{"id":46239,"date":"2021-06-16T00:50:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-16T06:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/lift-maintenance-at-purgatory-resort-prompts-vehicle-shuttles-for-bike-park\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:30:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:30:22","slug":"lift-maintenance-at-purgatory-resort-prompts-vehicle-shuttles-for-bike-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/lift-maintenance-at-purgatory-resort-prompts-vehicle-shuttles-for-bike-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Lift maintenance at Purgatory Resort prompts vehicle shuttles for bike park"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Mountain
Mountain Capital Partners mountain bike director Hogan Koesis, front, is key to Purgatory Resort bringing back a UCI mountain bike race to Durango this summer. In the new position, Koesis is involved in big projects at all of the collective&#x2019;s mountains, and the work he did to make Angel Fire a mountain bike destination has gained the attention of the entire industry.<\/span>Courtesy of Eric Berry<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Purgatory Resort\u2019s Bike Park will open Saturday, but cyclists will have to shuttle to the top of the mountain using a Forest Service road because Lift 1 is down for maintenance.<\/p>\n

During maintenance of Lift 1, workers discovered problems with the hollow shaft, and parts are on air-freight order from Europe. Purgatory Resort General Manager Dave Rathbun expects the lift will be back in operation by mid- to late-July.<\/p>\n

Cyclists will be allowed to shuttle their bikes to the top of the mountain in vehicles using a Forest Service road while the lift is closed, Rathbun said.<\/p>\n

Normally, Purgatory\u2019s lease with the Forest Service prohibits Purgatory\u2019s customers from using motorized vehicles on the Forest Service road, but an exemption has been allowed while Lift 1 is down, Rathbun said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lift is 21 years old. So when a lift gets to that age, and with that number of hours of operation, it requires some of the major components to be inspected and parts replaced,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

When replacing bullwheel bearings, Rathbun said unanticipated problems with the hollow shaft were discovered.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the part we\u2019re waiting on,\u201d Rathbun said.<\/p>\n

Once the lift is back operational, vehicle shuttles for mountain bikers to the top of the mountain will end, and the lift will be used as normal, Rathbun said.<\/p>\n

\"Lift
Lift 1, the Purgatory Village Express, is down for maintenance until mid- to late-July, which means mountain bikers will have to temporarily shuttle to the top of the mountain in vehicles using a Forest Service road. (Durango Herald file)<\/span>Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Lift 1 should be operational for the Big Mountain Enduro, scheduled Aug. 28-29, and the USA Cycling Collegiate Mountain Bike Championships, scheduled Oct. 14-17.<\/p>\n

Mountain bikers will still need a valid season pass or daily ticket to use the trail network at Purgatory while the lift is down and vehicle shuttles are in use. Daily ticket prices to use the Bike Park have been reduced from $45 to $30 while the lift is out of commission.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs disappointing as this is for the summer, having uncovered this now and being able to rectify it now, will mean that Lift 1 will be as reliable and dependable as it can be for this winter. That\u2019s really our main priority,\u201d Rathbun said.<\/p>\n

parmijo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Village Express waiting on parts from Europe<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46240,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,977,712,810],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-46239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-mountain-biking","tag-purgatory","tag-tourism-recreation"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46239"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86800,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46239\/revisions\/86800"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46239"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=46239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}