- Northeast gems Saddleback and Waterville Valley join the Indy Pass coalition, effective immediately.
- Winter Park Resort looks for the Forest Service’s blessing to replace multiple lifts.
- The Forest Service fully approves Keystone’s Bergman Bowl project.
- Welch Village voluntarily withdraws the East Quad from service following an unspecified incident (now back open).
- Guests of Mission Ridge love the Wenatchee Express and here’s the final episode of On the Way Up.
- Spirit Mountain lends a hand to repair the chairlift at nearby Chester Bowl.
- A girl is okay after falling from a Mohawk Mountain chairlift.
- A child also falls from a lift at Saddleback.
- Skyline at Pebble Creek is partially rope evacuated.
- Lookout Pass eyes 2022 for new lifts servicing Eagle Peak.
- More reports of stellar seasons from Iowa, New York and Pennsylvania.
- Cabins return to the Sea to Sky Gondola with more on the way.
- Mt. Bohemia considers building a lift in the Haunted Valley.
- Timberline Lodge closes for three days following a messy ice storm.
- Once a cartel hub, Medellín is a city transformed in part by a modern gondola network.
- Waterville Valley President and General Manager Tim Smith discusses a future gondola, bubble six pack and other lift changes.
- A rider who fell into a net along with another passenger and lift operator sues Snow King Mountain.
- Murray Ridge secures a six figure grant to rehabilitate one of the world’s longest T-Bars.
- MND reports revenue fell 5 percent in the second half of 2020 ($20.7 million in sales came from snowmaking and lifts.)
- Aspen will delay the Silver Queen Gondola‘s summer opening to complete big ticket maintenance items.
- Doppelmayr’s latest Wir magazine explores the Eiger Express.
- Saddleback closes for a day to shorten the haul rope on the new Rangeley quad.
- Poma will build an eight station urban gondola system in Madagascar with 274 cabins.
- Parent company Dream Unlimited says Arapahoe Basin is on track for its second best financial year ever despite opening four weeks late.
- Just two weeks to go until old lifts start coming down to make way for new ones.
- Squaw will experiment metering skiers at gates to avoid long lift lines at Silverado.
- The world’s largest urban gondola network might add four more lines.
- Big Squaw reopens tomorrow, two weeks after this deropement.
- A gondola is no longer a core component of the Oakland Athletics’ planned new stadium.
- There’s talk of building a 7,000 vertical foot gondola on Mt. Kilimanjaro.
Lift Blog 
Timberline was actually able to open Thursday but had to close again today due to more extreme weather.
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Any documents or info on the Winter Park lift upgrades? Nothing is posted on the link.
I’d imagine Pioneer has to be on there list to replace soon.
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The scoping notice isn’t finished yet. The Forest Service told me they were shooting for this week but it looks like we will have to wait until next week to know which lifts.
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I’m guessing Pioneer, Gemini, Olympia and High Lonesome will be on there. Maybe Iron Horse too.
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Possibly challenger as well! Can’t wait to see!
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They are also thinking of adding two new lifts, one is the lunch rock gondola (The Gondola was designed to be extended,) and the other is unknown.
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I had no idea mapsynergy made masterplans. Is this one of their maps that they have in stock, or is this their actual masterplan.
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Some of this has been completed but shows a few improvements yet to come. http://www.ecosign.com/wp-content/uploads/winterpark-10yrplan.jpg
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Utah Powder Skier, yes, this is an actual Master Plan for lifts. Altera uses these maps now as you can see on skimap.org for Steamboat.
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That is not a master plan. That is a map made by skimap.com. Although they do make excellent maps and usually try to add proposed lifts from a resort’s master plan, it is not necessarily accurate. Ecosign and SE Group make master plans, as they are contracted by resorts to do so. The link Randy has above shows Winter Park’s master plan from April 2016.
Resorts can and do deviate from these plans, especially with ownership changes. When that master plan was completed, Intrawest was still the owner of Winter Park. In 2019, Winter Park deviated from the Master Plan, as Alterra decided that Sunnyside should be a six-pack and not a quad.
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I disagree with you, also, where did you get that?
