The excitement at Eastlink Park is as big as the new changes!

Staff and volunteers up at Eastlink Park are itching for the chance to take their massive new addition for a test run. As previously reported, the T-bar expansion is in full swing. The volunteers who are putting in countless hours to get it ready are akin to magical fairies, sprinkling their dust along the newly developed terrain. Since the last update, the cable is now up on the wheels and is a continuous loop. They also put in a communication cable up the middle of the hill, which lets the top communicate with the bottom. “It has the emergency stop switches on it. If the lift attendee needs to stop it, they can do it from the top and bottom of the hill,’ explained volunteer extraordinaire, Guye Lappin.

Operations Managers Brett Stark and Allison Kiffiak (also the Safety Manager) are both very excited to see everyone’s reaction to the new hill. “My excitement has gone from a four to a nine-point five now. With the weather getting colder and the snow coming, if COVID stays away, we’ll be laughing,” said Stark. “The best part is the different ages of riders that we can get here now. Rather than just catering to the younger kids, we can cater to teenagers and adults, and everyone can enjoy the hill.”

Kiffiak agreed. “I’m stoked! We have your average green and blue runs, but we will be able to mess around with our snow on this new side and make something more difficult for higher-level skiers to enjoy. I think that’s what I’m most excited about!” Lappin explained his excitement level by lifting his arm high above his head with a massive smile on his face. “It’s about this high,” he said with a chuckle. One of the most exciting parts of the project involves the treed areas that flank the new hill. Lappin said that they knew there would be some great spots to ski and make trails in the trees but once the volunteers started clearing, it proved to be even better than imagined.

“The tree skiing is going to be amazing! The kids that have been out here to help with the clean up are just so excited. They are jumping all over and planning. My grandson has been here, I don’t know how many times, and every time he comes, he’s got another place for a run or jump planned out,” explained Lappin. The cleanup involved removing the brush and downed branches from within the wooded areas, enabling skiers to carve new trails. “It will be something new every day with new weather conditions and new snow conditions,” said Stark. “There will always be something new to try, and new paths carved out by skiers as it snows.”

Having the T-bar in place opened the hill by leaps and bounds. “The skiable area grew by at least four times the size. The two-minute ride up to the top is going to be amazing,” said Stark. By comparison, the carpet lift takes about three and a half minutes to get riders up to the platform. The T-bar is bringing riders double the distance and shaving more than a minute off the time. There will be 38 T’s on the cable to carry passengers that will be spaced roughly six seconds apart, about 35ft. “It’s a recoil box,” explained Lappin. “As it goes up the hill, this rope comes out with a T on the bottom of it, and it goes across your butt, pulling you up the hill. When it gets to the top, it recoils back in and goes to the bottom.”

Typically, the price for this type of lift is near half a million dollars. “We don’t have anywhere near that into it thanks to the town and the volunteers. Selling it for scrap metal would’ve brought in more money than what we paid for it,” said Lappin. Amazingly, he said that the lift used to be in Cold Lake and moved to Whistler, but it would not fit their terrain. “They wanted to see it back in operation. Why junk something usable?” With a little love and some elbow grease, the lift is nearly back to its glory, ready to share in the fun at Eastlink Park.

Before officially opening, the lift will be thoroughly inspected by government inspectors and need the green light from the engineers who designed it. “That’s a big process. We have already got a date set for that in November, so it’s going to be ready to go,” said Lappin. Stark said that had it not been for the volunteers and everyone who donated, the project would have been a five-year-plan instead of a whopping year-and-a-half plan.

Another change for skiers to expect is accessing the hill’s bottom from the Pembina Trail’s exit. In previous seasons, skiers would scoot under a fence to access the hill’s base area, below the tube run. “They had been ducking in there anyway, so we will let them go and access that area. We will experiment with it,” explained Lappin.

With a changing landscape in the treed areas and hills for all levels, Eastlink Park staff said they can’t wait for the skiers to get on the hill and see all the hard work that happened in the off-season. “With COVID and many other sports cancelled, this is a great way for kids to get out and get fresh air and exercise. It also gets parents off the couch and off the Netflix. Get here, and let’s go,” said Stark with a smile.

As with everything else, there will be COVID precautions in place and information on that will be released closer to opening day. “We will learn from the bigger hills because they usually open before us. We plan to open the first of December,” said Lappin, adding with a laugh that he has put in an order with the big guy for three feet of snow for the eighth of November. A big bonus is that skiing provides natural social distancing because it is nearly impossible to be closer than six feet when out on the hill. “Even though your social distancing, you’re still getting that interaction with other people, besides the people in your home, and that’s so important for everybody,” said Kiffiak.