Every Tuesday, I feature my favorite Instagram photos from around the lift world.
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Aspen/KSL Venture Buys Deer Valley
The new ski empire backed by the owner of Aspen Skiing Company along with KSL Capital Partners has reached a deal to purchase Deer Valley Resort in Park City, Utah. The news follows the group’s combination of Intrawest, Mammoth Resorts and Squaw Valley, and brings together 13 mountains rivaling the scope of Vail Resorts. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed and it does not include Solitude, which the Deer Valley partners bought in 2015. A new name and brand for the combined Aspen/KSL venture, currently known as Hawk Holding Company, will launch sometime this fall with a unified pass product expected to follow next spring. “Deer Valley Resort is one of the pre-eminent mountain resorts in the world and is a tremendous addition to our existing portfolio,” said David Perry, president and chief operating officer of the new ski conglomerate in a press statement. “Prior to this acquisition, we were able to offer our guests exceptional experiences throughout most of North America’s major ski regions, but we did not have a resort in Utah, a state that is renowned for great skiing and mountain town life.”
Bob Wheaton, Deer Valley’s president and general manager, noted “joining this portfolio of resorts will enable Deer Valley to build upon its outstanding traditions and further enhance our ability to provide our guests with a world class skiing experience. I look forward to working with them as we develop our vision for the future of the resort and the new company.” The still all-but-legally nameless company’s coast to coast portfolio now includes:
- Alpine Meadows, California
- Bear Mountain, California
- Blue Mountain, Ontario
- Deer Valley, Utah
- June Mountain, California
- Mammoth Mountain, California
- Snow Summit, California
- Snowshoe, West Virginia
- Squaw Valley, California
- Steamboat, Colorado
- Stratton, Vermont
- Tremblant, Quebec
- Winter Park, Colorado
A new 2018-19 season pass product could also include the four Aspen mountains, which are separately owned by the Crown Family. With Ajax, Buttermilk, Highlands and Snowmass included, the pass would get you on 229 lifts in North America, exactly the same number as next year’s Epic Pass. The acquisition of Deer Valley is expected to close by the end of the year.
News Roundup: Oops
- Belleayre’s new gondola may not have much vertical but will be more than 6,700 feet long.
- New photo tours of the upcoming Orange and White lines in La Paz show how gondolas can be adapted to the urban landscape with innovative station designs.
- Urban gondolas were profiled prominently in Sunday’s New York Times.
- Skytrac will finish the Stagecoach lift at Big Sky this fall, a project which Moonlight Basin began in 2008. In addition, Challenger and the Tram are getting new haul ropes and Powder Seeker a chair storage facility. Thanks William Bryan for the photos.
- At Spanish Peaks, the Flatiron lift will be next to go in.
- BMF drops one of the Brest Cable Car’s cabins from a crane while performing annual maintenance. One-cabin operation will continue while Gangloff builds a new one over the next six to nine months.
- Taos releases renderings of its re-imagined learning center featuring new Leitner-Poma and Skytrac lifts.
- Thank you Michael Weise for these sweet photos of Eldora’s six-pack progress:
Instagram Tuesday: Glory
Every Tuesday, I feature my favorite Instagram photos from around the lift world.
Will Vail Resorts Build Big in 2018?
If you follow the ski industry, mark your calendar for four months from now, the week of December 4th. Very early one morning that week, the largest mountain resort operator in the world will release its fiscal 2018 first quarter results and, more importantly to this audience, outline capital expenditures for 2018. Last year, this is the moment Vail Resorts committed to building three six-packs as part of $103 million in capital spending for 2017 (the company later added a fourth detachable to this year’s class, the Red Buffalo Express at Beaver Creek.) In December 2015, MTN announced a high-speed quad for Vail Mountain and in 2014, $50 million in improvements including three new lifts at Park City plus another six-pack at Vail. So, what might be on the likely $120+ million agenda for 2018?
Vail Mountain
- Game Creek Express #7 six-pack. The current 1985 version of Game Creek is the oldest operating lift on Vail Mountain and one of three remaining CLD-260 style Doppelmayr detachables there. It is likely to be replaced with a six-pack, increasing capacity by at least 25 percent in popular Game Creek Bowl. Of the recent six-pack upgrades at Vail, two were built by Doppelmayr (Avanti #2 and Mountaintop #4) and one by Leitner-Poma (Northwoods #11.)
- Orient Express #21 six-pack. Three years newer than Game Creek but still with DS grips, Orient Express serves some of the most popular terrain in Vail’s famous Back Bowls below the equally popular Two Elk Lodge. A six-pack upgrade would be the first such lift in the Back Bowls or Blue Sky Basin.
- Wildwood Express #3 six-pack. A 1995 CTEC, Wildwood is not as old as other detachables recently replaced at Vail, but it serves a high-traffic pod between Mid-Vail and its namesake Wildwood. Parts from this lift could be used as spares for Riva Bahn/Pride Express and Cinch, Bachelor, Grouse Mountain and Strawberry Park high-speed quads at Beaver Creek.
- Born Free Express #8 replacement. Born Free is the 1988 sister ship to Orient and runs parallel to the Eagle Bahn Gondola, built 1996. Vail could opt to address both lifts in the coming years with a gondola like Keystone’s or replace only Born Free with a new high-speed quad or six-pack.
- Golden Peak Race lift. In April, Vail submitted a master plan amendment to add a third lift on Golden Peak above the Riva Bahn mid-station. This short fixed-grip chairlift or surface lift would primarily serve an extended race course.
Beaver Creek
- Arrow Bahn Express replacement. Beaver Creek doesn’t see nearly the traffic that Vail does and has seen ten new lifts since 2000. However, Arrow Bahn Express is by far the oldest lift at Beaver Creek, built in 1988 to serve a separate Arrowhead ski area. A CLD-260 like Game Creek, Orient and Born Free but with lower hours for its age, Arrow Bahn might make it a bit longer.
