Bad Kleinkirchheim Installs New Bach Lift

Anyone who has started skiing in the Bad Kleinkirchheim ski area will definitely be familiar with the Bach area. Flat slopes, wide pistes and a separate children's area make it a popular hotspot not only for ski schools, but also for (re-)beginners. The Bad Kleinkirchheimer Bergbahnen group of companies already invested in the quality and size of this area in 2019. This project has now been complemented with the construction of the new stream lift.

The Bach area.

As the largest of four practice areas in the Bad Kleinkirchheim ski area, the Bach area is all about pizza, fries and a magic carpet. At a leisurely pace, you can make your first attempts on two boards and practice riding the lift with wobbly knees. In order to increase the feeling of safety on slippery surfaces, it is particularly important that the quality of the slopes is as consistent as possible and that the lift infrastructure is up-to-date.

Investment 2 of 2.

In 2019, the group therefore invested in new conveyor belts in the children's area, in widening the slope area and in renewing the snowmaking system in the area. With success, because this effort made a significant contribution to improving the quality of the entire practice area.

Now the second part of the project followed: the renewal of the existing stream lift. Around €1.2 million was invested in the new cable car system including the station building, ticket machine, barriers and terrain adaptations.

The technical details

The new lift is a 1-SL tow lift system from Doppelmayr / Garaventa. To be more precise, the S-Line model was chosen, which combines the highest quality, modern design and ease of maintenance. Incidentally, this is the first ski area in Carinthia to put this model into operation.

The Ferrari of drag lifts takes almost 700 people per hour from the valley station (1,035 m) to the reversal station on the mountain (1,098 m). And so that you can practice even more, it can even cover these 333 meters in less than 3 minutes.

Everything doesn't always go smoothly.

The planning phase of the new infrastructure took around a year. But as is often the case, not everything always goes according to plan when building the new Bach lift. Due to delaying general conditions that were beyond the control of the Bad Kleinkirchheimer Bergbahnen, the start of construction was delayed by several months. In mid-October 2023 the time had come. Now it was time for everyone involved to go full throttle so that we can ring in the Christmas holidays as planned with a new stream lift.

Adjust environment. First, those responsible took a close look at the area around the planned location of the lift. They discovered that when there is increased sunlight in spring, icy surfaces often form at the transition from the stream area to the valley station of the Maibrunnbahn. This is of course a big challenge for inexperienced skiers. With slight terrain adaptation in this area, this potential danger is now history.

From old to new. The old tow track was also used for the new lift. But first the old supports, ropes and driver's cabs had to go. With the help of a helicopter, the new supports were flown to their intended location and professionally installed. By the way, such a support weighs up to 1,800 kilograms. The associated conveyor rope was then pulled up and the rope spliced.

No lift without lift driver's cabs. With a truck delivery at the beginning of December, we received modern and technically well-equipped lift driver's cabs for the mountain and valley stations. In the valley area, we also expanded the existing infrastructure with a staffed ticket counter, a ticket machine and a large screen with current ski area information.

Bracket assembly. Finally, of course, the plates had to be mounted on the rope so that the various individual parts became a functioning lift system.

Acceptance and commissioning. Before things could officially start, a trial run was carried out together with the Doppelmayr team. This was followed by the preliminary technical survey by experts - before the new Bachlift could go into operation before Christmas with the final official approval.

At this point, the Bad Kleinkirchheimer Bergbahnen would like to thank everyone involved for their personal commitment, tireless flexibility and solution-oriented action in the new construction of the Bach lift.