Will Solitude be selling chairs from Eagle Express?
It’s been the burning question since we announced that this would be Eagle’s final winter, and what a year to go out on. The Solitude Eagle Express Chair Auction is here. There’s some cool history behind this chair, Eagle Express was one of many upgrades implemented by former owner, Gary DeSeelhorst that would benefit the mountain for years to come.
Local skiers will have a chance to claim their own piece of Solitude’s historic Eagle Express this summer. Starting August 1, online bidding will open for 7 days with 75 chairs from the retired lift up for auction. All proceeds will go to the Solitude Fund. This new initiative will be in place to assist Solitude staff that experience unexpected hardships.
Sure, you can find chairlift “inspired” seating online these days, but nothing beats the real deal. Owning a chair from your favorite mountain means you can hop on the lift anytime. They make great porch swings, entryway seating, and patio furniture. Being 4-person chairs, you’ll always have room for a few friends and yes, the seat pads are included.
Eagle’s not the oldest lift, why is it being replaced?
Simply put, because it needed to be. Eagle Express was installed in 1989, at the dawn of high-speed chairlift technology. It was the first detachable chairlift in Utah, (beating Park City Mountain by just four days) but advances have been made since it was built, and sourcing replacement parts for this generation of machinery has become nearly impossible. Ultimately, it’s been the ingenuity of Solitude’s lift maintenance crew that’s kept Eagle flying for more than three decades. True, Sunrise and Link are older lifts, but the mechanical simplicity of fixed-grip chairs has made it easier to keep them spinning.
Check out the Solitude Mountain Blog for more updates.