Whistler-Blackcomb | Excalibur Gondola

When Blackcomb Mountain opened for the first time in 1980, it shared its main base area with Whistler's current base. The mountain was served by four 1980 Yan triples, running in a chain from bottom to top. Fitzsimmons Chair started at the base, Cruiser Chair was next, then Stoker Chair, and finally, Catskinner Chair, and after riding those, one would arrive at the current Rendezvous Lodge. Blackcomb finally got its own base area when Wizard Express and Solar Coaster Express were installed, creating a more direct route to the Rendezvous. However, access from the Whistler base was still on fixed grip lifts, and after Whistler installed the Whistler Village Gondola, Blackcomb decided they needed a gondola, too. In 1994, Doppelmayr installed the two-stage gondola, along with another detachable quad, the gondola replacing Fitzsimmons and Cruiser, and the detachable quad replacing Stoker. The gondola improved the capacity, and provides a much better way onto Blackcomb from Whistler.

Excalibur Gondola is a Doppelmayr eight passenger gondola. It contains two drive locations, Stage 1's drive at the downhill end of the mid-station, and Stage 2's drive at the top station. The lift features a train-driven contour that allows the lift to run as two different ones. While the gondola usually closes at 4:00 PM, the lower stage runs until 6:30 PM. Despite this, they don't separate the stages, and just force you off at mid. When Excalibur was built, it crossed over Wizard Express, with some tall towers. When that lift was replaced with the Blackcomb Gondola, the towers on Excalibur were re-profiled to cross underneath the new gondola. Because of the top terminal location leading only to the base of Excelerator Express partway up Blackcomb, it's sometimes dubbed "The gondola to nowhere". Because Excalibur was most likely a prototype, some of the components, like the chain-driven contour at the mid-station were completely new, and have not been maintained very well. This could mean a soon replacement, but there haven't been any announcements yet, so Excalibur will live on for now.

Timestamps:
0:00 Bottom Terminal
2:10 Stage 1 Ride Up
5:11 Base II Mid Station
6:50 Stage 2 Ride Up
13:08 Top Terminal

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