- Public comment opens for the proposed East Ridge expansion at Sunlight, which would occupy both public and private land.
- Frank DeBerry, head of Crystal Mountain, provides context on the decision to limit weekend ticket sales.
- Tourist attractions in China shut down due to coronavirus, including the iconic Ngong Ping 360 gondola.
- At Sugarbush, Inverness will run in place of the Green Mountain Express some days as a result of a lightning strike and prolonged diesel operations.
- In New Zealand, volcanic mud flow risk may require towers to be reinforced on the new Whakapapa gondola.
- The City of Oakland says an A’s stadium gondola is far from a done deal.
- Baldy Mountain Resort closes Sugarlump for days following alleged sabotage by a former employee. It reopened yesterday.
- The State of Maine approves financing for the sale of Saddleback.
- A judge okays the sale of Hermitage Club assets, including its six pack. Two more bidders emerge, including a group of former members. If Boyne wins the lift, it would be relocated to a New England mountain.
- Homewood acknowledges multiple mechanical issues will prevent operation of its longest and tallest lift for the remainder of the season.
- Ikon Pass crowding concerns make the New York Times.
- Gondola transit in Pittsburgh?
- Promoters of a Staten Island gondola seek public support.
- In Steamboat, leaders talk about challenges facing the industry.
- A skier dies after colliding with lift-related infrastructure at Snow Summit.
- Valemount Glacier Resort is still a possibility.
- Forbes profiles recent developments in fast-growing Big Sky.
- Win Smith explains why Sugarbush doesn’t need any new lifts, what Les Otten got right and more.
- Towers and terminals are rising in Puerto Vallarta, where a five station gondola will service a new theme park.
Lift Blog 
Lets hope boyne wins. Barnstormer would be perfect as a replacement for Barker Mtn @ sunday river
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Barnstormer would need a new motor due to the need for 3,000 pph.
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Why?
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Probably because they need more motor power for more chairs because of more weight.
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http://sundayrivercommunity.proboards.com/thread/296/machs-snowmaking-lift-feel-thread?page=11 , 8th post down.
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With current motor the lift would drop below the current lifts normal operating capacity
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I am hoping someone buys Hermitage entirely and keeps the lift in place. Let Boyne buy a brand new, state of the art lift for Barker.
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Gondolas would make a ton of sense as a transit system for Pittsburgh. The city is renewing itself with tech and a modern transit system in the form of a gondola for the hilly city would be fantastic.
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Win is quite wrong about Sugarbush not needing any new lifts. I haven’t listened to the podcast yet, but Sugarbush definitely needs a new Heaven’s Gate detachable which would reduce ride time and slightly increase capacity as well as a new Gate House six pack. The current lift has to run at 800 ft/min for beginners and often gets very long lines. It is a popular lift for ski school so a new six pack with a capacity of 3,000 p/h would allow for a longer loading interval so the lift could run full speed without many slows or stops. A new bike park which Sugarbush desperately needs could be built off of the new lift. Mid-mountain dining could be built at the top and a reliable connection could be re-establishes between Lincoln and Ellen. Slide Brook runs for the first time of the season tomorrow which is good, but still ridiculous that it can only run a few weeks per year. If they worked on clearing the liftline, they could easily run this lift much more than it currently does. It would also be nice to see it run close to 1,100 since that would reduce ride time to 10 minutes. Super Bravo and Slide Brook should be refurbished as well.
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How do you plan to finance all this expansion, Teddy?
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This can all be spread out over 10 years. Alterra has much more access to capital than they did under Win’s ownership.
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In the process, Super Bravo and an upgraded Gate House can get footrests, so there’s not a single lift on Mt. Lincoln that doesn’t have footrests.
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What is it with you east coasters and your slavish devotion to the footrest?
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Footrests are a nice accessory that makes lift rides more comfortable. You see them on almost every lift at Sugarbush except Super Bravo and Gate House, on every lift at Stowe, every lift at Okemo, on most of the major lifts at Killington…
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haha, I agree with donald on the fact they make the ride more confortable, but they also reduce the chance of falling off even with the bar down, (if you put your skis on them).
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No one who skis there more than once every 5 years thinks a detachable on Heaven’s Gate is a good idea. No one.
– There isn’t enough trail capacity to handle the extra traffic – just three ways down for 90% of skiers.
– The wind/and icing exposure up there means that operational reliability will go way down
Any replacement should be of the fixed grip variety, ideally a quad with somewhat larger spacing to balance the desire for increased capacity (maybe from 1500 to 1800-200 pph) and snow surface preservation. Can add a carpet and run it at 500/550 fpm to shave a minute off of the currently very reasonable 8 min/20 second trip.
Agree on Gate House 6 being likely at some point, though Win seemed to indicate that the high hours on Super Bravo would put that first in line.
Your take on Slide Brook is horrendously uninformed. The liftline is clear.They face regs and safety procedures around the ability to access all 40 tours in the event of an emergency. Need a certain amount of snow on the trails to get there no matter what type of lift conveyance is on the line.
