Tuesday marked the last day skiers at AltaSkiArea could catch one of Albion’s 153 chairs for a leisurely, 12-minute ride up the mountain.
Skiers revel in a little bit of Alta history as they ride the Albion two-person ski lift on its final day of operation on Tuesday, April 12, 2022. Installed in 1962, the lift will be torn down in addition to the Sunnyside lift that services the same area to make room for a new six-person high-speed lift next season.Rather than a rock tune, Fabio Eatone chose to blast Enrique Iglesias’ “Hero” from his speakers Tuesday as he rode the Albion Lift at Alta Ski Area for the last time.
“It’s sort of part of Alta,” said Chris Mattern, who was visiting from Greensboro, N.C., “like the historic, classic ski area.” It was upgraded in 1976, but when Sunnyside was built in 1983 to service the same beginner area, Albion became largely superfluous. Recently, it has gained a reputation as the ski area’s resident “unicorn” because of how infrequently it operates.“It was always a fabled ride, and it has been closed since I’ve ever known it, which, you know, is one season,” said Masterson, who works at the Goldminer’s Daughter Lodge with most of the crew he rode with Tuesday.
Schmid also remembers that after lunch, lift operators at the top of Albion were given an odd directive: Keep an eye out for kids who, after filling their bellies, had been rocked to sleep during the long, swaying journey. “It needs to stay a two-chair,” George Rey said. “It’s limited terrain, so, like, you put twice as many people up there and it’s going to get skied out.