Construction underway on Great Bear Ski Valley's new $1.4M chair lift

Great Bear Ski Valley is a step closer to its new chair lift after wrapping up a three-week project disassembling its 40-year-old predecessor earlier this spring.

The Sioux Falls Planning and Development Services Department on May 4 issued a building permit valued at $1,379,000 for the construction of the new lift was issued to SkyTrac Services Inc., the Utah-based project contractor.

The entire project is expected to run $1.8 million, according to Great Bear General Manager Dan Grider.

The city of Sioux Falls, which owns the the winter recreation park, is covering about $1.6 million of project costs with its third-party manager, Great Bear Managing Inc., covering the difference.

"We'll miss the old chair, but we're really looking forward to this new chair," Grider said. "This is a new chapter at Great Bear."

While construction has just started, Grider says interested onlookers will start to see pieces of the new chair lift being built around June. The chair lift is expected to be completed by October — with enough time before Great Bear's winter sports season opening.

"That timeline will be very achievable," Grider said. "We've built six weeks between the end of the project and season opening just in case things get behind."

The chair lift will be slightly repositioned at the top and bottom of the hill, but it won't change any skiing or snowboarding trails. The entire system is hydraulically tensioned, meaning there will be more available space at the bottom of the hill to make the loading space larger, he said.

Unlike the what was on the old lift, the chairs of the new lift won't have a middle bar separating each side of the chair and instead will have a safety retaining bar across passengers laps. 

"These (changes) allow us to better maintain the snow in the loading area, and it's going to be an overall safer chair," Grider said.

The city donated the 40-year-old chair lift to Great Bear after it was torn down. The nonprofit will be selling the individual chairs to the public, Grider said, adding that more details about how to purchase a chair will be announced May 17.