News Roundup: Base-to-Base
- Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows CEO Andy Wirth and landowner Troy Caldwell held a Base-to-Base Gondola open house and Q&A last week presenting lots of new details. The Red Dog replacement project won’t happen until the gondola alignment is finalized.
- The Balsams files site plans for construction of a gondola and more beginning as soon as this fall.
- Subaru Skyride debuts at the Indiana State Fair. Can anyone identify the manufacturer?
- Owners of Lutsen say $40 million expansion will compel more skiers to stay in the Midwest instead of trekking to Colorado.
- Still no sign of lift construction at Saddleback.
- Two people apparently were injured riding a lift at Montage Mountain last weekend.
- Following the successful launch of a Poma gondola to the Kuelap fortress, Peru’s government to study building a cable car to Machu Picchu.
- Snowbasin is adding a tower to the currently towerless Allen Peak Tram to increase clearance and reduce closures during storm cycles.
- Keystone drops Making Montezuma episode 2.
- Disney Skyliner gondola construction prep continues.
- Sunshine Village reopens its gondola tomorrow after an 11-day fire closure.
- First pictures emerge of Steamboat’s gondola rebuild. Notice downloading capacity is now only six per cabin.
- The City of Elko will take over Elko Snobowl.
- Steamboat City Council reviews vision for Howelsen Hill which includes $1.54 million for a new, realigned Barrows chairlift.
- An Eldo Express update from Eldora.
- Ditto from Stoneham.
Instagram Tuesday: Colorado
Every Tuesday, I feature my favorite Instagram photos from around the lift world.
News Roundup: Gravity
- Pebble Creek joins the growing list of ski areas spinning extra lifts for the Great American Eclipse but there’s one problem: lifts weren’t designed for downloading so guests must walk down!
- The Weather Channel and the BBC will broadcast live from the top of the Jackson Hole Tram on eclipse day.
- Disney and Doppelmayr are building a gondola station in the middle of a lake.
- Mayor of Rossford, Ohio wants to build a gondola across the Maumee River to Toledo.
- Albany gondola idea moves along.
- Metal fatigue eyed in horrific ride incident at the Ohio State Fair (additional photos of the break are here.) The Fair’s SkyGlider chairlift was not involved but temporarily shut down as a precaution.
- Leitner-Poma will build two new lifts at Arapahoe Basin over the next two years. A 400′ Telecorde surface lift called Lazy J Tow will go in this summer to access Montezuma Bowl while the Beavers fixed-grip quad will follow next year.
- Sunshine Village closes again as fire rebounds.
- Intrawest, Mammoth Resorts and Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows are now one company owned by KSL, the Crown Family of Aspen Skiing Co. and Rusty Gregory. Currently known as Hawk Holding Company, LLC, a new name and brand will be introduced this fall.
- Rescuers in boats and ladder trucks assist with dramatic evacuation of a bi-cable gondola over the The Rhine in Cologne, Germany.
- Bill Brett, retired GM of Timberline writes about rime and how Palmer almost became Riblet’s first detachable.
- Snowbasin gets an A+ for its latest lift construction update.
- Arizona Snowbowl begins work on its third new lift in three years.
- Gravity is a crazy way to remove an old haul rope.
- Skytrac takes the Instagram plunge.
- Pair of investors nears deal to reopen Cockaigne, NY in 2018-19, a mountain with four Hall lifts that closed in 2011.
- Leitner Ropeways to build a unique two-section gondola in Austria with a single direct drive powering two separately-tensioned haul rope loops.
- Grand Canyon Escalade bill to finally go before the Navajo Nation Council this fall.
- Gulmarg Gondola reopens 39 days after fatal tree accident.
- Doppelmayr inaugurates the first 3S gondola in China with another on the way.
Mt. Spokane Backside Expansion is Finally a Go
This one’s a long time coming. The Washington State Supreme Court this afternoon upheld two lower courts’ decisions to allow Mt. Spokane Ski and Snowboard Park to add a sixth chairlift and seven new runs on the northwest side of the mountain, a project first proposed circa 2005. Ever since then, the nonprofit that operates the ski area has fought the Spokane Tribe, Sierra Club, Audubon Society, Spokane Mountaineers, Conservation Northwest, Native Plant Society, Lands Council and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to move the project forward. At issue were 279 acres of old growth forest and alpine meadows popular with backcountry skiers that are now poised to become part of the ski area, one of only a handful nationwide located in a state park. The expansion will allow the nonprofit mountain to open more reliable northwest-facing terrain in lean snow years and meet growing demand for outdoor winter recreation in the Inland Northwest. “This is a very exciting day for every skier in our region,” Mt. Spokane general manager Brad McQuarrie celebrated in a press release. “We can now turn our vision into a reality so that more skiers can enjoy more of the mountain.”
When I visited Mt. Spokane this spring, logging equipment was staged near the summit awaiting the court’s decision. A double chair removed from Bridger Bowl in 2013 sat in the main parking lot undergoing modifications for its new home. The Riblet will be called Red Chair for obvious reasons and has upgraded CTEC components including its bottom tension terminal. “This chairlift has a long and storied history, including ties to the Spokane community from its inception, as Riblet Tramway Company was the original builder of this chairlift based in Spokane,” the mountain’s release noted. Mt. Spokane’s existing chairlifts will also get new names this fall to replace numbers one through five.
Construction begins tomorrow morning and the ropes are expected to drop for the 2018-19 season.
Instagram Tuesday: Sky
Every Tuesday, I feature my favorite Instagram photos from around the lift world.