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I am sorry you disagree, but this is just a fact and not a disputable opinion. Just look on their respective websites:
https://skimap.com/
http://www.ecosign.com/project/winter-park
There is nothing wrong with using or liking third-party maps, but they are not official whatsoever.
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The Pioneer Express, Challenger and the Olympia Express would be my top priority lifts for replacement: high speed six packs for the Olympia Express and Pioneer Express, and a high speed quad for Challenger.
I don’t see any extension of the gondola to Lunch Rock happening in the near-future.
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The Murry Ridge T-Bar is insanely long. I’m glad they’re refurbishing it though, always wanted to go there.
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I find Squaw’s approach on reopening the Silverado area very interesting, never seen something like that. Anyone know if they have done something like that before or if any other resorts have done something like this?
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Should be interesting to see what Alterra announces in the next couple weeks in terms of new lifts. They usually announce in early March.
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Probably same lifts as last years plan and some more improvements such as moving Steamboats gondola Terminal uphill and redoing base area there. I wonder if they will do double the projects this year with last years projects and new projects for this year. That will probably be unlikely because I’m not sure if the companies that build the lifts will have enough manufacturing capacity for them.
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Alterra built 4 lifts in 2018, 3 in 2019, and planned for 2 in 2020, so it is feasible for them to build up to four in one year based on their short history. The most likely addition to the two Mammoth lifts is the California Gondola at Squaw/Alpine. It is going to be formally announced alongside the resort rebrand in the upcoming weeks/months. The only question is whether the project will be completed in one or two years to potentially push some capital costs to next summer, but someone else said they heard from a reliable source that it was going to be done this year. Perhaps Alterra pushes off both Mammoth lifts another year to get California Express completed and save money. The second most likely lift for Alterra this summer is Timber at Tremblant simply because it was originally supposed to be built this year. However, I do not believe they did as much prep work last summer as they would have liked, and Tremblant’s financial performance this winter has been dreadful. The only thing that could potentially keep Timber in the picture is that there is new base development at Versant Soleil, where Timber is supposed to be, opening in 2022 that could be tied to additional trails, snowmaking, lifts, etc.
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I hope Alterra gets to Crystal at some point. We have a fairly modern lift network but Rex, one of our biggest workhorses, is getting fairly unreliable in its old age.
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I agree that Rex could use an upgrade, and there are perhaps a couple of other infill lifts that could help better distribute skiers around the mountain. However, Crystal’s biggest problem is parking and the base area. Given the topography, there is really no easy or cheap solution to this problem, so Alterra is going to have to think big or outside of the box for this.
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I am sure hoping for the California Express to happen this year, I am planning on being up in Tahoe a lot this summer, I can try and document anything that goes on.
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It certainly seems like Crystal has been a cash cow for them this year- tons of Ikon passes in the Seattle area, and it’s busier on weekdays than ever before. Hopefully Alterra gives back a little something- Crystal could definitely use a base revamp… but in the lift department a Rex or Disco replacement would be welcome, as would some sort of parking access lift.
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I’m still hoping for an eastward expansion at Crystal someday too. Plenty of suitable terrain up there.
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I heard the Alterra announcement date is March 9 this year. Keep in mind it could always change, as they did delay it by 24 hours last year.
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The Gondola at Aspen was put in in 1987, is used year round, and is getting a new haul rope only? Did she get a major retrofit recently?
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Yep. In 2006, the cabins and drive were replaced and the chain contours were replaced with tire banks. I believe the grips were all rebuilt as a part of this process too.
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I think it was even more recent than that- 2016 is what I recall. The grips are inspected and rebuilt every five years anyway, unless they did a major overhaul on them while they replaced the cabins.
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The cabins, conveyors etc. were in 06′, I have one of the old sigma cabins in my front yard, still 32 years old is getting up there for a detachable.
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The Bergman Express will be an interesting project to look at when Keystone decides to build it. I think there’s three ways it could go:
1. They reuse the Peru Express lift’s chairs and towers, refitting them with new grips and new UNI-G terminals.
2. It’s an all-new high speed quad supplied by Leitner-Poma.
3. Keystone deviates from the master plan and builds it as a high speed six pack because six pack chairs, being heavier, are a bit more wind resistant (this was partially the reason Breck built the Kensho SuperChair as a six pack).
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