- Eaglecrest packs its new gondola up in Austria; the lift may not open in Alaska until 2024.
- Snowbird now owns the land at the base of the proposed Little Cottonwood gondola.
- The Snowbird tram reopens tomorrow with one cabin operation.
- An Oklahoma county is criticized for seeking $300,000 in pandemic recovery funds to remove the Tulsa Skyride.
- Powder Ridge, Minnesota places retired chairs up for auction.
- A small wildfire on Aspen Mountain was likely started by a cigarette thrown from the Silver Queen Gondola.
- The Salt Lake Tribune talks with the Park City appellants and consultants about Comfortable Carrying Capacity.
- Parts continue to arrive in Park City’s parking lot despite construction being on hold.
- Suicide Six is now Saskadena Six.
- Kimberley and Leitner-Poma progress with repairs to the fire-damaged Northstar Express.
- Doppelmayr offers $29 million in financing for the Cascade Skyline Gondola.
- Lost Trail signs on to the Powder Alliance.
- A public comment period opens regarding one of Mayflower’s 15 proposed lifts which would cross federal land.
- A Thunder progress report from Jackson Hole:
Lift Blog 
The Park City council can take credit for reduced parking when the new lifts take up parking capacity. Maybe around Christmas they will begin to reconsider the wisdom of stopping lift construction!
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Vail has not gotten back to me with an official answer but I heard the equipment is being moved to a storage location away from the parking lot.
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I truly hope I am wrong, but I have a bad feeling that this old Gondola relocation to Eaglecrest is going to come back to haunt them after they have it up or while they are putting it up. I REALLY hope I am wrong.
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Hmmm. It seems to me that it would have been much more simple to store the containers off site until project approval happens. These containers are very difficult to unload, they must be using the special equipment designed for withdrawing these parts out of the containers. Some of these pallets weigh an exorbitant amount, 20,000lbs +. 2 20’ Pallets per container Now they have to pick them up and transport them individually to a staging area? Is this a big middle finger from Vail to the pcmr locals? Very interesting. Is it Vail or Doppelmayr unloading? Hmmm. 🧐
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Given the container shortage in the world, I doubt they would be allowed to keep them. I would guess the shipping contract stipulates they be unloaded and returned. The pallets can be trucked elsewhere, but that will add a huge expense. And what to do with all the tower footing forms? I they are too wide to go on a truck on a highway. Doppelmayr will be unloading if the work in Whistler is anything to go by.
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If I remember right you have always had a limited amount of time to return shipping containers before getting charged very high rental fee. The tower forms are another thing as they are symons forms so unless Doppelmayr owns them they need to be stripped and returned to the rental co. The cages can be disassembled or moved to an onsite storage area; just another expense at this point.
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I assume it’s different carrier-to-carrier, but even back in the dark ages of 2014, the company I worked for had 24 hours to unload a can. We didn’t have any of these mythical “special tools”, either, just my coworker’s and my backs and legs.
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Our local Doppelmayr came in containers that get unloaded horizontally by a ‘Simply machine’. If nothing ‘shifted’ on the boat or truck ride, it unloads the truck in about 15 mins….very simple! So my guess is that there is no container to leave.
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Colorado SuperChair at Breck has the same vertical rise as Silverlode (roughly 1300′). Across the Vail Empire, it’s gotta be on a short list of alignments worthy of 8-passenger capacity. That six-pack is relatively new (2014), and could perhaps make a decent Orient Express replacement (~1600 vertical … likely with longer chair spacings). They’d likely need a few more towers on both lifts. The far more likely outcome is Park City approves the lifts in time for installation next summer. But just saying, PC’s NIMBYism could be an opportunity for other resorts …
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This is a really interesting line of thought that I hadn’t considered… what if Park City keeps on blocking mountain improvements? Or conversely, what if Vail just decides to throw in the towel on capital improvements at Park City for a while? That Salt Lake Tribune article makes me feel like it could be a possibility. I tried to limit it to alignments roughly at or below the vertical and length of the proposed lifts.
If that is the drastic route that Vail takes, here are some possible destinations for the lifts
-8 pack – Sky at Heavenly, Outback at Keystone, Wildwood at Vail, Excelerator at Blackcomb
-6 pack – Chair 10 at Kirkwood, Bachelor Gulch at Beaver Creek, Toll House at Stowe, Breckenridge A or C chair (midstation is an interesting wrinkle here).
Interesting food for thought, but hope both parties can find some middle ground at Park City and those (badly needed) lifts go in next year.
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Ski lifts are quite customized for their locations. As much as it seems that a lift line of similar length and vertical would would be an easy location to move to, it isn’t. All the towers will need to be replaced for a start, then a bunch of the sheave assemblies will need to be changed. This assumes Power rating for the drives are sufficient etc. Assuming PC town council has a brain and approves these for next year, I’m sure that’s where they will go.
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Will Thunder HSQ follow the old line of the fixed grip quad?
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It’s virtually identical.
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Someone more familiar with the issue correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t the agreement that POWDR signed, allowing the town to have a say in chairlift development, only lasting for 10 years? Therefore, all vail would have to do is let the clock run out and then start projects up again in a worst case scenario? Also, does it still only apply to PCMR and not Canyons? If so, I could also see them just moving the lifts over there and adjusting as necessary. That 6 pack would be a good replacement for dreamcatcher since that’s where you have to go when you get off the gondola.
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