It was a mad dash on the slopes of Mt. Bachelor ski area after officials there released clues Sunday to the locations of six golden tickets. Five would be hidden on the mountain and one somewhere in Bend.

The prize: A seat on Mt. Bachelor’s new Skyliner Express chairlift when it opened to the public Tuesday morning after a ceremonial ribbon cutting.

Riding the first lift up a mountain in order to lay new tracks down a fresh slope is coveted by skiers and snowboarders. But being able to ride a new chairlift before anyone else, ever — now that’s a whole different kind of stoke.

One of the winners was 15-year-old Greg Heffley, who told The Bulletin how he accidentally stumbled upon one of the golden tickets while skateboarding with his friends in the Old Mill District.

“I was over by the river skating around with the boys and just stumbled by and saw it… First Chair, you know, I gotta get it,” said Heffley, as he waited to ride up the mountain Tuesday morning. “I was ecstatic. I’ve been skiing (old Skyliners) since I was 2 years old. To be the first one on the six-pack, it’s the best day of my life!”

With a name like “Doppelmayr 6-CLD UNIG high speed lift,” it’s easy to see why the ski area simply calls the new chairlift a “six-pack lift.” It replaces the old Skyliner Express lift that was built in 1989 and could only hold four people per chair. The new six pack increases Skyliner’s capacity by 50%, and can take up to 3,000 people up the mountain per hour.

Construction on the new lift began in May when the ski area closed the old Skyliner Express to begin demolition. The construction team consisted mostly of Mt. Bachelor employees, along with a select number of local contractors and Doppelmayr employees. Despite delays during the initial phase of the project, the lift opened ahead of schedule.

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“I want to say a thank you to Doppelmayr, who just did such a fantastic job coming in ahead of schedule,” said John Merriman, president and general manager of Mt. Bachelor, during his ribbon-cutting speech. “We did this almost entirely with internal labor … I’m so proud of all that this team has accomplished.”

Skyliner Express isn’t the only lift the ski area worked diligently on last summer. Merriman said maintenance staff also replaced the rope on Northwest lift, the motor on Sunrise lift and the gearbox on Little Pine lift.

At the festivities just before the ceremonial ribbon cutting — which included free burritos, coffee, hot cocoa and commemorative Skyliner Express giveaways — Dustin Smith, director of mountain operations for the last two years, shed some light onto why it’s important to modernize operations. It’s not just because new lifts are faster and can operate at a higher capacity, he said, they are also more reliable and easier to maintain.

“We had a malfunction (on the old Skyliner Express) in 2021 that kept the lift out for most of the season … We had to get the specialty parts manufactured in Austria and matched up with a part in Canada. It took the entire winter to get that put back together … which was a huge bummer for everybody,” Smith said.

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One of the main benefits to this new lift is that the weight of the six pack will allow the lift to remain open more consistently during inclement weather, Smith said. That’s important because Skyliner Express is one of the main connections between the east and west sides of the ski area.

For the last few weeks, Smith’s operations team has been load testing the six pack. The process essentially consists of loading up trash cans full of water to reach 110% of the lift’s weight capacity, then testing the brakes and motor. The tests also help staff figure out if the lift is accelerating at the right rate.

Although the forecast indicated there would be a mixture of rain and snow coming down at the ski area Tuesday, the weather held out just long enough for the first chair to depart at 9 a.m., with Heffley and five others aboard, including Patrick Shanahan of Redmond.

“I had hoped to get the first chair because I missed out on Cloudchaser when they opened it,” said Shanahan. “There’s only six people that can say they rode the first chair and, being a regular, I think it’s pretty special. This is where I always park and it’s my favorite lift, so to say I’ll always be first, it’s a really cool thing.”

Shanahan found one of the five tickets hidden on the slopes of Mt. Bachelor on Sunday. It was hidden on the run called Carnival, and was just off to the side behind a patch of trees. Shanahan said he knew what to look for because he saw the employee depart with the ticket earlier that morning.

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For many long-time Mt. Bachelor guests, figuring out where the golden ticket was hidden was the easy part of the contest — the hard part was having the skills to get there.

“The clues to me were pretty obvious, so it was more about where you were and how fast you can get there,” said 13-year-old Sammy Parsons, who found two of the golden tickets.

After the departure of the six winners and other honored guests — such as representatives from the National Park Service and Doppelmayr — it took only a few minutes before the hundred or so people gathered for the ribbon-cutting ceremony were on their way up the mountain.

True to Mt. Bachelor’s promises, the ride was smooth as the winds picked up and a storm system moved in, inaugurating the new Skyliner Express with classic Mt. Bachelor weather.