- The Aspen Times dives deep into lifty life.
- President of Peru inaugurates long Poma gondola to an ancient fortress.
- Mi Teleférico’s $75 million Blue line moved 41,000 passengers on opening day Friday.
- Mt. Lemmon’s main chairlift has been closed all season following tree damage from an early-season storm.
- Galaxy at Heavenly and High Country at Waterville Valley also see extended downtime.
- Emirates Air Line to close for annual week of maintenance.
- The most powerful man in skiing isn’t sold on bubble chairs (plus many other insights from Vail Resorts.)
- Whistler Blackcomb, Jackson Hole and Big Sky make CNN’s most extreme lifts.
- New Zealand’s first chondola on track to open this year.
- Permit filed Monday shows another probable station for rumored five-stage Disney World gondola system (updated potential alignment here.)
- Doppelmayr gets underway building the new Gatlinburg Sky Lift; aggressive timeline shoots for late April opening. Leitner-Poma is building a chondola across the street.
- Two-stage gondola in one of the world’s oldest cities looking more likely.
- Two skiers injured in fall after tree hits their gondola cabin.
- 130 rope evacuated after Italian chairlift de-ropes in crazy winds.
- Snowbasin and Sugarbush join the Mountain Collective, former member Whistler-Blackcomb goes Epic with Stowe to follow.
- Bogus Basin plans to replace Morning Star…in 2020.
Lift Blog 
Peter – the Mt. Lemmon situation reminded me… did you hear anything about what happened to the Mother lift at Pajarito in January? Apparently a tree fell on the line while it was in operation, knocked a chair off, flipped another over the comm line and spun a crossarm? Lift was closed for a solid month, IIRC. I’m not sure I saw it mentioned anywhere but on their website and facebook page.
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First I’ve heard of the incident at Pajarito. Here’s an article with a little info: http://www.lamonitor.com/content/pajarito-still-battles-burn-scars
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Not surprising – I’m sure I’d have read about it here if you were aware of it (love the blog). When I was there in mid-January, they had completed structural tests on the affected tower and were having some trouble getting the crossarm back in position. That day, they were running a cable over the next tower and down to a cat to get more direct lateral force on the crossarm. Not sure if that was successful – it was still well over a week until the lift reopened.
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The story about the gondola hit by the tree appears to have been quite an event … apparently either a carrier knocked off the line or bashed to pieces by the falling tree … the occupants woke up in a snowbank after the impact with pieces of gondola all around them.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4295596/Ski-couple-amazing-escape-cable-car-tree-crash.html
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I don’t want to start any speculation, but I wonder if the Disney World gondola system is a Doppelmayr, could it become the first D-Line system in the US? It would one of the most publicly prominent systems in the world and would be a unique showcase of the new technology. Just some food for thought…
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That is certainly possible. When the UNI-G terminal was introduced, it came to two locations in North America just one year after the Austrian launch.
My news roundup for Wednesday links to another permit filed last week showing Disney construction may be imminent. No matter who gets the contract, both manufacturers will win if gondola technology can be showcased at such an iconic American destination.
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