I would bet these falls and collisions will be greatly reduced.
Lastly, the new lift maze is aligned better to the base area. The maze entrance is now easy to ski into from the main run Springmeier. It allows for better crowd flow compared to the past lift, which required a good amount of speed and traffic crossing in order to make it the lift without taking your skis off.
Overall, I’m impressed by how much of an improvement this new lift is to the beginner experience at Breck. I’m excited to see how the crowd flow improves this season as a result of the FIVE SuperChair. Fingers crossed for shorter lift lines! Check out the opening day highlight reel from Breck below:
Photos and Video Courtesy of Breckenridge Ski Resort and skiingsolo