A few of us (Kricket, Bill, Rob and Heidi Westover and I) stopped by Northeast Slopes in East Corinth, VT on our way to see a ski film in Bradford, VT. We wanted to take a closer look at the setup of two of their rope tows.
I first visited Northeast Slopes with Kricket and brother Pete Fellows back in the winter of '07. Northeast Slopes feels more like a typical Vermont farm field than a ski area. They claim to have the oldest continuously operating ski tow in North America (since 1936). They also claim to have the fastest rope tow in the world with speeds of 27.5 mph.
I remember watching Kricket grab the rope for the first time. She nearly face planted. She didn't expect the tow to move as fast it did. When it was my turn to get on the rope I offered to let a little girl go ahead of me. The girl insisted that I go first - so I did and as soon as I got on the girl jumped on the tow directly behind me. I thought it seemed a little odd at first. Later on I noticed that almost all of the other kids were also doing the same thing. Riding the tow directly behind a larger adult. The weight of the rope was a lot for the kids to hold up by themselves so by riding behind an adult they didnt have to hold the weight of the rope up.
When we recently visited Northeast Slopes this fall, we met up with one of their local volunteers, Josh Allen, who explained the ins and outs of their tows. It was valuable to hear about their experiences over the years and find out what worked or didn't work so well. Keeping the tow line as straight as possible (including return wheels) helps reduce twisting in the rope. There is likely to be at least some twisting but you want to keep it to a minumum. Too much twist can be dangerous as loose clothing or long hair can easily get wrapped up in the rope. We also learned about their counterweight pulley system and how that helps keep the rope tensioned correctly when more than one person is using the rope at a given time.
Here we're checking out the smaller of the two tows (the beginner hill).
The counter weight pulley setup was fairly simple.
The power station was an old car (I'm guessing from the 70's) that had a bull wheel mounted off of the main drive shaft.
The rope went around the bull wheel twice in a double wrap.
Here is tow from the bottom of the hill.
They had a pretty clever emergency stop gate at the top of the hill. Since Northeast Slopes is a public ski area they have to pass tramway license inspections.
The main tow is about 1200' long (which is 300' longer than our tow). There is a new T-bar that runs up the hill next to the tow.
Here is a view of the main tow and T-bar from the bottom.
The main tow had a larger pulley and counter weight setup.
The tow drive was off an old farm truck. The truck bed was removed and the bull wheel is mounted where the bed used to be. A chain drive was used to link to the rear wheels to the bull drive. The main tow had the rope triple wrapped around the bull wheel.
They also had a nice lift operator shack. Notice the throttle on the wall - it was taken from an old boat.
After checking out the ski tows we went and watched a new film called "United We Ski" by T-bar films. It's an excellent film about small Vermont ski areas. The film included Northeast Slopes as well as a few other areas in Vermont such as a private family tow in the Northeast Kingdom. It was great to get a better idea of how other small tows operate. Check it out at www.t-barfilms.com
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