Every Tuesday, I feature my favorite Instagram photos from around the lift world.
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News Roundup: Back to Work
- The Forest Service tentatively approves two new chairlifts as part of the Atoma expansion at Mt. Rose.
- There are gondolas flying above Walt Disney World as of late.
- The Garibaldi at Squamish resort proposal is still alive in BC.
- Sitzmark, Washington and its 1961 Riblet double won’t open this season.
- Tamarack’s new Wildwood Express will likely reuse foundations from the repossessed UNI-GS version.
- Medellín inaugurates its fifth urban gondola by Poma, Line M.
- A nine year old boy is okay after falling 31 feet from the Thunderbowl lift at Aspen Highlands.
- Sun Valley postpones the Cold Springs Express project to 2020.
- Sunshine Polishing has a bunch of vintage gondola cabins for sale including many from Killington’s K-1 Express.
- Skytrac marks ten years in business with 37 complete lifts, eight new terminals and five relocations to date with more to come!
- Waterville Valley and LST Ropeways are trying to open the new High Country lift this week.
- A Hermitage reopening this winter is unlikely but the lifts are being taken care of by a skeleton crew of employees.
- The popular Portland Aerial Tram opens up a logo shop.
- Another Skyliner job is posted: Technical Manager.
- The Forest Service plans to green light Cooper’s Way Back expansion and construction of a 2,450′ surface lift.
- Ditto for Crested Butte’s two chairlift Teocalli II expansion and realignment of North Face.
- Mexico City announces its first Cablebús line will be the longest urban gondola in the world at nearly 31,000 feet. A full ride would take 46 minutes with 374 ten passenger cabins transporting up to 4,000 passengers per hour each way.
Miami Dolphins to Build Gondola at Hard Rock Stadium
When Super Bowl LIV kicks off in Miami a year from now, a Doppelmayr gondola could offer fans a bird’s eye view just outside the stadium. VenuesNow reports Miami Dolphins President and CEO Tom Garfinkel has been working on the idea for a sky ride over the past year and the team is now ready to spend $3 million on the gondola. The 1,800 foot lift will travel near the courts used for the Miami Open tennis tournament. “It’s less of a transportation thing and more of a novelty to be up above the tennis and the crowd. We’ll have it in place for Super Bowl next year,” he says. The big game is set for February 2, 2020.
A ride on the new gondola will take approximately ten minutes, though the operating schedule and pricing have not yet been determined. Doppelmayr USA is also poised to build a new gondola this year at the Olympic Ski Jumping Complex in Lake Placid, New York and another at Steamboat, Colorado. Also in Florida, the company is nearly finished constructing three innovative gondolas at Walt Disney World, which will go into operation sometime this fall.
Instagram Tuesday: Fantastic February
Every Tuesday, I feature my favorite Instagram photos from around the lift world.
News Roundup: Beyond Skiing
- According to the New York State contracting website, the Gore Mountain Sunway, High Peaks, Hudson and Whiteface Bear Den lift replacement projects that went out to bid last fall are all on hold. Two bids were received for the Olympic Jumping Complex gondola in Lake Placid but no builder has been selected as of January 18th.
- A chair falls off a 1993 Yan detachable quad in Spain, closing an entire ski resort indefinitely.
- Lift service returns to Killington’s South Ridge for the first time in a decade as of yesterday.
- Bartholet completes its first 10 passenger gondola lift in Norway.
- Les Otten lobbies for a new bill that would permit public financing for The Balsams redevelopment.
- The proposed gondola in Idaho Springs, Colorado would be modeled after the Sea to Sky Gondola, which now carries more than 400,000 riders a year in British Culumbia. The 1.2 mile Colorado version would rise 1,100 feet above Interstate 70.
- The largest lost ski resort in Canada, Fortress Mountain, could reopen with a mix of new and refurbished lifts in 2020.
- Sun Valley and Snowbasin ditch the Mountain Collective Pass for a partnership with Vail Resorts and the Epic Pass starting next winter.
- The Laconia Daily Sun explains how Highland Mountain Bike Park finds success on the grounds of a long lost New Hampshire ski area.
- The former longtime operator of Timberline Four Seasons Resort is indicted, accused of illegally prescribing pain drugs. The ski area suffered a major lift accident in 2016 and has operated only sporadically this winter.