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The “regs” claimed by Win are a PR lie to save face that they don’t want to spend the money to operate the lift. Lifts routinely operate without any snow underneath in early/late season. Lifts routinely operate over extreme terrain, over ponds, rivers, roads, etc. In fact in the ASC era, Slide Brook routinely ran even without snow.
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Well there Mr. VT State Regulatory Expert, how many of those lifts are crossing a backcountry habitat with no access roads and no ski patrol in the vicinity? Snowmobile is the fastest and only viable means of accessing all 40 towers, and you need a base for that.
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Listen to the podcast and think about the environment at the top of Lincoln Peak (location, topography, trail pod, weather) before making statements such as ‘Win is quite wrong about Sugarbush not needing any new lifts.’ Water storage capacity for snowmaking at Lincoln Peak and improved on mountain dining options seem to be bigger near term priorities than anything mentioned above.
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Here’s the thing. Sugarbush definitely needs more snowmaking and improved on-mountain dining as you said. All I’m saying is that lifts can’t be ignored in these next 10 years. Gate House is arguably the workhorse of the mountain as it is used by ski school, beginners, people looking to get to Slide Brook or North Lynx, and also advanced skiers just looking to lap trails like Sleeper and Hot Shot. It has to run at 4 m/s (~787 ft/min) to reduce slows and stops. This reduces capacity to about 1,900 p/h. Long lines are very common at this lift so it should be a priority. Also, after riding Slide Brook yesterday, I noticed that on some sections of the liftline there is a road that has been created under the lift while on other sections, the towers are barely even accessible. Slide Brook’s regulations can be eliminated through clearing new roads. I saw tons of people on the lift yesterday and crowds were distributed nicely between the two areas of the mountain. A new Gate House 6 and reliable connection being restored between the two areas of the mountain are a must as well as improved snowmaking and new mid-mountain dining at either area. As I also mentioned, Sugarbush’s infamous bike park could be complimented with a more beginner friendly one off of the Gate House Lift. Mid-mountain dining could either start with an expansion of Allyn’s or a new setup at the plateau where Gate House, Slide Brook, and North Lynx all are.
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Why do detachables have to slow down for beginners when the chairs are already going slower than fixed grips in the loading area?
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The speed in the terminal is dictated by the line speed. Faster line speeds mean faster terminal speed so chairs or cabins don’t run into each other. The only lifts that I’m aware that can run an independent terminal speed are pulse installations. (I know, I used to operate one.)
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Btw, I recently rode my first detachable lift where chairs stop every time in the terminal! That is the hooded quad (as the Japanese call it) quad chair in Niseko Moiwa – and old Nippon Cable (aka Doppelmayr license) chain driven bubble quad with very large chair spacing. Before the chain picks up the chair to go around it first stops – feels really really strange.
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I just rode the Olympic chair at Nakiska today, and it does the same thing. The chair spacing is so wide, and the chairs have about four seconds where they stop before the chain picks them up.
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Detachable chairs are almost always designed to go at 0.75 m/s in the terminals when running at the full speed of that particular lift (here in Europe at least, I presume it’s the similar in North America)
A fixed chair would go around 2–2.5 m/s
The point is, why would you need to slow a detachable down from 0.75 m/s ?
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Because beginners, in general, can be a bit nervous when it comes to loading a chairlift for the first time.
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When it comes to fixed grips chairs I could understand. But with High-speed chairs, it can be a bit easier when checking the chair for loading behind their backs.
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If you ever have the chance to load the Peak 8 SuperConnect at Breckenridge you should. That is 100% a detachable that should be slowed down for beginners. It is older so it is possible it doesn’t run at the standard .75m/s but it has definitely caught me by surprise on several occasions.
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@Brendan: The thing about the Peak 8 SuperConnect is that that’s a lift that was originally designed with 90 degree loading. Breck converted it to inline loading in 2013, the same year the Kensho SuperChair was built. However, I don’t think they modified the contours to account for the movement of the loading area, resulting in the chair coming around very fast.
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@Donald Reif Wow never would have guessed that used to be a 90 degree load! Thanks for the insight.
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The chairs may be going slower but it’s still a six-second interval on most detaches. Slowing the lift down increases the time beginners have to get to the load board. The other option is to increase the chair spacing, which allows a longer load interval at full speed. We did that tho the American Flyer this season- we pulled 22 chairs one night, re-spaced the lift, and opened the next day with 7.7-second loading. It’s definitely improved things.
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Most lifts don’t have the benefit of being able to increase and decrease chair spacing to adjust to different demand levels. Usually because they don’t have parking areas like American Flyer has.
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I’m aware. Either you design the lift with longer intervals, or you do in the summer what we were able to do overnight. Also, what we did isn’t something you can just do every Friday night to accommodate Saturday traffic. It was a headache and I didn’t get home until after midnight. I was just using that for an example. We’re keeping the lift with the current capacity until the end of the season.
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