Industry News
Perisher Resort, Australia, has shared a behind-the-scenes look at its new six-chair construction at Mount Perisher at the Perisher Media Day on Wednesday, December 4. The new six-seater Doppelmayr chair lift replaces the 63-year-old Perisher fixed-grip double-chair and 45-year-old Perisher fixed-grip triple-chair. Vail Resorts, which purchased Perisher in 2016, had lodged a development application for the new six-chair in December 2019, which was approved in September 2021. Although plans for a new chair date back approximately 20 years, according to Shaun Turner, General Manager at Doppelmayr.
“We started probably thinking about [a lift at] Mt. Perisher about 20 years ago. When it first came across my desk at the time, I was really, really excited about this build because we’re going to build the highest lifted point in Australia.”
— Shaun Turner, General Manager, Doppelmayr Australia
Construction for the six-chair started in 2023 at the end of the ski season, with some groundwork and concreting being done and the disassembly of the old double chair. This year, at the end of the season, the triple-chair was dismantled. The new top station has been set up at what will now be Australia’s highest lifted point at 2,042 meters (6,699 feet). However, it is just a few meters shy of being Australia’s highest structure, which is held by the toilet block at Rawson Pass. Construction has not been without its special challenges, Turner admits. The access road has a 40% gradient in parts, “which is basically the maximum you can drive a 4WD car with diff lock. You know, you can start to feel it on a slippery day.” There is protected flora and fauna to deal with, including the Guthega Skink, “so we have to be super careful that we don’t dig it up or disturb its habitat.” There are bog conditions at the bottom and the hardest granite rock at the top of the site, meaning the crew never knows what to expect on the mountainous construction site.
“You know, it’s hard work at 2,000 meters (6,560 feet). I have had one of the employees come up to me and said, ‘You know, the only thing that I could compare this to is preparing and walking the Kokoda track’.”
— Shaun Turner, General Manager, Doppelmayr Australia
For Turner, the hardest challenge thus far has been getting the top station in place. Getting the crane up the 40% gradient gave him some sleepless nights, he admits.
- Related: Jindabyne, Australia, Gets Own Concrete Manufacturing Facility for Construction of Perisher 6-Chair
The new six-person chairlift by Doppelmayr will operate at a speed of 4.5 meters per second, cutting travel time up the mountain from 11 minutes for the double-chair and 10 minutes for the triple-chair to a mere 5 minutes 31 seconds, cutting uphill time in half. With a capacity of 3,000 people per hour, this increases uphill traffic on Mount Perisher by 60%. The faster load and unload at each end is anticipated to facilitate greater circulation and flow of guests around the mountain. Michael Fearnside, Perisher’s Mountain Operations Director, explains that this was also the reason the Leichhardt chair was completed first in order to find a more efficient system to get guests back to Front Valley than the Leichhardt t-bar, as this doubled capacity at this bottleneck to 2,300 people per hour.
The removal of 27 lift towers on Mount Perisher will result in an entirely different riding experience. In addition, some of the granite rocks at the top were blasted to allow smoother riding. The run formerly known as “Towers” might have to be renamed, with only 10 new lift towers supporting the state-of-the-art Doppelmayr chair. Skiers will be able to ski straight from the unloading at the top station to Shifty’s on the skier’s right and Sun Valley on the skier’s left without the need to hike or cross the Eyre t-bar. The Eyre t-bar station has been moved down approximately 12 (39 feet) to facilitate this. This does not impact the vertical of the Eyre t-bar as the unloading remains in the exact same position and just impacts the turning-around point of the t-bars. Other exciting news from the Eyre-side of the Mount Perisher region of the resort is the construction of five toilets at Eyre, which, formerly had none, forcing riders to return to the double chair bottom station, adding to queues at the foot of Mount Perisher. Food options at Eyre will also be expanded and a full menu will be planned for that food outlet.
The food and beverage options at the old double chair will remain as they were for the upcoming season to evaluate requirements before making any changes. However, access will be created from a window on the other side with ski storage racks and outdoor picnic tables on the former loading platform, with some of the quaint old infrastructure remaining to honor the history of the 63-year-old double chair. The new bottom station at Mount Perisher will be situated in the proximity of the old triple-chair loading area but will be a bit further down to allow for easy skiing and boarding from Snow Drift to the six-chair.
The new bottom station will feature a storage hub for the chairs which will be retracted and stored over night. The state-of-the-art Doppelmayr system can automatically upload the chairs from the hub, eliminating the need to manually upload them. This will make it faster and more efficient to get the chair ready in the mornings and maximize time on the mountain for Perisher guests. In addition, this also means that the comfortable seats of the new six-chair will stay nice and dry overnight. Other features of the new six-chair include a loading conveyor at the bottom station, like at Leichhardt and V8, for smooth and efficient loading
In windy conditions, the smart Doppelmayr technology can detect the movement of the rope in the sheave and adjust the lift speed to the conditions automatically. The system automatically picks up any changes, including the build-up of ice, and will adjust operation speed automatically. According to Turner, this ensures the lift can run for longer in windy conditions than previously possible. “What we found is that actually, if you slow down by one meter a second is is safer than to stop, because what happens is that the wind gusts stop and it brings [the rope] back in the line.” Shaun Turner explains that the chair was specifically calibrated to Australian wind conditions, with each chair having a similar weight to the V8 but a smaller surface area, thus providing more stability and less need for windhold. “Australian resorts can be a bit windier than other places, so that’s sort of been a bit of a challenge.” Together with headquarters in Austria, the system was custom-designed to Australian conditions, “which also means that they can run comfortably in wind conditions that they didn’t possibly know.”
Seeing the sleek new top station in its place at Australia’s highest lifted point, as well as being able to see the sheer scale of the new six-chair project firsthand, has us pumped for the 2025 ski season in Australia. Mount Perisher offers some of the most advanced and adventurous at Perisher Resort, and the high-tech chair and new, open terrain the removal of the 27 towers will invariably create will certainly make for the most modern lift experience on an entirely new terrain at Mount Perisher. The future is here—and it’s exciting!
