Burke Gets Lifted

As the clock hits 8 am silence prevails across the mountain, the helicopter still isn't here yet.

It's a day late already, held up on a cell phone tower job in Maine, but word from the foreman is, it will be here by 9. Looking over the Mid Burke parking lot, workers busy themselves with bolting down one of the short columns that supports the base of the lift while they wait. Parts bins and rows of unstrung chairs are scattered around one lot, with organized rows of tower sections and cross arm assemblies for 17 lift towers waiting to be airlifted in another.

The steady low hum of massive metal rotors washes over the mountainside, workers and onlookers begin to stir with anticipation. The sound precedes the helicopter by what seems like two or three minutes. When the helicopter arrived (around 9:00am) they unloaded tools and supplies, fueled up and ran their pre-flight checks. Only an hour after they landed the towers were being flown up, starting with the last tower before the summit terminal and coming down.

Since they were starting way up top I decided to hike up and try to get a good vantage point for some photos as they came down. I was told that without a hard hat and high visibility vest I wasn't allowed within a hundred feet of the action or anywhere under the flight path. That presented some issues for me because a hundred feet of woods between you and your subject makes for nothing but good pictures of trees.

The new lift has been under construction since May, starting with the cutting of the path from the base of the lift up to the new summit. Clearing the path involved cutting down every tree and removing boulders, this is no easy task on the steep slopes of Burke.  After the path was cut wooden forms were built around bolt assemblies for the tower bases and the Sikorsky S-61 construction helicopter was flown in for the first time.

The helicopter was used to haul 6,000 pound loads of concrete up the mountain to forms that were too far away from the access road for trucks. The helicopter used a large container suspended from its belly by a steel cable. The container was filled from a cement mixer and then flew up the mountain and hovered over each form. The concrete was emptied into the form and the helicopter headed downhill to fill up again.

The woods along tower 9 seemed the best I thought to myself.  I surveyed every site from the bottom to tower 12 on my way up and 9 had the best cover and view of the foundation. Using a downed tree, loose branches and leaves I made a small hideout and set up my camera. The trail near tower 9 is quite straight so I had to hide long before the towers near me were being installed so I wouldn't be seen by the safety official that was looking downhill, for people doing exactly what I was doing.

It seemed like an hour before the helicopter finally hovered just above the ridge ahead of me, tower 10 was finally going in. Once I heard the helicopter start to leave I looked through the branches in my hideout and saw the crew coming over the ridge, leaving tower 10 almost as fast as the chopper. The jingling from their tools and harnesses was audible even over the sound of the rotors as they reached the foundation of tower 9.

By the time I stealthily weaseled out of my branch and log hideaway the chopper was back with the tower. The wind coming from the rotors was more intense than I had anticipated and not only had it knocked over my camera but it was pushing down on the trees around me so heavily I could no longer see through them. Making careful note of who was looking where, I moved up about ten feet and hid behind a large tree. Peaking around the edges I was only about thirty feet away from the tower and about ten from the safety official.

The crew on the ground guided the tower down by hand onto the bolts protruding from the foundation and screwed on the nuts to hold them in place. In the loud, unbelievably windy next two minutes the tower was in place, bolted and unhooked from the chopper. Then it went back down for the cross arm assembly which holds the sheave wheels and carries the weight of the cable.

As the safety official moved slowly downhill scanning the trail side to side I had to crouch down behind a downed tree to stay out of sight. Before he had moved far enough away for me get back into a position and keep shooting the helicopter was back with the cross arm.

When the cross arm came in it was guided into place with ropes by men on the ground while two more men climbed up the tower to bolt it down while the massive metal frame swung just inches above their heads. Almost as fast as the tower, it was over and everyone else moved to the next site while the two men on the tower tightened the bolts on the cross arm. A resounding "WHOAA!" echoed over the mountain as the two men came down and joined the other crew.

The rules stated that spectators could be above the sites so long as they had already be completed and the crew was further down, so I know they wouldn't say anything to me, besides, they were in too good of a mood. I came out of the woods not far behind them, they had all 17 towers were up by the end of the day with minimal delay.

Once the towers were in place the crew started the base and summit terminals. The terminals house the bull wheels that actually drive the cable, all of the chairs and the passengers up the mountain and the massive motor that provides the push.

The last step will be to run the cable from top to bottom and have it spliced together. There are only a handful of licensed lift cable splicers in the country due to the significance of the work. The cables is pulled apart on both ends, how far back you go is proportional to the length of the lift, the longer it is the longer the splice is. Half of the strands are then removed from each side and "married" back into each other.

Once the cable is up the chairs are attached, weighted down with more weight than they will hold under operation and tested. As long as everything stays in place that's it, the chair is complete and ready to ride.

Burke Mountain has been a staple of Lyndon State College Student's winter diet for decades. Its proximity to campus, quality of riding and value for money make it a no brainer for skiers and riders. The addition of the new lift this season makes that decision even easier. Five new trails and a brand new four person high speed quad, who wouldn't be excited? This lift will begin service at Mid-Burke and continuing onto a higher new summit and drastically reduce the time from mid burke to the top from fifteen minutes, to about five.