- Sunday River releases maps of the upcoming Merrill Hill project.
- Updated stats from NSAA show how many ski areas operated in each state last winter.
- Las Vegas’ decision to go with Teslas in a tunnel rather than a Doppelmayr automated people mover may have been short sighted.
- Jay Peak President Steve Wright discusses joining the Indy Pass, limited winter tram operations and potential future lift upgrades.
- Mission Ridge begins erecting terminals for the new Liberator Express, which load and unload inside buildings.
- Whiteface’s new beginner quad will be called Owl Express.
- A new lift at Sun Valley will also get a fresh name, to be announced soon.
- Gunstock burns down an old T-Bar station for firefighter training.
- An Ontario ski area worries about lift safety following a rash of vandalism.
- With the launch of a gondola up Hoonah Mountain next year, an Alaska Native corporation sees new opportunities for development.
- Despite a 30 percent drop in business last winter, at least two New Zealand resorts plan to build new lifts this offseason.
- As Smartwool moves headquarters from Steamboat to Denver, the company gifts $1.5 million to Howelsen Hill for a new Barrows chairlift, to be built by Skytrac.
- A Michigan ski area with 12 lifts won’t make snow and will operate weekends only due to Coronavirus.
- Mont-Sainte-Anne is no longer certain its base-to-summit gondola will be functional by December.
- Big Sky wraps up a busy season of preparation for the Swift Current 6 top terminal and carrier storage facility.
Lift Blog 
With 3 in NJ I guess they don’t count places like this…
https://winter4kids.org/
Formerly Hidden Valley.
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Also interesting as their Member Directory lists 8 areas in NJ, including ‘The Hidden Valley Club’.
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Very sporting of Smartwool for the donation of funds for the new Barrows lift at Howelsen! But regarding Sun Valley’s re-naming of a lift.. Are they talking about the new Cold Springs?
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Think so because that’s the only lift being built this year
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Can’t listen to the Jay podcast right now.. Can somebody give me a TLDR on this year’s operations and the planned upgrades?
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I listened mostly to the part about potential lift upgrades, the TLDR is basically:
Bonnie’s in need of a replacement sometime soon, potentially with a CLD-6 that goes a little higher on the ridge
Jet may some time need a CLF-4 replacement, however it’s unlikely at the time as the lift is a tank and it’s placement keeps it sheltered from the wind
The tram is fine, it got big upgrades in 2017 and there aren’t any plans to replace it, he said that in the future it could be replaced by a gondola with a limited capacity, however he said that it’s not something that they’re doing anytime soon. He also stated that a tram wouldn’t be his first choice if he were designing a resort.
As for a redundancy lift to the summit, he seemed to take interest in the idea, however he cited two concerns, the lack of space for an unload and the capacity not being required due to the limited amount of terrain at the very summit of the mountain.
Me personally, I think a Bonnie upgrade will be the priority of new owners in terms of lifts. Jet isn’t really aching for an upgrade, and it’s probably low down on the list. I think a redundancy lift would work and be useful for if the tram goes down and for early season skiing, something like the old Skyline lift, a double chair they had to the summit while building the tram.
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Some more of the Jay Peak plans for the winter. Steve (the Jay GM) said they don’t need 4-5 restaurants open for this winter so the plan is operate one restaurant, second restaurant for takeout and delivery to the condo and hotels, maybe leave one more restaurant on standby. Jay Peak also plans to leave a bunch of condos on standby for the winter and not use them, so that there will be less to clean and sanitize for COVID. Most of the condos left on standby could be quickly opened if they got super busy, but not expected. Core of the expected skier plan at Jay is that the Canadian Ski traffic (50% of business ) will not make it this winter, another 30 % to 40 % of the other traffic will scale back. So Jay has lots of room for expanding their group of regulars this winter
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Peter- been noticing very slow times for the pictures to load the past few days, I’ve cleared my cookies and all that stuff but still no luck. Any advice?
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