The WayBack Machine - Aspen Lift 1

"Set the WayBack machine, Sherman, to January 11, 1947. Today we'll see the dedication of Aspen's 1st chairlift."

Welcome to Lift 1 Park. Aspen's skiing history began in 1936 with the first lift, the Boat Tow, built in 1936 starting on this spot. That original lift (parts of which still exist) was replaced with Lift 1, the first chairlift of Aspen in 1946, the remains of which are here in Lift 1 park.

Construction of Lift 1 began June 24, 1946 and the lift began operation Dec 14, 1946 with it's sister Lift 2. Lift 1 ran from this spot to what is now the top of the F.I.S lift along Corkscrew and Roch Run. Lift 2 opened the same day and ran from there to the original Sun Deck. The first person to ride Lift 1 was Friedel Pfeifer who was an Austrian international ski race champion and built his own ski school in Aspen in 1945 and helped establish both the Aspen and Buttermilk ski areas (you can see a statue of him in the Gondola Plaza).

The dedication of the lift came later on Jan 11, 1947 and was attended by the govenor of Colorado and 2,000 aspenites. And in 1948 the lift was a cover story in Popular Mechanics as an engineering marvel.

Lift 1 was a one seat lift which had 49 towers and was 8,480ft long (1.6 miles) with a rise of 2,574ft . It took 30 minutes to ride Lift 1 and 2 all the way to the top of Aspen Mtn, if the lift didn't stop which was very frequent, and not including the long lift line. The time spent on the lift was so long that to keep people warm there was a heavy orange canvas coat attached to each chair and there was a warming hut at the top of Lift 1. When the lift first opened, it was the longest chairlift in the world and held that record for 10 years. Tickets cost $2/ride or $3.75/day or $140 for the season.

Lift 1's last day was April 11, 1971 after which it was replaced by the current two seater Lift 1A - Shadow Mountain lift. The replacement Lift 1A only goes half the distance of the original lift

Lift 1 is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, one of only two chair lifts in the country that hold that title. This bottom station as well as the concrete foundations of the towers are all that remain of the original Lift 1, and this area was made into a park to preserve them.

The cache itself is accessible year round, even after heavy snows.