I’ll admit, I was saddened to hear that Solitude was replacing the classic Summit double chairlift with a high speed quad called the Solitude Summit Express. That old Summit lift was among my favorites for powder skiing in Utah along with Alta’s Wildcat, Snowbird’s Gad 2 and Brighton’s Millicent (of those three, only Alta’s Wildcat remains as a double.) Some of my favorite memories at Solitude were accessed from that slow-moving chair. Hell, one day I think I saw God while skiing two feet of powder in the Headwall Forest just below the Summit chair terminus. But times change.
As soon as Deer Valley bought Solitude, one of their first announcements was the replacement of the Summit double with a high speed quad. Not only that, but the new lift would have a completely different realignment going over the very steep slopes of Parachute and Milk Run. Such a lift route was very hard to visualize, and doing so required a massive amount of grading and dirt work. A whole new ski run had to be carved into the Powderhorn Cirque to access the new lift terminal from the top of Apex. As the lift was built and Solitude opened for the season, many questions remained: Will a high-speed quad ruin the backcountry feel of Honeycomb Canyon? Will powder get tracked out faster?
Months later, I finally took a ride on the Summit Express. It was a warm, bluebird day. Powder had not fallen in a few weeks, but the snow was soft and fun. To get to the new lift, I rode Apex, and skied down the new Summit Access West run, which was literally blasted out of the mountainside. In just a few minutes, I was at the base of the Summit Express. I had to admit, this new way to get to summit was much faster, and preferable to riding the slow-as-hell Sunrise chair to get there.
On the lift, I was struck at how steep the Summit Express chair is. The terrain it crosses over is some of the gnarliest on the mountain. The alignment takes it up a steep ridge, then even more steeply down the other side. Below the chair, riders can view skiers and snowboarders attempting to navigate the most technical terrain at Solitude, which is accessed from the Parachute gate at the top of the Powderhorn 2 lift. It’s a fun ride, but too fast for my liking. One of the perks of riding a slower double is you can take time to eat lunch, drink a beer… er… I mean soda, and smoke whatever you got. There is no time for such luxuries on the Summit chair anymore.
At the top terminal, the new alignment drops skiers off just east of the old location, on the back side of the patrol cabin. Basically, access to Honeycomb Canyon, Fantasy Ridge, and the frontside Summit runs are the same.
Overall, while I will miss the old Summit chair, I admit it is nice to be able to get to Solitude’s best skiing in less time. That being said, Honeycomb Canyon was far more crowded and moguled-out than I have ever seen it. Either that’s because of the speed in which people can get there, or having a high-speed quad makes the area less intimidating to intermediate skiers. The effect is that Honeycomb now feels like a typical in-bounds area, instead of the quasi-backcountry experience the resort used to tout.
Also, the runs beneath the lift like Milk Run and Parachute are getting a lot more traffic. Perhaps it’s human nature to ski the stuff you can see, so by having a lift go directly over these once “secret stashes” the new lift realignment has “made them known.”
Still, it sure was awfully nice to get back to the top of Honeycomb Canyon in record time for laps all day without having to contend with the Sunrise lift over and over again. So while I’ll continue to morn the loss of yet another slow-as-hell double chair, you won’t hear me complaining too loudly as I am whisked up in record time to some of the best ski terrain in the Wasatch.
Just please, for the soul of skiing itself, don’t mess with the Wildcat double chair at Alta.