North Caucasus Resorts OJSC has completed the supply of equipment for the construction of the third line of the ropeway “Station Mir” - “Station Gara-Bashi” in the Elbrus region, which will take place at the height of 3847 meters. Eight-seat gondola-type cabins of POMA production and components thereto, including solar panels, arrived at the resort on Friday, September 4.
“Today the main stage of the construction and installation works has been fully completed. Under the technological supervision of French specialists, the rope for gondolas has been already stretched - the so-called splicing of the rope has been done. In September, the cabins of the ropeway will be installed, and then we will be able to proceed with the commissioning works,” said Svyatoslav Vilk, Deputy Director General of NCR OJSC.
He also noted that the lift will have solar panels - the solar energy will provide power to autonomous surveillance systems and backup electricity supply to the upper station of the cableway. “Thus, the cableway in the Elbrus region will be the highest in Europe and one of the most “green” thanks to the use of modern efficient ecological construction,” explained the representative of NCR OJSC.
The 3-d stage of the cableway from “Station Mir” to “Station Gara-Bashi” is being built by the company North Caucasus Resorts within the framework of development of the special economic zone of tourist-and-recreational-type in the Elbrus region included in the project of the tourism cluster. The cableway to Mount Elbrus will become the most high-located one in Russia and in Europe. Currently, the lift on the top of the Aiguille du Midi in the western part of the Mont Blanc massif, which is linked to the French resort of Chamonix, is considered to be the most high-located cableway in Europe.
Unlike the French lift that gives access only to the most complex freeride zone on Mount Elbrus, the new cableway will serve the comfortable track of “Gara-Bashi - Mir”, which is open to all categories of skiers, and which this year has been expanded and has become safer,” also noted Svyatoslav Vilk.
The lift commissioning is planned at the beginning of the ski season of 2015/2016. Its lower station will be located at the height of 3455 meters above sea level. The length of the cableway on the slope will reach 1675 meters, it has 12 supporting towers. After commissioning, its throughput would amount to 750 people per hour, and in the future it will be increased to 1500 people per hour.
Before the end of 2015, NCR OJSC will invest more than 1 billion rubles in the construction of the third line of the cableway, landscaping and expansion of the ski area.