CARRABASSETT VALLEY — With winds gusting to 85 mph Friday, crews on the state’s highest ski mountain seemed undeterred as they readied Maine’s newest chairlift for its Saturday debut.

The grand opening for Sugarloaf’s $3 million Skyline Quad is set for noon. The lift’s only visitors Friday were mechanics, engineers, snow-making crews, resort supervisors, a reporter and a cameraman.

But for Steve Mayhew, lead engineer for the company that installed the lift, Friday was a good day.

Mayhew, of Doppelmayr/USA, has built lifts all over the country. On Friday, he was putting the finishing touches on his latest project.

Up on an aluminum ladder, he tucked a special heating tape, meant to help melt ice and snow from places it shouldn’t be, into position. He descended the ladder with a smile on his face and said that despite Friday’s gale, things looked good for the big show Saturday.

It was a day of bittersweet goodbyes for Mayhew, who said that while he’s worked on chairlifts all over, the places he remembers best are the places where the people stood out. Sugarloaf fits that bill, he said.

“Everybody worked together to get it done,” he said.

Rich “Crusher” Wilkinson, Sugarloaf Mountain director of operations, and others who had worked on the construction of the lift over the summer seemed as proud as new parents over their accomplishment.

They were happy to tout the lift’s safety features, including the two ways the lift can run without electricity. One involves a big diesel engine; the other involves hooking up a grooming machine’s hydraulic system to a hydraulic turbine in the lift’s engine house, which can also be used to move the chairs up the hill in an emergency.

Other components where safety features have been doubled include sensors on each tower over which the cable passes.

Electronic eyes watch that the cable stays centered on the sheaves it rolls over atop the towers. Also, circuit-breaking switches are in place that would shut the lift down if the cable goes out of alignment or slips off a sheave.

Beyond that, the size of the cable — bigger and heavier than a typical one — will help the lift run in more formidable winds. It also features a conveyor loading system that moves skiers or snowboard riders to a position to sit synchronized into the approaching chairs as they come into the loading area at a speed of 480 feet per minute,  about 5 mph.

The new chairlift replaces a pair of 35-year-old, double-passenger chairlifts known as Spillway East and Spillway West.

Last December, Spillway East was the scene of a mishap in which a cable derailed, causing several chairs to drop to the ground. Six people were injured in the accident that state investigators have said was caused in part by wind and in part by an ongoing adjustment. After the accident, Spillway was shut down for a while for inspections, investigations and repairs. This summer, the lift was removed entirely to be replaced.

Sugarloaf officials have said the new lift was on the agenda, even before the mishap, and was part of a previously unveiled 10-year  plan of improvements and investments. 

“This was always part of the plan,” Wilkinson said. “We were actually up here with Doppelmayr in November and December last year, before the incident, and had some rough surveys done.”

He said that even if the mishap had not occurred, there was a 90 percent chance that Sugarloaf’s parent companies, Boyne Resorts and CNL Income Properties, would have made the investment, anyway.

Designed to run low to the ground and protected by a 600-foot series of wind-blocking fences, the new chair is expected to run about 30 percent more than the one it replaces. It will also move more people faster and help to more evenly distribute them onto some of the resort’s most popular advanced and expert terrain. 

For lift manager Robert “Bobby” Roderick, the lift is a major highlight in a career that spans 30 years at the resort. He’s seen at least a half-dozen lifts installed over the years but said Friday the Skyline Quad will stand out for a couple of big reasons.

Roderick ushered in the resort’s first high-speed detachable lift, the SuperQuad, more than a decade ago. That lift dramatically changed the mountain’s dynamic.

“This is going to do the same thing,” Roderick said. “It’s going to relieve the SuperQuad quite good because there won’t be so many people riding the SuperQuad and because you can get to much of the same terrain from the new lift. It will put people on the hill faster and they will be able to get more runs for their money.”

sthistle@sunjournal.com