East Coast Ski Resort Debuts New High Tech Chairlift, Among The Fastest In North America

Another Doppelmayr D-Line chairlift is joining the party.

Late last week, Sunday River, Maine, announced the launch of the Barker 6, a state-of-the-art six-person chairlift. The lift carried its first skiers on Saturday, December 9th.

Sunday River calls the lift "one of the most advanced and fastest 6-person chairlifts in North America," which is a fair assessment when you look at all its bells and whistles. The lift boasts heated seats, an automatic safety bar (I do worry about people getting conked with that), and weather-blocking bubbles.

The lift replaces the Barker Express quad and provides access to Barker Mountain's terrain network, shuttling an impressive 3250 skiers uphill per hour—the travel time for the Barker 6 is a brisk four and half minutes.

Unsurprisingly, internet legend and Maine's finest athlete, Donny Pelletier, left his touch on the new chair. Pelletier has a long-running love affair with Sunday River ("Sunday Rivah"), so the resort honored his lovable presence with a quote that adorns the backside of one of the Barker 6's chairs: "Point em' downhill, bub." Additional quotes were sourced from other prominent thinkers, like Deepak Chopra, Plato, and Pythagoras.

Below a recent post featuring images from Barker 6's opening day on Sunday River's Instagram page, Pelletier wrote, "She ran like uh dream."

Related: Maine's Finest Athlete Immortalized On New Chairlift

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