- The new lift at Great Bear Ski Valley is eight weeks ahead of schedule with chairs on the line.
- Another lockdown hits Australian resorts, this time Perisher and Thredbo in New South Wales.
- New Zealand shuts down all ski resorts as part of a nationwide freeze.
- A man dies after a fall from the sky ride at Utah’s Lagoon amusement park.
- Cape Smokey expects Canada’s first new gondola since 2018 to open next week.
- Sunlight solicits a new trail map painted by Kevin Mastin.
- Brazil’s government will study the feasibility of restarting the world’s largest abandoned urban gondola.
- A gondola system is being considered for Tijuana, Mexico.
- The Arizona Gondola re-enters service after 18 days of lightning-related downtime.
- Doppelmayr will build Latin America’s first gondola with air conditioning.
- An extended interview with Poma Chairman Jean Souchal covers Covid recovery, urban growth and why Americans call surface lifts of all brands Pomas.
- Despite offering $10 million, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania receives no bids for reopening Denton Hill.
- California and Nevada resorts report an almost 22 percent increase in skier visits during the Covid season of 2020-21.
- Washington, DC budgets $10 million to purchase property needed for a possible future Georgetown-Rosslyn Gondola.
- Steamboat confirms the first section of the Wild Blue Gondola project is a go for next summer.
- The Boat will also retire the Priest Creek double and sell its chairs.
- Ontario’s Beaver Valley Ski Club plans to replace the Avalanche double in 2022.
- Time to vote! Choices for renaming Squaw Valley’s Squaw Creek triple are Eagle Eye, Highline, Resort, Snow King, Storm Rider and Valley View.
- Welch Village updates guests on the Cannon Valley Quad project.
Lift Blog 
The link for the priest creek chair sale won’t open. Where can I buy one?
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Try it now? The actual auction doesn’t start until the 24th.
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Nice, I suggested the name Snow King. I’m sure that a lot of people did though.
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The wording on the Steamboat Pilot article is confusing. Will the gondola go to the top of Sunshine Peak or not?
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Yes.
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Interesting that Steamboat is moving full speed ahead with the Pioneer Ridge area improvements. That access into Fish Creek drainage with the egress trail taking you back to the new lift will dramatically transform the terrain offering at the Boat. Aside from some very quick hits up at the top of Mt Werner, Fish Creek will represent the first true expert terrain at the hill. It will be fascinating to see if the trail enhancements to the current Pioneer pod (grading/widening/snowmaking) plus the new chair and associated terrain have the effect of drawing a higher % of skiers over to that side of the mountain. Feels like 90% of the traffic on the upper mountain is to the south of Storm Peak lift, so this could have some interesting (and positive) impacts on skier flow/traffic patterns.
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Fish creek will be a great improvement but I will miss the back country area currently there. Keep in mind all the trails on fish creek will be gladed double blacks. It’s basically the terrain of the run no names but more than 4 times as long.
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Ugh, I hate those Squaw Creek names.
Eagle eye- Pretty cool name actually, but doesn’t remind me of this area of the resort at all. It’s the access lift for the 5 star hotel. It’s lower mountain. This name would be great for something gnarly closer to the top but just does not fit very well here in my opinion.
Highline- Lowest base lift at Squaw.. Doesn’t get above treeline.. The name is counter-intuitive and confusing.
Resort chair- Really? The amount of laziness this embodies is… quite something. Also bound to cause confusion, terrible name on that regard too.
Snow King- Nobody really uses this moniker, and Squaw Creek is really the secondary access point to here, with Red Dog being far more popular (will be even more true after Red Dog HSS goes in)
Storm Rider- Usually KT is the de-facto lift you go to during storms, if that chair’s closed, this one probably is too. It’s more of a “line-avoider” but that name probably wouldn’t go over too well.
Valley View- Excellent actually, thank you. I really hope it gets named this.
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A ton of people have called it Resort chair for as long as I’ve skied Squaw so that’s easily my favorite of the bunch. It seems like a lazy name if you’re new to the area but it’s the only one that really has any local recognition.
Snow King also makes sense since people know that’s the name of that mountain but as you said, Red Dog is the main access to it.
Valley View is pretty good if they’re just coming up with a completely new name.
All the other names are terrible and tied for 6th. I’m almost shocked that Creek Chair wasn’t a finalist though.
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I found the original press release from Steamboat and it appears the newspaper misinterpreted. This makes it sound like only the first section is going in next summer:
https://www.steamboatmagazine.com/2021/08/20/365832/additional-full-steam-ahead-projects-receive-approval
I tried to clarify the timing and manufacturer with Steamboat a few weeks ago, but they did not respond.
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They could be trying to approve the second section so they could install it with the first. I’ve seen multiple news articles and all are worded differently. Also it wouldn’t make sense to have only one stage because thunderhead would be overcrowded. But if you build both you will have better skier distribution. So it is quite a conundrum to think about.
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Both sections are approved. Decision signed August 9th. https://www.fs.usda.gov/nfs/11558/www/nepa/113895_FSPLT3_5658236.pdf
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Not surprised about Denton. I’ve heard it’s a fun 600 vert hill, but it’s in the middle of nowhere in northern PA. The nearest cities of Scranton, Rochester, and Pittsburgh all have resorts closer to them that are bigger and more well-known than Denton. Aside from this I’m sure they could clean the place up a bit, but the question is, who would show up?
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