- In Massachusetts, Bousquet sells to a private investment firm which will be advised by Jon and Jim Schaefer.
- Magic Mountain resumes work on the Black Line Quad project.
- Bravo to many more ski areas offering up ski lifts for graduation ceremonies: Big Bear, Canyon, Copper Mountain, Deer Valley, Giants Ridge, Jackson Hole, Mountain High, Snow Valley and Treetops.
- Nub’s Nob says goodbye to the Blue Chair.
- There will be no summer skiing on Blackcomb Glacier this year.
- A Canadian government decision means no Alaska cruises will sail in 2020 and it will likely be 2021 until Icy Strait Point’s dual gondola system debuts.
- The creator of the Indy Pass argues shared revenue models are the future of ski passes.
- Poma’s 2019 Reference Book is here.
- Doppelmayr begins building Saddleback’s $7 million high speed quad.
- The Aspen Mountain Telemix may happen in 2022.
- Mountain Collective adds a fifth new resort for 2020/21: Sun Peaks, British Columbia.
- Set to become the world’s longest alpine 3S, Jungfrau’s Eiger Express will open early.
- Launching tomorrow: another spectacular 3S which travels 705 feet above the sea in Vietnam. Three more sections will eventually form a 12.1 mile gondola chain.
- Demaclenko creates a fully automated fogging/disinfection solution for moving gondola cabins.
- Construction gets underway on the first bubble chairlift in the Pacific Northwest, which will load and unload inside buildings.
- In Minnesota, both Welch Village and Spirit Mountain pull the plug on summer operations.
- Vail Resorts lost $40 million less than anticipated in March and April and reported a net income of $152.5 million for the quarter ended April 30th.
- Purgatory proposes building a detachable quad chair and four low intermediate trails in an area known as Ice Creek.
- On Mt. Hood, Summit Ski Area seeks a boundary extension to the Timberline border, a first step towards a possible lift link.
- Leitner-Poma President Daren Cole pens a letter addressing challenges facing the ski industry in the age of coronavirus.
- Alterra extends the Ikon Pass deferral option to April 2021 and introduces a credit policy in the event of resort closures next season.
- A new English edition of International Ropeway Review profiles Treeline Cirque at Alpine Meadows and the Express du Village at Bromont.
- Utah’s Department of Transportation narrows its Little Cottonwood Canyon mobility study to gondolas and buses.
- The Snowbird tram will carry only 25 passengers when it reopens June 13th.
- The City of Idaho Springs, Colorado conditionally approves the Mighty Argo Cable Car, a 1.2 mile gondola on the site of a historic mine.
Lift Blog 
How is the Leitner 3S selling compared to Doppelmayr 3S? Is there really any major difference between the 2 companies?
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Leitner and Poma have more announced 3Ss under construction right now than Doppelmayr. Three in China, one in France (two stages) and one in Switzerland/Italy. Doppelmayr has built many more to date but I know of only two in development currently.
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Does anyone know where mission ridges new chair came from because it sounds like it’s used
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I think it came from brixen, Austria. Part of the SkiWelt resort
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So they’re trading one old quad for another old quad with bubbles? Seems sorta silly. I see 3 old Dopp bubble quads from SkiWelt. One demo’d in 2013 “Aualm”
The Brixen one was built in ’87 and demo’d last year. “Zinsbergbahn”
https://www.remontees-mecaniques.net/bdd/reportage-tsd4b-zinsbergbahn-doppelmayr-2889.html
This one still shows that’s it’s in service “Astbergbahn”:
https://www.remontees-mecaniques.net/bdd/reportage-tsd4b-astbergbahn-doppelmayr-246.html
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The chain cadence system is probably still going to be unreliable, but I read that the lift is getting all new electronics as part of the move to Mission Ridge. Hopefully that should help some
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How is the old cadence chain unreliable? They’re harder to get parts for, sure, but aside from being noisy (on Pomas, at least) they’re not bad. The only problem I have with them as a mechanic is they’re the greasiest, dirtiest thing on a lift by far.
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They were noisy on Doppies as well.
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Should have rephrased, difficult to get parts for is probably more accurate than “unreliable”. I’m not in the industry, just a longtime skier, so I’d defer to anyone with specific knowledge about equipment of this vintage.
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Why is the loading and unloading for mission ridge’s new detachable going to be in buildings? I get buildings for bubble storage but why loading and unloading in buildings in this situation?
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Guessing it’s because they were inside buildings in Austria so the lift did not come with traditional enclosures.
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So what will happen to the old Quad, will MR reuse it or sell it?
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Probably scrapped because of the lifts age. I could see it be converted to a fixed grip for future purpose at mission ridge though.
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It’s being scrapped. The chairs are being sold.
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From what I hear, they already purchased a fixed grip quad for future use. So I can’t see them reusing it.
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Surely it would have been cheaper to have new enclosures fitted than to construct buildings – if they were going for such an old lift money must’ve been tight
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The link to the Poma 2019 Reference Book on this page does not seem to work.
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Should work now.
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Interesting, there is a lift in there (Skyview, Patnitop) which appears to feature lattice tower structures identical to those Doppelmayr use
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I would be shocked if LCC ends up with a 3S gondola (the proposed type) running up to Snowbird/Alta. Personally, I think it is a much better idea than increasing bus service, as the busses just are not popular enough where enough people use them. However, Save Our Canyons must be losing their minds over the potential sightline disruptions.
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Running a 3s up LCC just pushes the problem onto the lifts and slopes. Alta-bird already have lines as is.
