- The Utah Department of Transportation selects a 3S gondola as the preferred alternative in Little Cottonwood Canyon.
- The Salt Lake Tribune looks at who’s funding the pro- and anti-gondola camps.
- More Epic chair sales are coming at Jack Frost and Big Boulder.
- Sierra at Tahoe nears completion of West Bowl fire recovery work with more than five million board-feet of timber removed.
- The Edmonton Ski Club receives $800,000 in public funds to stay afloat.
- Midwest Family Ski Resorts completes its acquisition of Big Snow, Michigan, will re-brand as Snowriver Mountain Resort and retire the Blackjack/Indianhead names.
- The Tulsa gondola showdown continues.
- A dedicated lift-served bike park may still be coming to the Colorado foothills.
- The Idaho Springs gondola project wins an $8.7 million lawsuit judgment, vows to move forward despite years of setbacks.
- Sandia Peak again won’t offer skiing in 2022-23.
- Ikon Pass adds Panorama, BC and another Japanese resort.
- British Columbia approves construction of a new T-Bar at Troll.
- Mt. Holly, Michigan announces a new detachable quad for 2023.
- Doppelmayr pieces back together the lift which was swallowed by a sinkhole last year in Northern Quebec.
- Kirkwood’s old beginner double goes up for sale.
Lift Blog 
What’s happening at Kirkwood with Bunny? I didn’t know they are removing it. Why is it being removed?
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The lift being sold appears to be the old Bunny double, removed around 2000. The listing says it’s been in storage since 2001.
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Ahh, I thought they were removing the existing one. It’s a triple now, isn’t it? My bad.
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I read that the LCC gondola is only going to have a capacity of 1000/hr per direction – that seems dramatically underbuilt to me when the resorts it is serving have out-of-base capacities in the many thousands per hour and they are served by this gondola. I hope they reserve the right to add more cars to that line in the future – I expect this to be a flop if the gondola can’t carry enough people to get a significant number of cars off the road. Why would you ever want to take it if you have to wait in an hour long line before you can even get on the gondola?
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Why would you ever want to take it, at all? It’s going to take way more time than driving and way more time than the enhanced bus would have taken. It also doesn’t really deal with congestion at the base of the canyon, which is where the worst problem is.
They should have just done the enhanced bus, tolled people driving into the canyon, and dramatically stepped up enforcement of the traction law.
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I think UDOT has come to the conclusion that the existing bus service is underutilized and more empty buses would only congest the canyon even more. The congestion isn’t really at the base, it’s more the road itself. Widening the road isn’t an option either, the canyon is just simply too narrow and imagine the avalanche danger there would be, if it’s even possible.
About the enforcement of the traction law, there isn’t much more they can do other than advise people to use chains, 4WD, and/or snow tires. Tolling people might solve LCC but all it would do is redirect the same skier base into Big Cottonwood.
While the gondola would take longer than supposedly driving, keep in mind that the theoretical time to drive from the mouth of the canyon to Snowbird isn’t reasonable because it’s not taking into account the traffic, the exact root of the problem.
Let’s face it, the locals are the ones with the snow tires and everything, it’s generally the non-locals/tourists who are causing the delays in the canyon, not the locals. The gondola takes away that error entirely by allowing for the time from the mouth of the canyon to Snowbird and Alta being more constant than waiting at a dead stop in traffic. There have also been instances of avalanches blocking the road for days and a gondola would be less likely to close in the case of an avalanche. While it would require a lot of taxpayer dollars, doing nothing isn’t an option. There just aren’t any cheap or easy solutions for this issue.
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With regards to the traction law, they absolutely could do more to enforce it. They could have checkpoints like CHP does during chain law requirements. It wouldn’t even slow down traffic very much considering it backs up anyway.
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I personally think the biggest issue with the gondola is that the taxpayers are paying for it. It should be the resorts paying for it since it would be the biggest benefit to them. In essence it would be more like a European ski resort.
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The drama continues regarding the LCC Gondola
https://kutv.com/news/local/cottonwood-heights-leaders-drafting-new-response-to-little-cottonwood-canyon-gondola-plan-udot-public-comments-mayor-mike-weichers-council-member
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The little Cottonwood Canyon Gondola drama continues. UTA recently announced they would be implementing reduced routes and those against the Gondola actually believe UTA is doing this on purpose to steer the decision for a Gondola in the Canyon. HA!
https://kutv.com/news/local/gondola-little-cottonwood-canyon-utah-transit-authority-reduced-bus-service-timing-save-our-canyons#
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