Granada's Sierra Nevada ski resort starts major 20-million-euro upgrade of iconic gondola lift
The modernisation work will be done during the summer months in readiness for the start of the next winter season, enabling the Al Ándalus lift to move 2,700 people per hour
As part of the ongoing renovation plan for the Sierra Nevada ski facilities, the operating company Cetursa is to invest 20 million euros in works to be carried out this summer with the intention of having them finished in time for the next ski season.
During the last closure, the Alhambra and Emile Allais chairlifts were replaced by modern transport systems, and now these coming months without snow will be used to modernise the Al Ándalus gondola lift and to build a double chairlift for federated skiers.
Work on the gondola lift has already begun. In fact, a few days before the end of the season (9 April) workers started to dismantle the old cabins, after 33 years of service. It is the most important and iconic lift in the resort and will improve its performance thanks to the investment of 16.7 million euros.
Construction work has been under way for several weeks. At present, almost all the 26 towers have already been dismantled, as well as the lower and upper stations buildings, which have been emptied.
The new Al Ándalus is financed by the European Feder React funds linked to the energy savings of the new facility. It is a latest generation ski lift, with high capacity, speed and comfort, which runs between the Pradollano development and the nerve centre of the ski area in Borreguiles.
El Puente ski lift
The go-ahead for the new El Puente ski lift has been slower in coming. In fact, opposition from environmentalists and a public platform group has made its progress through the Monachil local council difficult. After a plenary session in which it was not approved due to the abstentions of the PSOE and the PP and an informative meeting with Cetursa, the majority parties of the town hall finally approved these ski lifts in a session last Friday. The mayor of Monachil, José Morales, said that this infrastructure is beneficial for the professional sportsmen who choose Sierra Nevada for their training and that it was therefore something positive for the municipality and the area.
The El Puente ski lift is made up of two ski lifts, located one next to the other, in the Loma de Dílar area that touches existing slopes, such as Víbora, Montebajo, Villén and El Puente.
The ski lift, if there are no problems with the council issuing the municipal licence, will be operational for next season. The subsidy from the Consejería de Turismo y Deporte expires on 31 March 2024, so the work will have to be completed before then.
The project has a cost of 4.1 million euros, of which 2.5 million euros will come from the Junta de Andalucía an the remaining 1.6 million euros from Cetursa, which is subsidising the project to support the clubs and the 3,000 sportsmen and women of the Andalusian winter sports federation (FADI).
FADI members will have preferential, but not exclusive, access to the El Puente double ski lift. The chairlift facilitates access to the 'black' slopes of Sierra Nevada (Neveros and Fuente del Tesoro) and as there are two of them, they can operate independently.
A gondola lift to move 2,700 people per hour
The new Al Ándalus ski lift will be 2.5 kilometres long and have the capacity to move 2,700 people every hour. It will have 19 towers (compared to the current 26) and 77 cabins in which passengers will be able to sit, unlike up to now when they had to stand up. The speed of this new system of cabins will be 6 metres per second and the journey will take 8.5 minutes. The cabins have a capacity for ten people, seated. The ski equipment will be stored inside the cabins. In the Al Ándalus gondola lift, users travelled standing up, while the Borreguiles gondola lift, which has seats because it was built at a later date, follows the same route.
