- It looks like Snowbird has joined the Powdr family of adventure lifestyle brands.
- A batch of green gondolas arrives at Bretton Woods as towers go vertical.
- Another group of new Omega cabins is uncovered in Florida.
- Little Switzerland and The Rock Snowpark are upgrading chairs on multiple lifts and selling the old ones.
- The Lake Placid gondola cabins will be white and black.
- Top leadership positions at Doppelmayr will be filled by two longtime executives this fall.
- With no operations planned for this summer, Hermitage Club receiver Alan Tantleff updates the government on the status of the ski resort’s properties.
- Crested Butte receives approval for the Teocalli replacement project and plans to remove Twister as well.
- Killington says it’s considering upgrades for Superstar Express, Ramshead Express and Outpost at Pico next.
- Despite being partly flooded, the Grafton, Illinois gondola is on track to open later this spring.
- Tanzania might build a gondola on 19,341-foot Mt. Kilimanjaro.
- Peak Resorts reports double digit growth of season pass sales.
- West Mountain’s Thiokol is for sale along with some Poma lifts that were once planned to replace it.
Lift Blog 
I’ll be sad to see Outpost go, its a classic. Its got to be tough to keep it running though as one of the last fully original C & S lifts out there. Great to see Powdr reinvesting at Pico, how much longer till the two Yan detachables get some upgrades too?
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I think Superstar becomes a 6 pack (non-bubble), Ramshead becomes a bubble 6 or 8 extended back to the true summit, and Outpost becomes a triple in that order.
As for the old lifts, Superstar gets parted out to keep Snowshed and the Pico Yan detachables going, Ramshead moves to replace the Snowshed Double, and Outpost gets completely scrapped.
As for the Yan detachables at Pico, I think those will be replaced as part of the eventual interconnect. It’s possible the Ramshead Express could move to replace one of them instead of the Snowshed Double. Hopefully Summit where the design speed of 1100 feet per minute could be taken advantage of.
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Why would Superstar ever become a 6? Its hardly ever crowded. I’d say the most likely option is a quad with ski racks on the backs of the chairs for spring.
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Superstar has a higher capacity than most high speed quads built today. That’s why it needs to become a 6.
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No expert, but an alternate for Ramshead would be to reuse it to replace Canyon, with a downhill extension to the K1 Lodge. It’s about the same horizontal distance as Ramshead’s existing alignment. And would provide an alternative route to that pod if K1 goes down (more direct than via Snowdon Six).
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No way that would happen as the main reason the Canyon Quad exists is for runout avoidance. Would be useful for early season, but no way it happens.
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Superstar really has that much capacity? When they build the glacier up top its way too congested now. Seems a 6 would be overkill.
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The capacity is 3000 like most 6 packs built today. Quads are almost never over 2400 anymore.
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What determines the needed capacity is always the demand in any area. With six-pack chairs, Superstar would have the same capacity but with bigger chair gaps, allowing for 1,000 fpm operation.
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What is the new relationship between Snowbird and Powdr? The link didn’t mention anything
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The late Ian Cumming (owner of Powdr) bought a majority stake in Snowbird around 2014, which made him chairman of the board. John Cumming basically took over after Ian’s death, and since John has basically retired at this point, it’s no surprise (to me anyways) that Powdr will take over some of the management aspects of the resort. It will be interesting to see how much it gets integrated into Powdr’s portfolio, as they were always independently managed in the past.
The good news is that Powdr has more capital resources than Snowbird did, so they’ll be able to make much needed upgrades and infrastructure improvements. If coming years will be anything like this year, Snowbird will need major infrastructure upgrades to handle the number of people there. Of course, weather plays a big part in how busy Snowbird (and Alta) are, so we can only watch the next few years and find out.
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When Ian Cumming bought a majority stake in Snowbird in 2014, the parties said the deal did not involve Powdr, which the Cumming family also owned. Ian Cumming passed away last year and his son John stepped away from the Powdr CEO role a few months later. I’m not sure what else has changed but now the bottom of the Powdr website shows Snowbird in its list of brands/resorts when previously it did not.
Powdr has built eleven lifts in three years so I see this as a good thing for Snowbird.
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That’s sad about Outpost. I would really like to see them do a refurbishment on it like the single chair at MRG.
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You should write a letter to pico about that. I would love to see outpost get the same treatment as the single chair.
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won’t happen.
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That’d be awesome but seems exceedingly unlikely. The single being the iconic symbol of MRG made it worth the cost. Outpost not so much.
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I’m not seeing/hearing about any enclosed storage for the Bretton Woods cabins. It’s seems like it’s standard practice now for new gondolas and bubble chairs….
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Yes and no. Belleayre, Crystal Mountain, Le Massif, Lutsen, Ski Apache, SilverStar and Sun Valley are a few of the recent ones which have gone without.
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JacksonHole has parking on Sweatwater that they only use sometimes ?
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Good video of the Gstaad Gondola. I’ve been trying to see how the door openers work. Very simple system. Could have been invented by Michelangelo and not by Rube Goldberg.
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I realize this may seem belated but just yesterday I was able to grab one of the vintage Hall double chairs from The Rock Snowpark. I wanted to specifically say thanks Peter, as I wouldn’t have even known they were for sale if I didn’t check this website the way most normal people check the news.
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What are they replacing the chairs with?
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Looks like a ‘rope tow’ (likely not a platter or T-Bar lift)
“We are adding a high speed rope tow in place of the green Hall Chairlift that was beyond repair. This rope will provide access to 90% of the skiable terrain and provides 3 times the uphill capacity at more than double the speed of a traditional chair lift. More runs= more fun = more value!”
https://www.rocksnowpark.com/whats-new
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Why are they doing it. Why not they buy a new chairlift?
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The rope at the Rock Snowpark is already up and in use from what I could see. They are replacing the chairs on another double chair they have (looks like old borvig chairs maybe?) I was told the Hall lift was decomissioned several years ago, and those chairs have just been sitting ever since. It’s a very very small hill, and since it’s already served by that other double chair perhaps it was somewhat redundant. I know at my home hill here in Minnesota (a little larger but similar size) there is one chairlift that they almost never run unless it gets super busy on weekends – with the small nature of the hill and the way its layed out the other lifts adequately serve all the terrain 90% of the time.
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I assume that the rock snow park is replacing the chairs on their borvig double with partek chairs?
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You’re welcome Nick. Hopefully you find the news on here more pleasant than the regular news sometimes!
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I would say nearly 100% of the time. Thanks for doing what you do.
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