- A decision on the Little Cottonwood Canyon gondola isn’t announced yet but some are already calling for an audit and threatening a lawsuit.
- Telluride celebrates 25 years of public transport by gondola.
- Catamount now plans to finish its two relocated chairlift projects over the summer.
- An impressive six station, 150 cabin urban gondola opens in Israel.
- Granby Ranch teases a new lift between its East and West mountains.
- The Forest Service green lights Purgatory’s Ice Creek expansion, through construction won’t happen right away.
- Whitefish will give the public one last chance to ride Chair 4/Great Northern tomorrow; Bigfoot T-Bar will be closed for the rest of the season due to maintenance.
- Epic Pass prices rise modestly, tiers and blackout dates remain the same.
- In a presentation to investors, Vail Resorts says it will continue to focus on advance commitment products, high return capital investments and network expansion.
- Vail says data-based adjustments to select lifts achieved an average capacity increase of 10 percent, equivalent to adding five high speed quads to its network without investing any capital. The program will expand to more lifts for 2022-23.
- Some Juneau leaders have second thoughts about bringing over a used gondola from Austria.
- Mt. Snow’s Sunbrook quad may live on at another Vail resort.
- A lawsuit seeks to stop the proposed Los Angeles Dodger Stadium-Union Station gondola.
- Following last week’s Bartholet-HTI news, MND says its agreement with Bartholet runs through December 2023 and that MND “aims to be a major and self-sufficient industrial ropeway mobility player.” The company plans to deliver around 32 non-detachable chairlifts and surface lifts this year in addition to Bartholet alliance projects.
- An Associated Press investigation uses an Iowa county’s purchase of Mt. Crescent Ski Area as an example of wasteful pandemic relief spending.
- Connonsburg, Michigan may become the latest private ski area to transition to public ownership.
- A permit extension request reveals why the Palisades Base to Base gondola wasn’t completed last summer.
“The 2021 construction season was particularly challenging due to a number of unusual circumstances. The pandemic resulted in labor shortages for not only the lift construction crews and building teams, but also with the supply chain companies delivering key materials. Helicopter usage was a key component for construction, as they were required for activities including tree removal, setting of lift towers and pouring the foundations at the KT mid-station. Helicopter availability was greatly affected by one of the worst wildfire seasons in California history, and once helicopters were available, their operations were shut down as they could not safely fly in the smoky conditions. The fires also resulted in periods when the crews had to be sent home due to unhealthy air quality. For these reasons, construction could not be completed within the six-to-eight-month time frame anticipated in the EIS.”
Lift Blog 
Hi Peter, Would you happen to know what the future plans are for the Great Northern #4 triple?
Thank you, Louis
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Their Instagram post references a six pack lift, I’d guess it will be a detachable since it will be longer than the lift it is replacing.
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I think Louis is asking what the resort is going to do with the lift that is being removed, the new lift is a LPOA HSS. Stadeli built good equipment and a big triple like this lift could be desirable in the second hand market.
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Whitefish could even find another use for it, seeing as they’ve made a reputation of relocating or installing secondhand lifts.
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Oh shoot you’re right! In 2019, WMR said they would not reuse the lift on the mountain. That was three years ago though so who knows what their plans are now. Here’s the link to the post with the update from Peter in the comments. https://liftblog.com/2019/10/17/whitefish-plans-a-great-northern-express/
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Love how the vail presentation to investors listed the new Freedom Superchair at Breckenridge to be a 6-pack and it is just a 4 and how it said Beaver Creek got 2 high speed quads but it only got one high speed quad and a fixed grip quad lol.
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Vail is a mess. That whole stat about capacity increases on lifts is 100% bs.
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Sunbrook would be a decent fit for the Double Doubles at Attitash.
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A new Doppelmayr is going in there. A Doppelmayer trailer arrived this week.
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I’m guessing the future expansion at Granby Ranch would put a new lift where the old poma is. There is housing above that lift so it couldn’t go too high. I wonder if the poma is moving to the race area as they say it’ll be served by a surface lift. Glad to see them working on a master plan. The area has some fun trails but always put housing over skiing before the new owners took over.
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I know it is not listed on this news roundup, but Vail just bought Andermatt in Switzerland, and I think it is going to go one of two ways:
Option A) Vail tries to learn from Andermatt. European skiing is often seen as more enjoyable, with a large number of restaurants around the mountain, state-of-the-art comfortable lifts everywhere, and base areas that prefer pedestrians and activity over parking lots and cars. Maybe Vail does not see this as a realistic vision for Crotched, but perhaps they can view this as a model for Vail or Beaver Creek.
Option B) Vail tries to convert Andermatt to North American skiing. Vail was able to convert the northeast to its own model because it acquired such a large stake in the market within a relatively short period of time. Switzerland, and Europe, have too many offerings to do that. If Vail goes in and stops investing in lifts or raises day prices out of control, people will hop on a train and be at another resort within 15 minutes.
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Vail and Beaver Creek certainly would be easy to take a European approach to. Their villages are already designed to make this sort of shift doable. Doing this with the lifts might be a different story, depending on if Vail Resorts wants to reconsider their stance on bubble chairlifts.
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Fundamentally, the American and European models are different because they have completely different markets. There’s ~400 million skier-days worldwide in a typical year; North America gets 50-60 million while Europe gets 210 million. Skiing in North America is just a lot more of a niche activity, so the industry has to cater to a proportionally smaller pool of customers.
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I’m a little surprised that MCP has put Purgatory’s Ice Creek expansion on the back burner. Does MCP have any plans for new lifts, replacements or expansions at any of it’s ski areas for 2022?
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I’m still waiting for the Gelande lift at Purgatory that was to go in for the 2018 season.
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Hearing a rumor of Vail being in talks to acquire Whitefish, does anyone know anything about this?
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