- Firm pitches gondola to link South Station to the Seaport district in Boston.
- The United Nations Human Settlements Programme and Doppelmayr publish a 12-page summary of their first Academy of Sustainable Urban Mobility conference held in Austria last April.
- LST Ropeways will build its second North American lift at Waterville Valley, though Skytrac will no longer provide controls, operator houses and installation for the French company.
- A new Doppelmayr gondola, bubble high speed quad and triple chair will debut in December on Eglise Mountain at the Yellowstone Club, by far the biggest lift project in North American skiing for 2017. Thanks to Everett K. for these cool photos of the progress.
- Y.C. has also listed for sale the 160-acre Cedar View Ranch, offering someone the opportunity to build a private lift to the bottom of the Lake lift.
- Anakeesta opens tomorrow.
- Eldora flies towers and ditches the announced Eldo Express name in favor of Alpenglow. Photos credit Michael Weise.
Month: August 2017
Instagram Tuesday: Steep
Every Tuesday, I feature my favorite Instagram photos from around the lift world.
News Roundup: Transformative
- With The Beavers expansion, Arapahoe Basin ditches painted trail map for a VistaMap.
- The BBC produces a fantastic 23-minute podcast explaining the success of Mexicable, the newest urban gondola built by Leitner Ropeways.
- You can watch Belleayre’s gondola take shape live on their webcam. More recent photos are here.
- The New York State Fair’s Broadway Skyliner appears to be a relocated Stadeli. I’m thinking it’s Bucksaw from Sugarloaf.
- The latest from Orlando.
- SNOW Operating to take over operations at Mountain Creek.
- To compensate for a late July gondola opening, Steamboat extends “summer” season until late October.
- Bob Wheaton says being part of a larger resort group will allow Deer Valley to negotiate better prices on lifts.
- Lift operator and friends sentenced to probation and ordered to pay $96,000 in restitution for stealing and selling $116,000 in lift downtime vouchers from top shacks at Heavenly and Northstar. Vail Resorts has since changed the way it handles the vouchers companywide.
Instagram Tuesday: Diamond
Every Tuesday, I feature my favorite Instagram photos from around the lift world.
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.
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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.
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