Installed in 1996, this Doppelmayr detachable quad is the 2nd lift to follow this alignment. Like most high alpine lifts on Mt. Hood, it’s terminals are housed inside buildings, which were reused from the previous lift, as well as the towers ( original was a Riblet double installed in 1978).
Palmer is a world famous lift, mostly for it’s insanely long ski season, which can last well into August and even September on high snow years (though most winters it does not run due to being literally buried in snow, & the terrain is accessed via snowcat). It sports a few unique reinforced towers, 2 & 3 near the bottom, and 24 & 25 at the top, the bulk of the rest of the towers are special tripod towers that are mostly buried all winter by the snowpack (originally built with standard tube towers that toppled over the first winter). A somewhat unique feature of this lift is it’s specially designed part-time mid-station, built & used mainly for summer ski race training camps. Tower 12 is a two section splice tower that has two sets of assemblies, one for the mid-station halfway up the tower, the other for when the mud is not in use, which in the standard upper crossarm location, towers 13 & 14 are only used when the mid-station is in use (leaving tower 1 as the only “normal” tower on the entire lift)
Being a 1996, mechanically, it’s a pretty standard Doppelmayr UNI-Spacejet, using a UNI-S bottom drive & a UNI-M top tension return, with both terminals having a special ordered straight section in the turnaround contour for 90-degree loading & unloading. It also EJ chairs with spring loaded restraint bars & footrests, & DT-104 detachable grips.
As a side note, this lift was badly damaged in a February 2020 storm, which literally buckled lifting frames, broke assemblies off towers, & derailed several others, irreparably damaging the rope in the process. So that following summer, after necessary repairs were made, Palmer reopened, & appears to run very strongly, and has probably one of the best sounding motors I've heard on a detachable.
Overall, despite being closed most winters, this is a very crucial piece of Timberline’s lift operations & ski season, & I do not see it going anywhere any time soon.
Manufacturer: Doppelmayr
Length: 5,564ft
Vertical: 1,526ft
Drive: Bottom
Tension: Top
Design Speed: 1,000fpm
Speed in Recording: 810fpm
Capacity: 1,800pph