How a last-minute Forest Service approval allowed Vail’s new Sun Down Express chair to open this season

Mid-winter excavation work is not ideal but had to be done this season in order to get Vail’s new Sun Down Express lift up and running in January.

White River National Forest Supervisor Scott Fitzwilliams said the Forest Service was notified by Vail Resorts in January that some additional excavation work would be required on the Sun Down Express in a surprise change of plans.

“Kind of a weird one, because usually, they have pretty straightforward calculations,” Fitzwilliams said during a recent phone interview.

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Vail Resorts spokesperson John Plack said engineers needed to create some more room for the chairs near the bottom of the lift.

“Chair 17 needed additional clearance for the chairs at the lower terminal,” Plack said. “This clearance is required by the Colorado Passenger Tramway Safety Board.”

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Fitzwilliams said Vail Resorts was given the approval to remove additional dirt in January, requiring an excavator to be mobilized in the area.

“We let them move some dirt and do some initial seeding, and we’ll go back this spring and see exactly what else needs to be done,” Fitzwilliams said.

Fitzwilliams said a late change like that is a rare occurrence.

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“Usually those are pretty well sorted out, but in this case, somehow the calculations weren’t right, or when they installed it on the ground things were different than on paper, which occasionally happens, and so they had to move some more dirt around to make sure they had enough clearance for the chairs,” Fitzwilliams said.

Plack said the work to adjust the clearance was conducted in accordance with Vail Mountain’s Winter Operating Plan with the U.S. Forest Service.

The Chair 17 Sun Down Express was initially approved back in 2008, as part of the same approval that upgraded Chair 5 from a three-seat fixed-grip lift to a detachable quad.

An early idea for the lift had it loading from Two Elk Creek, with a road connecting it to the bottom of Blue Sky Basin, which would have created another egress route out of Blue Sky Basin. But the additional road which would be required near Two Elk Creek complicated the idea, and a simpler plan to have the lift load from the same area as Chair 5.

Over the summer and fall, a retaining wall in the area was pushed back further into the hillside to create more room for Chair 17. But the low clearance area for the chairs at the lower terminal was not shaved down enough to adhere to Colorado Passenger Tramway Safety Board standards, requiring the 11th-hour approval and excavation work.

Fitzwilliams said the late-breaking soil disturbance will require some additional monitoring this summer as revegetation work is conducted in the area, but shouldn’t be a major issue.

“The revegetation plan aligns to our original approved spring and summer revegetation plan in that area,” Plack said.