As requested by ⁠‪@TheLewistownTrainspotter8102‬
John Paul Express was installed as a new expansion in 1998 along with the Allen Peak Tram (closed that day😢) for the 2002 Winter Olympics, where some of its main black-diamond runs like Grizzly Downhill & Wildflower Downhill hosted the Alpine Skiing courses and felt like more than enough for what they offer. Not just the runs, but John Paul itself is also very steep and lengthy which reminds me of Peruvian at Snowbird except John Paul has a more rolling profile while Peruvian is more of a roller-coaster feeling. John Paul is also open to sightseers and therefore, can be downloaded if guests wish along with Allen Peak which serves experts terrain only. The top of John Paul kinda feels like an angle station with Allen Peak Tram’s bottom, which like John Paul features the Spacejet terminal outer shell. John Paul is one of only 2 spacejet lifts in Utah, the other being Sun Peak at Park City. The other thing with guests downloading John Paul is that the area it serves feels a bit more geared towards experts even though there is one easy way down via the intermediate Mt Ogden Bowl Road. John Paul’s motor sound is reminiscent of modern Doppelmayr detachables of the same, so i suspected it may have been upgraded like maybe a few years or more ago. John Paul also features bottom terminal underground chair parking like its sister lift the Needles Gondola for all 127 chairs, espcially since there is a bit of variable weather for its vertical ascent. John Pail is one of those cool lifts that i hope Snowbasin takes care of and maintained and doesn’t have any high hours either unlike Needles which operates in the summer. I hope John Paul sticks around for a longer time to come.
Capacity: 2,000 per hour
Ride Time: 9.3 minutes
Vertical Rise: 2,435 ft
Length: 7,232 ft
Towers: 30
Carriers: 127
Design Speed: 1,000 fpm
Speed day of recording: 801 fpm
Filmed April 5th, 2024