{gallery}08_27_09/sleepinggiant{/gallery}A helicopter lifts a piece of the Sleeping Giant Ski Area's new chair lift up the mountain Tuesday morning as Jon Peel, a mechanic with Timberline Helicopters (at right), talks with Anita Harper, the Shoshone National Forest's project administrator for the slope. Tribune photo by CJ Baker The North Fork's Sleeping Giant Ski Area must have had a tough time maintaining its slumber this week as helicopter and film crews buzzed around the site.

On Tuesday morning, towers and equipment for a new west-side chair lift were flown into place by helicopter.

Anita Harper, the Shoshone National Forest's project administrator for the ski area, jokingly compared the event to high school prom — after months of planning and preparation, after about an hour of hauling, the chopper crew finished, and the excitement was over.

Videographers from National Geographic's television channel captured the event on camera for a spring episode of “World's Toughest Fixes” — a program that explores daring feats of engineering.

Sleeping Giant, located just a few miles east of Yellowstone's East Entrance inside the Shoshone National Forest, has been in need of fixing since its closure in 2004.

The nonprofit Yellowstone Recreations Foundation has been working to re-open the area, bigger and better than ever. One of the new features is adding a second lift.

Its towers, heavy equipment and a 5,600 pound top-of-the-lift shack for employees were stationed in the ski area's parking lot on Tuesday. As a whirlybird — piloted by Timberline Helicopters of Idaho — hovered above the lot, crews attached the heavy structures to a cable dangling from the copter. A short minute or two later, the flying machine zipped up the mountain with a multiple-ton steel tower or other piece of equipment in tow.

After 16 trips, the previously-barren slope was sporting six lift towers.

The freshly-installed equipment looks brand new, but the lift is more than 30 years old. It was trucked in from its original home at Mammoth Mountain in California.

“That's what makes it tough,” said Jeff Kelso, an installer with Summit Lift Company, the contractor overseeing the lift's construction.

“Most ski lifts come from a box, from a factory,” said Kelso. In this case of re-use, he said the factory work had to be done on-site. The equipment had to be checked for structural integrity, old, worn-out parts replaced, and everything given a fresh lick of dark-green paint.

With the towers in place, Kelso said the primary tasks remaining for Summit are to install the station at the base of the lift, string the cable and fasten on the lift chairs.

The target is a grand re-opening on Thanksgiving weekend — something Kelso called “a pretty realistic goal at this point.”

The time crunch was something that heightened National Geographic's interest in the project, said associate producer Molly Tait.

“World's Toughest Fixes” had been interested in filming a ski-area installation, Tait said, and was drawn to Sleeping Giant's story by Summit Lift Company.

Tait noted that the local community pulled together more than $800,000 to help the ski slope qualify for a $500,000 grant from the state this winter.

“It had a good happy, warm story to it,” she said, describing the restoration project as “something that was sort of organic versus some big corporation putting something up.”

The film crew arrived in Cody on Tuesday, Aug. 18, and planned to leave the area today (Thursday). Last week's shooting involved some filming at Old Trail Town, where series host Sean Riley sported cowboy duds and voiced a brief monologue about Cody's history.

Tait said from the get-go, the experience working with the Sleeping Giant folks has been a good one.

“Everyone was really nice and wanting us to be here ... instead of, ‘You want to film what?' ” Tait said. “Everyone's so warm and inviting, it's been great.”

The crew plans to return to film the splicing together of the snowmaking line as well as the area's grand opening.

“We're hoping to get Riley on the first ride up and, if there's snow, get him skiing,” Tait said.

Past projects explored by the series include replacing the top of a 2,000-foot high radio tower and cleaning a 25-ton, $15-million telescope mirror.

“It's funny because I think the next big job they're going to film is the refurbishment of the Golden Gate Bridge,” said Sleeping Giant project manager Andy Quick. “I think it's kind of funny that we're put on a similar par.”

“It might not be the biggest job we've ever covered, but the story itself and the energy behind it is very, very good,” said Tait.