Instagram Tuesday: Build it and They Will Come
Every Tuesday, I feature my favorite Instagram photos from around the lift world.
News Roundup: Dedication
- Stowe rope evacuates 160 people from the Lookout double.
- The New Hampshire Union Leader runs a well-researched story on lift evacuations.
- Doppelmayr Cable Car is the contracted maintenance provider for the Disney Skyliner and is now hiring for multiple positions.
- Two years after the death of Kelly Huber at Granby Ranch, changes are still being considered.
- The new lift to Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park will have a new name when it opens in March: Glenwood Gondola.
- Magic gains approval to build the Black Line quad lift.
- A proposed settlement could see the Hermitage Club parent company give control of the Barnstormer chairlift to the investors who bought it.
- Pajarito reopens one of two chairlifts which became inoperable over a month ago.
- A gondola window falls hundreds of feet and nearly injures a farmer working below in Taiwan.
- The one year old T-Bar at Burke Mountain is now the D-Bar, named in honor of longtime supporter Don Graham. Mr. Graham once saved the mountain from closure, covered years of operating losses and personally financed half of the Mid Burke Express.
Instagram Tuesday: Stellar
Every Tuesday, I feature my favorite Instagram photos from around the lift world.
Oakland Athletics Unveil 3S Gondola Concept
One of the Bay Area’s two Major League Baseball teams is looking at building the first 3S gondola in the United States. The $123 million system would transport up to 6,000 passengers per hour and direction between downtown Oakland and a new waterfront ballpark, becoming one of the highest capacity lift systems in the world in 2023. Thirteen or so 35 passenger cabins would depart approximately every 21 seconds at full speed, yielding a three minute trip from the BART regional train network to the stadium near Jack London Square. The gondola would be feature just one tower between stations thanks to tricable technology, which can traverse large spans while achieving high throughput.
A’s President Dave Kaval noted at a Saturday press conference, “I think anyone’s who’s sat in traffic in the Bay Area, which is everybody, realizes there’s a need for new, innovative transportation options.” He continued, “In terms of transportation systems, we feel [a gondola] is a great investment and a great way to open up this part of the city and remove that original barrier of the 880 that cut off the waterfront from downtown Oakland.” Over the first ten years of operation, the gondola could generate $685 million in economic benefits through construction work, new jobs, increased taxable sales and time savings for commuters according to a study completed by the Bay Area Council Economic Institute. The lift would service an estimated on million riders a year with an operating cost of $4.6 million.
Oakland is already home to two cable-driven transportation systems, both built by Doppelmayr. A monocable detachable gondola links new and old sections of the Oakland Zoo and a $484 million ropeway people mover links the Oakland Airport to a nearby BART station. The Athletics’ 3S would be the first installation of its kind in America, unless the Los Angeles Dodgers beat them to the punch. “We are in discussion with a few companies and plan to select our partner soon,” says Kaval.
News Roundup: Halfway
- The first D-Line lift in New Zealand won’t be built this summer after all and The Remarkables will place 60 containers of lift parts into storage until government approval comes through.
- A little ski resort in Labrador has as many new lifts as Whistler Blackcomb this winter – three!
- A proposed gondola in Oakland would generate hundreds of millions of dollars in economic benefits, says a new study.
- Two workers fall to their deaths during a practice evacuation of a new gondola in India.
- A Swiss aerial tramway will be out of service for months following an avalanche that damaged a support tower.
- Sleeping Giant experiments operating without a general manager.
- Waterville Valley explains why some of its lifts are out of service.
- Recently closed Vermont area Plymouth Notch goes up for sale along with its 1964 Mueller double.
- The old high speed quad from Horseshoe, Ontario is still available.
- Faced with the possibility of losing its operating lease completely, Sunshine Village reluctantly agrees to new guidelines that remove the proposed Goat’s Eye tramway, Bye Bye Bowl expansion and Wildside lift from future consideration. A second lift in the existing gondola corridor, Goat’s Eye II, Lookout, Hayes Hill and Lower Meadow Park expansions are still possible.
- Environmental groups and Squaw Alpine are still sparring over the proposed California Express gondola.
- Resorts across the Pacific Northwest come to the aid of Hurricane Ridge season pass holders, who lost a month of their season due to the government shutdown.
- Rain delays the debut of Spider Mountain, the seventh lift-based destination for Mountain Capital Partners.
