ESTES PARK • Passengers in the red cabin soaring through the air are bound for the panoramic view atop the mountain. Adrian Liddell, however, is bound for a dusty, dim room where a cable rolls, a bullwheel turns and the scent of grease and oil lingers.
“The motor room is probably one of my favorite places on the planet,” Liddell says.
He’s the general manager overseeing the Estes Park Aerial Tram, this postcard attraction that began 70 years ago. It all began in this room, where the control panel of levers, switches and dials performs just as it has since 1955. A man sits behind it now, just as its maker, Robert Heron, once did.
“This lift is still driven by hand,” Liddell says with pride. “Most new lifts are all by computer. This one’s done by person.”
With some help from machines, of course — such as the green contraption here called the Model D Lilly Hoist Controller.
“There’s only three of these I know of in existence,” Liddell says. “One of them is right here, one of them is in the Leadville Mining Museum, and the other one is brand-new in a box down at the bottom terminal. Bob ordered a second one.”
That was Bob Heron, the meticulous engineer who covered his needs and unforeseen needs. He died in 1999, but some of his wooden and rusted hand tools still hang in the back of the motor room.
Liddell picks up tools the man might have used to survey this mountain, Prospect Mountain, for his unusual tramway that would become a generationally beloved phenomenon.
“They had to survey the whole mountain to figure out what they needed, how high it needed to be off the ground, where they needed to put the terminals,” Liddell says. “You got to put the terminals in the right spot. Miss by 6 inches, you’re gonna have a really bad alignment. It’s gotta be precise.”
Heron was precise, a credit to his creation running mostly unchanged for 70 years now.
The Estes Park Aerial Tram was indeed unusual back in the 1950s, as it is today. The free-span design without the typical support of towers — lending to a slight sag in the steel cables capable of carrying many tons more than the enforced cabin capacity of 2,380 pounds — continues to captivate, like the view of the Continental Divide at the summit above 8,700 feet.
And indeed, the operation is mostly unchanged. The two red cabins move according to a thick, rolling chain and two massive buckets of bricks that act as gravity-attuned cranks, one weighing about 48,000 pounds and the other closer to 52,000 pounds.
Why change? “Gravity is still the same,” says Liddell, Heron’s protege and longtime friend of the family.
It’s true, says Heron’s granddaughter, Laely: “He built things to last and to have a lasting impact.”
And yet change is inevitable.
This is the second summer of the tram’s ownership under Gondola Ventures, a young and ambitious private equity firm out of Washington state. After 68 years, it was time for the family to sell.
Robert Heron’s son, John, had run things for two decades before his death in 2022. He was the last in a storied line of engineers.
“It meant a lot for my father to carry on the family tradition and to keep it going for his family,” Laely says. “Sadly, none of us are engineers.” Nor were shareholding family members living in Estes Park.
It was time, says Robert Heron’s last living child, Nance.
“I feel relief,” she says, “and I have curiosity about how it continues.”
It will continue in Heron’s honor, new ownership has pledged. In starting a portfolio of such scenic attractions — next is the under-construction Mighty Argo Cable Car in Idaho Springs — the Estes Park Aerial Tram seemed more than fitting for Gondola Ventures.
“What else can you ask for?” says Scott Nocas, partner and chief operating officer. “It’s an iconic destination. And it was built by one of the founders of the chairlift business.”
That’s Heron’s reputation within the ski industry. His place in the Colorado Snowsports Hall of Fame is for his groundbreaking contributions to the industry that, at the time, was hardly an industry in this state.
Heron remarked in his acceptance speech in 1985: “Ski area development today is a lot easier than it was 40 years ago, but not nearly as much fun as it was before we had computers, helicopters, snowmaking and bank loans.”
Walter Paepcke would provide the money for Aspen, and Heron would provide the first lifts. In 1946, this was by excavating by hand and carrying cement, steel, lumber and more up the mountain, Heron recalled in a written history:
“Many potential workmen were hired and walked up the hill to a tower site and, after catching their breath, turned around downhill. We never saw them again!”
Construction was similar, involving mostly old mining machinery, for the first lifts at Arapahoe Basin. Heron designed those as well, around that same time. He quickly followed with a lift at the old ski area at Berthoud Pass — believed to be the world’s first double chair.
Like several pioneers of America’s ski industry, Heron had ties to the 10th Mountain Division of World War II legend. He had designed tramways for hauling material at the mountainous Camp Hale near Leadville. By then, he was well-rehearsed in the technology that boomed for hauling freight long before skiing.
“There was never anything that was really designed for people to go sightseeing,” Liddell says.
Why not in a beloved vacation destination? Heron figured. This was while raising a family in Denver.
“It started as something that he just wanted to do,” says Nance, his daughter. “He saw the opportunity as something that would be a fun, family thing to do for the people in Estes and for the people that visited.”
And perhaps an opportunity to attract clients. Heron Engineering specialized in water supply systems, power plants, industrial buildings, highways and bridges. Maybe aerial tramways could be next, with tourist appeal rising far beyond Prospect Mountain.
“He would explain what he could do,” Laely says, “but then he actually said, ‘You know what? I’ll put my money where my mouth is, and I’ll build one so they can come and see.’”
People came near and far to ride the Estes Skyway, as the tram was initially called. Laely and fellow grandkids knew it by another name: the Dandy Zoom, for their grandpa’s nickname and his machine that zoomed up the mountaintop home to chipmunks hungry for peanuts from the gift shop.
“All of the children and grandchildren remember the chipmunks,” Nance says. “Which I guess are still there.”
They are there, along with the rocks and the trees and the view — all much the same, like the machine itself.
Following Heron’s death, his son knew not to change much at all during his watch from 1999-2022. The general manager today still consults hand-written notes and sketches from the ‘50s and ‘60s, just as John Heron did.
“’If it ain’t broke don’t fix it,’ that was his big phrase,” Liddell says.
Upon the grand reopening last summer, Gondola Ventures saw the need for some modernization. That included fresh paint and flooring, an upgraded parking lot and an online reservation system. Much of which “I don’t think my dad would have ever envisioned,” Nance says.
Nor would he have envisioned any sort of grand reopening or any celebration for some anniversary like 70 years, she says. “My dad was not an emotional person like that.”
Liddell can’t help but get emotional, especially thinking back to 2023.
The tram closed that year during the search for new ownership. Liddell had come to see the machine as a living, breathing thing, and there it sat that year, as if lifeless.
“I don’t like seeing the lift stationary,” Liddell says. “It wants to move. It wants to be in motion.”
It wants to make memories, he likes to think. This was what Heron wanted, after all. “He wanted people to experience the mountain,” Liddell says.
There he is in photos with his granddaughter, his arm around the girl who rode the tram before she was a year old. Perhaps he delighted in the letters Laely would read later.
“About it being this generational activity that families have enjoyed,” she says. “People that fell in love with it when they were teenagers, and then they grew up and had families, and now the grandkids ride it.”
Yes, the tram was meant to last. As was a state oversight agency Heron helped establish: the Colorado Passenger Tramway Safety Board.
“His contributions to the world were not meant for the short term,” Laely says. “Everything from safety and enjoyment for people, it was all long-term based.”
Heron had other big ideas. For example: above the current gift shop and cafe on the mountaintop, a restaurant that would rotate to take in the full panorama.
“It’s on the table,” Liddell says, while expressing serious logistical doubts.
Then again, he’s learned an important lesson: “Healthy ambition is good.”
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