- Mt. Snow ropes 190 people off Challenger on opening weekend.
- Doppelmayr introduces a new RPD system called Nexo.
- Cooper’s Tennessee Creek Basin expansion enters the final stretch.
- The only gondola in Illinois carried 6,000 riders in its first few weeks.
- The Epcot line of the Disney Skyliner experiences some downtime.
- Chair 4 at Cuchara is fired up as a test after almost 20 years idle.
- A two stage gondola is floated to connect Park City’s Kimball Junction commercial district to Utah Olympic Park.
- Aspen will look at building a gondola from airport to town.
- Completion of West Mountain’s new Partek triple caps the $17 million redevelopment of a place which was bankrupt seven years ago.
- Green Mountain Valley School receives approval for T-Bar construction next summer at Sugarbush.
- The State of New York plans to spend $2.4 million on new cabins and other upgrades to the Cloudsplitter Gondola at Whiteface.
- Boyne Resorts President and CEO Stephen Kircher discusses lots of exciting possibilities: a 9th peak at Sunday River, additional eight place chairlifts at key locations, more projects at Big Sky and a lift realignment at Sugarloaf.
- Vail Resorts sends layoff notices to numerous Peak Resorts staffers.
- Steamboat’s new and improved gondola opens tomorrow.
- Towers are up for the Hard Rock Stadium gondola, which will feature glass floors.
Lift Blog 
Didnt hear about the Challenger evac until this was posted. Any word on what would have caused it?
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Sort Video of the Challenger evac: https://www.reddit.com/r/icecoast/comments/dxaqs1/challenger_lift_18_evacuation_opening_weekend_at/
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In the rendering shown, I noticed that they are keeping the GMVS T-Bar. I wonder what it’s purpose will be with the new midstation. It’s sad to see the Poma go, but it’s in very rough shape. I would really like to ride it this year, but it is extremely hard to load and is reserved for racers only. I’ll try my best to ride it.
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Where would the 9th peak at Sunday river be?
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Next to Jordan – although on the podcast, he mentioned that first, there would be focus on additional trails/glades within the existing peaks, and upgrading some of the older lifts.
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The podcast was quite interesting. With Big sky he made it sound like there will be a new lift fro the 2020-2021 season, as well as the following year. I am assuming that they will build the gondola in two stages? But something that really made me interested was when he mention there will be a bring project that will be announced to the public roughly a year from now. I wonder what this will be, Moonlight expansion?
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No the 9th peak will be in front of North Peak tied to a real estate development
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He also mentioned a long term plan of expanding beyond Jordan.
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I’m surprised to hear that Whiteface is replacing the gondola cabins. The full overhaul otherwise makes sense. That lift has had tons of issues the past couple years. I’ve thought to myself many times “well this lift sucks”, but never “these cabins suck”. The Gangloff cabins are fine. They could refurbish them like Tremblant has been doing for half the cost of replacement. The difference is Tremblant is doing it a few at a time every summer, while Whiteface hasn’t done any such work and needs to do it all at once. That would require extended down time which isn’t acceptable on that lift. Plus the whole high end image thing for the World University Games. IMO, the Gore cabins need attention far more than the Whiteface cabins. Either way, I hope that after the overhaul the lift will run full speed again. It’s been slowed down so much over the years.
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I just listened to the Kircher podcast and it is extremely interesting. He hints at an upcoming real estate project tied in with a 9th peak at Sunday River (use this coordinate 44.481259, -70.874938 on Google Maps Terrain View to see where) and an eventual 10th peak past Jordan (likely 44.471126, -70.911885). Additionally, he infers that Boyne will build at least one eight pack on the east coast, which I’m guessing will be Barker Mountain. It sounds like Sunday River and Sugarloaf (and to a lesser extent Loon) will all receive their own “Big Sky 2025” plans.
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