They call it “the road less traveled,” a classic Vermont mountain situated about half way between Stratton and Okemo. Now in its second year of new ownership, Magic Mountain has carved a successful niche offering top quality, affordable skiing despite a competitive landscape. Ski Magic LLC added a new carpet lift and restarted work on a new double chair to service intermediate terrain soon after taking over operations in late 2016. Fresh off a successful 2017-18 season with increased skier visits, investors plan to spend an impressive $1.6 million on key infrastructure this summer including two important new chairlifts.
In addition to completing the Green Chair project by early summer, Magic announced today that a Poma quad chair will replace the Black lift, which dates back to the middle of last century. The 1962 Pohlig double was once converted to a triple with Yan chairs before being turned back into a double in recent years. Today it sports towers from Pohlig, Hall and possibly Poma and the time has finally come to retire it.
The new Black Line quad is a 1986 Poma Alpha model which is being removed from Stratton this month to make way for the Snow Bowl Express. The predecessor will find a new home less than 15 miles away, becoming the workhorse base-to-summit machine at Magic. The incoming Green Chair is also from Stratton, a Borvig removed in 1995 called Betwixed. “When we heard Stratton was replacing their Snow Bowl lift with a new high-speed detachable, four-passenger lift, our investor group jumped on the opportunity to try and purchase their Poma fixed-grip quad”, said Geoff Hatheway, President of Ski Magic. “For our ski community, this lift is a huge upgrade that meets and manages our current and future growth expectations, better fulfills customer desires for quality, reliable lift service at Magic, and sustains our reputation as an area with both minimal lift lines and low on-slope skier density.” He went on to thank Stratton President and COO Bill Nupp for his help securing the lift’s future in Southern Vermont.
Black Line capacity will more than triple from 620 skiers per hour to 2,000 with the new lift unloading slightly higher to service all of Magic’s trails. The 148 chair lift will be over 5,000 feet long with approximately 1,500 feet of vertical rise. Magic’s 1971 Heron-Poma double will stay in the rotation and operate at peak times, meaning the Black quad, Red double, and Green double are all slated for service in the 2018/19 season. With Magic’s plans, at least seven new lifts will debut in Vermont next season, the most since 1995.
Lift Blog 
awesome news!!!!!!!
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The 113 Yan chairs are going to be available for $300 each. Email your phone number to info@magicmtn.com if you want one.
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One big variable that will affect the usefulness of the new lift is if they extend it higher up than the current Black so that you can access all the same trails that you can get to from Red.
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It literally says that it will be extended.
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I hope somebody can save the black chair.
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Why?
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I like to see any lift be reused, but it’s just not going to happen with Black. There are no spare parts and it always had mechanical problems which is why it is being retired. It will live on through anyone who buys chairs from it. I don’t think that even Skytrans would be able to refurbish it for relocation to a zoo and they’ve taken some pretty old and unusual lifts.
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Kind of interesting that Magic actually had a slightly newer Poma Alpha fixed grip than Snow Bowl for four years. It was sold to Berkshire East after Magic’s closure in 1991. The area opened again in 1997 but without most of the lifts it once had. Evidently Black wasn’t of much value even in 1991.
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Any idea if the new Black Line chair will have a loading carpet? 485 fpm over 5000 ft is an awful lot quicker in terms of ride time than 450 (or less)…
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This is turning out to be a very nice year for Poma and Doppie..
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A classy tweet from the Alterra-owned neighbor…
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sad to see such an extremely rare chairlift in the US disappear. Seems to be happening more and more.
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look i get it guys, some old lifts are cool. But this thing is a POS and the chairs are awful standard yans
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