- Mt. Baldy runs out of snow, ending North American lift served skiing for now.
- Aspen Skiing Company expresses frustration with the Colorado governor’s order for ski resorts to remain closed until at least May 23rd.
- Arapahoe Basin still wants to reopen.
- Oregon may beat Colorado to the punch.
- Eaglecrest, Alaska joins the Powder Alliance.
- Alterra CEO Rusty Gregory says his company is well-capitalized and delayed projects should be completed next year (plus he’s still looking to buy more resorts!)
- Skeetawk completes its chairlift, becoming the first new ski area in Alaska since 1983.
- Mountain planner Paul Mathews of Ecosign talks about the development of Sun Peaks and future plans in the West Bowl and the Gil’s areas.
- Norwegian Cruise Line reiterates its commitment to Alaska including the funding of two gondolas currently under construction in Hoonah.
- As part of a land swap, the Yellowstone Club seeks to gain 500 acres of expert terrain.
- Cuchara remains on track to reopen next year with one lift.
- The Utah Department of Transportation will evaluate gondolas from the Salt Lake Valley and Park City as two possible options to improve mobility in Little Cottonwood Canyon.
- Doppelmayr’s first Wir magazine of 2020 highlights new installations from around the world.
Lift Blog 
Great news for Cuchara! Glad to see they got the old Riblet running again!
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Does Cuchara plan to open Chair 3 anytime soon? With Chair 3 and 4 operational, the whole mountain might be able to operate.
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I’d imagine they’d want to see how many skiers they get before taking on the additional expense of fixing up and staffing more chairlifts.
Considering the past history of the ski area, I think that’s really smart. Better to have a financially successful small area than an unstable larger one.
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The lift they are starting with sits on land purchased by the county for a public park. The upper mountain is USFS land and would require a new special use permit. Hopefully those lifts come back in the years to come. I am going to visit Cuchara this summer and will report back.
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From what I have heard, 3 is still in fair shape but not known about condition the haul rope and grips are in. It was still tensioned the last time I drove by there a few years ago.
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I would also like to see chair 5 resurrected.
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I have hung a bunch of comline in my time but never have I seen done or done that way
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Vons- I was thinking the same thing! Bare rope everywhere else and heavy point loading in the vicinity of those 3 “carriers”…all with no safety circuit!😳
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Is their any word on Killington? I would imagine they still have snow on superstar
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It’s not going to happen. If they opened, thousands of people would come from NYC/Boston because there’s nothing to do in cities.
Northeast ski areas aren’t opening again until the virus dies down in NYC and Boston. Until then, there’s going to probably be no skiing.
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According to NESH, Killington never closed in March (they have almost complete data), so they might just open for one day without warning as so it won’t look wrong in statistics… It’s in their culture.
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A few interesting things I noted in the WIR.
The WIR mentions the high wind stability of the D-line (page 14), does anybody know how D-line wind stability compares to Uni-G and LPA? And how it compares to conventional trams with big cabins?
Can anyone work out what is on the D-line chair (page 16) in Finland? It seems to have two tubular chair frames, but it doesn’t explain why. There’s another photo of it here:
And finally, on page 18 is “one of” the first D-line 8-person gondolas. It appears to use the same LWI cabins as most Uni-G 8-person gondola lifts. I had previously heard Doppelmayr weren’t planning to make an 8-person D-line gondola, I’m not sure quite what the benefits are over a 10-person gondola (the same goes for LPA lifts)
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Does anyone know the general location of the 500 acres of expert terrain that YC is trying to get access to via that land swap? The article is silent on that as far as I can tell.
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There is nothing on the Forest Service website yet. If I had to guess, they will try to gain the area circled in blue while giving up the area in red.
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Thanks Peter. I had figured it might involve acquiring the high elevation expert terrain on Eglise Mtn but had no idea what they’d be giving up. Makes sense given the current resort footprint and skier base.
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