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Silver anniversary for Aspen's Silver Queen |
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Monday, November 21, 2011 06:23 |
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Photo by The Aspen Times
By SCOTT CONDON, THE ASPEN TIMES
ASPEN — The Silver Queen will celebrate her silver anniversary this ski season.
The Silver Queen Gondola was installed 25 years ago and opened in December 1986. Once in operation, it altered the skiing experience on Aspen Mountain and contributed to economic changes that swept the town in the next few years.
The biggest change was reducing the riding time from about 45 minutes on three open-air chairlifts to 14 minutes in enclosed cabins.
“You sort of had to pack a lunch to get to the top of Aspen Mountain,” said Bill Kane, who worked for Design Workshop 25 years ago and helped with the planning of The Little Nell hotel and the gondola plaza. The Skico's five-star hotel opened in 1989, but the hotel, gondola and plaza were planned together.
Pre-gondola, skiers on the east side of the mountain loaded the short Little Nell Chair, hopped on the Bell Mountain Chair and then made it to the mountaintop on the predecessors of the current Gent's Ridge and Ajax Express chairlifts, or they rode Chair 6 over to the Ruthie's side of the mountain.
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