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Give us a lift ...

9th June 2010, by Wendy King

Solar powered ski lift

When is a cable car not a cable car exactly? Er … when it is a gondola really. On a recent trip to Spain I was asked ‘what is a gondola?’ Out there, these lifts are just called cable cars or telecabins, whatever. In fact, many resorts use the term ‘cable car’, when to us it’s a ‘gondola’.

Language differences are one of the things we face when editing our chapters; how we express our questions can help but, in this case, capacity usually gives it away. In another example we happily went along with the ‘village’ to mean the resort itself. Not quite. A closer look, and we discovered it was also used to define an area where the lifts and pistes end – but there is no village.

Then there is the question of when something is, or is not, ‘new’. We pounce on any splendid sign pronouncing a new development or addition, often to reveal these ‘new’ items opened two seasons previously. But it’s all good, detective stuff and a great sense of achievement once you’ve thrashed it out (and hopefully got the right answer!).

So, back to the lifts … we like new lifts; they give us something meaty to pop in our news boxes. And we love working out where a new one will actually go, especially if a change is major or will relieve a notorious bottleneck. Then again, often it’s the little things that can be of greatest interest … As I knuckle down to the last batch of my resort edits this year, I’ll leave you with a neat innovation: the solar powered draglift, coming to a Swiss resort shortly. No, not Verbier. Tenna. Where?

Tiny Tenna in Switzerland’s Safiental region is to install a solar powered draglift, the first in the country. What’s more, the new lift is a replacement for the only ski lift in the village – now forty years old and needing to be retired. The eco-friendly tow is powered using a series of solar panels attached overhead, the length of the lift. The resort is in a sunny spot, hence the villager’s decision to try this innovation.

The 500m long solar ski lift will serve the tiny community (110 residents) and its small tourism industry, which is mainly based around ski touring and quiet family holidays rather than downhill. It’s costing Tenna 300,000 CHF to install, but makes little impact on the environment. There is a similar lift in Austria’s SkiWelt region, built at Brixen im Thale a couple of seasons ago.

The techy diagram for those (like us!) who like to know more.

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