Idle Curiosity

Several times over the years I have sat in a deckchair, with my Gluwein, at the top of a mountain. I look over at the restaurant, shops and what ever else is on top of the montain and wonder how the hell did they build it. How did they get all that glass, bricks, cement sand etc up to the top of the mountain? How do the builders get to work?.
Do they build monorails, ski lifts, or hoists first.? Do they drop it in from above?. Has any-one been about resorts or live in them when this building happens. I am just curious. Or is there a building firm made up of class skiers who go up to build with their spirit levels and spades and at the end of the day ski back down to go home?

It seems to vary with the terrain. This is some building work being done at the Cabane de Moiry this summer. Somehow they got diggers, dumper trucks and the like up their to build an extension onto the Cabane which overlooks the glacier.



The plant must have been dropped by air, since the path up to the Cabane is a little er.....



Yes, that is the path, you can tell because there is a yellow stripe on one of the rocks :lol:

Alot of heli lifts.

All modern lifts are now done via helicopter!

In pre 1900 all lifts were done "by hand" with mountain climbers first laying small wire unto "anchor" points!

Gradually larger wire was introduced and by hand cement and anchor points were fixed!

There is a famous film about all this which features a famous French resort which has the very top anchor points on a "pinnacle" or needle point! Several men died during construction!

On the new Niederau chairlift, cement mixers drove up a mountain road, dumped into a can, which was then hoisted up, and run down an airial runway to the column foundation bases.

Mixer lorries then had to reverse down a skinny track with big drop off to one side.