- The Disney Skyliner suffers a minor breakdown.
- Construction resumes on the first MND/Bartholet detachable in the Americas.
- Two are dead following a collision and multi-day helicopter evacuation of a sightseeing gondola in India.
- Park City needs more time to present its upcoming lift projects at a public hearing.
- Issues with multiple lifts spell the end of Marble Mountain’s season.
- I recently joined the Powder Hounds Ski Trivia Podcast to talk lifts.
- Sunlight purchases Arapahoe Basin’s Lenawee Mountain triple to replace Segundo; Primo will be next.
- The name for Grand Targhee’s new lift on Peaked Mountain will be Colter.
- Paris selects a cabin design for its upcoming urban gondola system.
- Juneau moves ahead with purchasing a used Austrian gondola.
- A construction update on SkyLand Ranch, Tennessee, which will include a SkyTrans combination lift.
- Vail Resorts bags summer operations at Attitash to focus on lift maintenance and construction.
- Sugarloaf details plans for two new lifts over the next two summers.
- Leitner-Poma of America launches a new website.
- Big Sky profiles the maintenance manager of one of America’s largest lift fleets.
- Sunshine Village posts fun facts about its chairlift system.
- Former Jay Peak head Bill Stenger is sentenced to 18 months in prison for the fraud scheme involving the mountain and a biomedical research facility.
- A publicly-funded study says a gondola would be the best option for sightseeing above Butte, Montana.
- Cuchara looks to reopen one chairlift this summer.
- A tram or gondola is considered for Half Moon Bay, California.
- One of the Roosevelt Island Tramway‘s stations will receive a $7 million renovation.
Lift Blog 
Dang it sunlight you have some cool lifts don’t go replacing them
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It is time. At this point they are maintenance hogs, which means lots of $$$. Get one of the chairs when they offer them for sale.
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Hopefully when they replace Primo they do it the right way- HSQ with bottom terminal down in the base area.
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It’s a shame when historic lifts like that are replaced. But at the end of the day, you need to make sure you’re providing enough uphill capacity and such for your customers.
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That Juneau thing about them purchasing a used Gondola from across the pond.. Eh. Something feels wrong about that. It feels like a mistake. Anyone else?
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If it was a normal detachable gondola that would be better for skiing use. Pulse gondolas are not nearly as good for skiers. I think the primary motivation here is for summer use.
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My bigger question has to do with why they’re going with one that’s so old and from a defunct manufacturer, when they could probably get a new pulse gondola from Doppelmayr or LPA (production schedules aside) for not *too* much more, in the grand scheme of things. Especially when you factor in how complicated it will be to get parts for this.
The City of Spokane, Washington owns a pulse gondola as a tourist attraction, but they bought it new––seems like a smarter choice.
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Clowns at Vail destroying Attitash. Fine, chop a revenue stream and spend money instead. It’s not like they don’t have of it considering they can barely pay workers a living wage.
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It seems to me they’re spending money on necessary items, and I have to imagine they make far more money in the winter anyway. I may be biased but spending on lift maintenance is never a bad thing. Trying to compress maintenance into a couple of weeks in the spring, and again in the fall, isn’t the best scenario.
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I bet they just don’t have the staff for summer ops. Everything at Vail these days seems to be driven by staffing shortages.
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Sugarloafers are going to throw a tantrum once they see the new plans for West Mountain.
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What are they? Is it something different than what is public?
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They were promised a “signature lift” and I don’t really think a reused high speed quad is what they were thinking.
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I don’t know if I’m talking crazy here but I feel like the only signature lift the loaf could possibly have/need would be a base to summit gondola which we all know is still a pipe dream. I go there for a unique combination of superb, bigger-mountain terrain without the feel of opulence, pretentiousness or swankiness. While I’m far from opposed to modernizing the lift fleet putting a bubble six on West Mountain would feel off with the whole vibe of the mountain. I know that’s not the reason why Boyne is putting in a refurbished Swift Current here – that move is purely about the dollars – but I wouldn’t say I’m disappointed.
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Eh, they should just be grateful they are getting a HSQ.
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Hopefully Boyne does this similarly to Shedhorn at Big Sky, and throws a modern UNI-G enclosure on top of the terminals. Seems like an effective way to freshen up an old-but-still-solid lift. And that seems like it’d be enough to kick off this project; a bubble six here seemed like a strange fit to me.
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I feel like Boyne is gonna replace Superquad with an 8pack in a few years. West Mountain doesn’t seem like the place for a signature lift.
But also, they did give Barker Mt. a used quad…
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Just reading about this gondola accident in India on April 10, looks like everything that could go wrong did.
Fatal cable car collision in India leaves almost 50 people stranded mid-air
https://www.newsnpr.org/dozens-of-people-are-still-hanging-after-the-cable-car-accident-in-india/
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Shame to see White Peaks completely scrapped.
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Some folks not too pleased with what Vail is proposing for Park City
https://www.ksl.com/article/50393468/park-city-residents-speak-out-after-resort-proposes-25-parking-fee-new-lift
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Some fun quotes from the article:
“Those who can’t afford a $25 fee need a way to access the slopes.” There will still be free parking and free bus service.
“Taxpayers who live in the community should be able to park for free or for a discount as they shoulder the burden of public transportation funding.” Park City Transit gets millions from both the state and federal governments and the town does not even own the lots.
“She will go from having a quiet, peaceful home to having a lift 35 feet from her window.” Purchasing a residence immediately next to a ski lift and then acting as though said ski lift came out of nowhere is quite the move. The quote goes on to mention a fear of the lift eroding her property value, which is hilarious considering the lift is what gives her property most of its value.
People are so afraid of change that they are willing to use any excuse to go against it. Baseless fear-mongering is a common practice in the development industry.
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““She will go from having a quiet, peaceful home to having a lift 35 feet from her window.” Don’t you kinda assume risks like that when you choose to live next to a ski area? That’s like moving into a house next to an existing airport and complaining about the noise of planes, or moving next to an active railroad and complaining about the trains being noisy.
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