If Utah wants to fix their ski crowding problem, they first need more expert terrain (whether that be expanded current resorts or completely new ones). 4 ski areas in that state currently have a monopoly on gnarly terrain.
An option I see for LCC is to put a lift down American Fork Canyon. This proposal would be a ~8,500 foot long HSQ with a drop of ~2,500 and would add a lot of new terrain. In conjunction with a slightly extended Mineral (which is already proposed) you could get to hidden peak in 2 lift rides. They’d have to do a lot of work to make the road work during the winter and for that many cars, but they could potentially build a massive parking area down there. Save Our Canyons would also be angry, but it seems like everything makes them angry.
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That could potentially work but like you said save the canyons is going to get angry. Where would the road come from to the parking lot? Also they could build a little lodge at the bottom and potentially have it as another base area. I think it should be a six pack though because it could potentially get crowded.
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I am all in favor of expanding Snowbird’s terrain, but I do not think a base area at the bottom of American Fork will solve the problem. Even if they clear the roads, it would take quite a lot longer to get there from everywhere except Provo because of the way the roads circumvent the mountains. I actually do not mind the idea of pushing the crowds to the lifts and slopes because both Alta and Snowbird have terrain expansions and lift upgrades in the pipeline that should be able to absorb the crowds. Also, to keep everything in perspective, LCC’s crowds have definitely increased in the last decade, but I still find the lift lines shorter on average than most mountains in the state.
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From what I’ve heard, LCC road can back up multiple hours on powder days, so the extra 20 minutes into American Fork is inconsequential on the days it is useful.
While Alta and Bird have expansions planned, none of them are enormous. Those expansions by themselves aren’t going to fix overcrowding in LCC, they are just going to delay the inevitable. When skier density gets higher, lift capacity goes up, but this has the side effect of overcrowding slopes and snow gets tracked off way faster. As the skiers per acre goes up, the skiing experience gets worse.
LCC, solitude and Snowbasin have all the lift served gnarly terrain near SLC and combine to ~8,000 acres. That’s not much. Unless that number somehow gets a lot bigger, the skiing experience in Utah will just get worse.
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Without traffic, it takes 15 minutes from Wasatch Blvd to drive up to Alta and about an hour to drive around to the base of American Fork, so there is a significant time gap. Yes, there is usually some form of traffic up LCC, but I am just giving a sense of scale. The only times where LCC truly becomes a nightmare are avalanches and powder days. Avalanche control closes sections of the road, and it would also occur on the alternative route up to American Fork. There is a large overlap between days that require avalanche control and powder days, so I am not sure how much good it would do for everyone except the Provo folks.
As for the terrain expansions, Mary Ellen Gulch at Snowbird is projected to increase its skiable acres by 20% and Grizzly Gulch at Alta would increase its skiable acres by 10%. Plus, adding Grizzly Gulch coupled with a small lift at Solitude would facilitate a BCC/LCC connection and allow Solitude and Brighton to be added to the mix as well, further spreading out skiers. On top of everything else, both Alta and Snowbird have other lands they can use for future expansions is needed, so I am not too worried.
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Isn’t Bousquet supposed to get a new summit lift?
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Where did you hear that?
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From the “2020 New Lifts” tab
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There are quite a few recent additions on the 2020 New Lifts page for those who have not checked it out recently.
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Thanks for the update, wonder how lift blog was notified, can’t find anything on either the Bousquet or haystack/ hermitage website.
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Oh boy I hope so, although it is unlikely. They bought a new drive for that thing a little while back, which was probably worth more than the mountain itself, and it still failed the weight test so they could only load every other chair.
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What mountain/ lift are you referring too?
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Tom I replied to a comment on the summit double at Bousquet
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Hiked Bousquet last weekend and while all of us locals love the old Yellow Chair, she’s showing her age. It’s well past time for a new way to the “top of the Biscuit”.
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I think she was showing her age a long time ago haha. They just never had the money
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Thinking about it now, it’s seems a bit odd that Magic is installing a $1 million fixed grip when Saddleback is installing a $7 million detachable. I’ve never skied either but I’d take an educated guess that Magic’s market (and potential market) is larger than Saddleback’s…
Maybe one of them is making a mistake here.
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Magic has a retro image they need to follow, this Alpha drive is replacing a Pohlig (the P in PHB). While Saddleback need to compete with the larger and well maintained SR, and SL, and also put themselvs back on the map.
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Meir and that pohlig was a center pole that was replaced by triple chairs when they ripped out the midstation. That old black/blue chair was always a massive thorn in their side after Hans stepped down. So many problems.
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Magic Mtn, based upon New England ski resort history, does less than 50 k in skier visits, saddleback does 90k, this new black chair at magic could be a game changer for them.
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Magic has a lot less money given that it isn’t owned by a billion dollar company. Also, Saddleback has much less competition, as it is attempting to become only the third large resort in the state of Maine. Magic is situated in between Stratton and Okemo, not too far from Mount Snow or Killington either, adjacent to an already popular small mountain in Bromley. When they have historically tried competing at a high level, they have failed.
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The thing with magic is that what people come for is the windy, narrow trails and glades. You can’t dump a ton of people at the top of the mountain because then you will have trail crowding, and that ruins the best part about the place.
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Lol every time I ski Magic, there is almost always a family that has never skied in their life and wants to hit the cheapest slopes, last year there was a person that hopped off the red chair at the low clearance section and tried to navigate down. It was like watching a Warren Miller film.
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Right as you pass over Witch?
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