Vincent was assigned on Saturday night to work the terrain park lift, Evvy's Double Nickel. On his walk over to the chair, Vincent commenced to chew things over in his head. His first thoughts were linear, pedestrian and safe: It's 5:30pm now, I work until 10pm. It's 28º. Press the green button to start the lift. The Partek triple chair, installed in 2003, has a capacity of 1,800 passengers an hour and top ends at 400 feet a minute. Then, things got interesting. His thoughts began to humanize a bit. Evvy's Double Nickel...Vincent wondered just who this Evvy was. Perhaps she was a lifelong Bradford skier, or an instructor or a Patroller, who just loved this side of the hill. Perhaps she was someone's beloved. Perhaps she was someone's grandmother. Was she still alive? Or was the chairlift simply commemorating her life well-lived? She seemed to be revered at Ski Bradford. After all, she was the only person to have two things named after her--the gentle tree run above the chair was called, Evvy's Glades.
Vincent thought of a stroll he had once made through a cemetery. Such tranquility. Seeing all the headstones. Reading the inscriptions. Imagining the vicissitudes of each individual life. Meditating on mortality. And now, just this. It really put things into perspective.
Vincent thought it ironic that the hill on which Ski Bradford stands is called Dead Hill. Actually, Vincent found a lot of life there. He just had to smile. Thank you, Evvy.
About Partek Ski Lifts:
Partek Ski Lifts was a small aerial lift company founded by Hagen Schulz in 1996, the son of Gary Schulz, who was the founder and owner of Borvig Ski Lifts. When Borvig closed in 1993, Hagen Schulz was quick to act and started his own ski lift company.
Using a lot of Borvig's lift designs, Hagen was able to sell two chairlifts his first year to Jiminy Peak, MA and Shawnee, PA. In 2004, Partek decided that it wanted to enter into the high-speed detachable lift market. It's unclear on how far Partek got in its design process for its detachable lift before Doppelmayr CTEC purchased the company January 22, 2005. Along with the purchase of Partek, Doppelmayr CTEC also purchased all of Borvig's lift patents too. Hagen Schulz now works for Doppelmayr CTEC as a sales consultant and runs Ski Lift Parts Inc.
Schulz said of the deal, "It was becoming economically challenging to manufacture and sell new lifts without a complete product line which would have included developing a detachable grip lift. The cost to develop a detachable product would have imposed a significant financial risk to Partek when the ski lift market has little opportunity for growth. The high cost of liability insurance made doing business producing new lifts additionally prohibitive."
During its time as a lift manufacture, Partek was able to install 24 lifts in North America, with its last one being installed at Willard Mountain, NY in the summer of 2005.
Thanks to SkiLifts.org
