Loon Mountain Resort today unveiled plans for its tenth chairlift, a quad servicing 30 acres of new terrain on South Peak. The expansion will feature a Doppelmayr Alpenstar fixed grip lift with loading conveyor, a guest service facility and fully automated snowmaking. This will increase Loon’s beginner terrain by over 50 percent and bring the resort above 400 acres total. Initial work is already underway and the long-awaited expansion will open for the 2023-24 ski season.
The yet-to-be-named quad chair will load at the bottom of the existing Escape Route trail and service 500 vertical feet of beginner and low intermediate terrain. For guests looking for more advanced skiing, the new lift will also serve as a connection from parking lots in the town of Lincoln to the Lincoln Express and the rest of Loon Mountain. “Providing lift access and more skiing and riding closer to downtown Lincoln is exciting—and unique—particularly in the East,” said Brian Norton, Loon’s president and general manager. “Adding lift service just a mile and a half from Interstate 93, in the center of Lincoln, improves the guest experience immensely and is something we’ve been focused on for many years,” Norton added.
The South Peak expansion comes hot on the heels of two major lift upgrades, both part of the Flight Path: 2030 capital improvement roadmap. Kancamagus 8 opened in 2021 and a new Seven Brothers Express quad will debut this season, making the South Peak lift will Loon’s third new lift in three years. “The South Peak expansion has been a key part of Loon’s master plan for decades and we are thrilled to be moving towards the next major milestone of Flight Path: 2030,” noted Jay Scambio, COO of Boyne Resorts. Future phases of the plan include a replacement of the gondola and upgrades to the North Peak and Lincoln Express lifts.
With Loon’s announcement of South Peak expansion, Boyne Resorts is on track to build at least five new lifts across its network in 2023. Other projects include the new Lone Peak Tram at Big Sky, Camelot 6 at The Highlands, the West Mountain expansion at Sugarloaf and a Barker Mountain Express replacement at Sunday River.
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I’m not sure what they think would be so unique about it. There are plenty of ski lifts near downtowns in the East.
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I’m guessing it’s just marketing language to make it sound like something less common and thus more attractive.
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Not really. Cranmore goes down to North Conway and that is pretty much it. ORDA is throwing money at Gore to potentially connect the Ski Bowl and North Creek, so maybe in a couple of years there. Okemo gets pretty close, but the uphill walk and distance make it just out of reach from Downtown Ludlow.
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Any word who they’ll go with for snowmaking automation?
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They have a significant amount of HDK Klik semi-auto hydrants. I would guess they’d continue with HKD.
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They’ve said they’re going with fans. HKD does have an auto fan, but Boyne also has a pretty longstanding relationship with SMI and their western properties have a variety.
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Isn’t Boyne also replacing Crest at Brighton?
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Potentially. The Forest Service approved the project but Brighton has not announced a timeline yet.
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I really like this project. It gives South Peak a beginner area, allows Escape Route to gain lift service and remove shuttle service, and connects the downtown. Plus, it opens the door for future expansion to the true South Peak summit should Loon continue to grow.
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I think they’ll need to maintain shuttle service, since there doesn’t seem to be any lodge service at this base. If I don’t want to boot up at my car, or if I need to rent equipment, I still need to get to one of the other lodges.
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A base lodge was proposed in the 2014 plans that the USFS approved. It may take a couple of years, but I believe one will be built.
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While it may be primarily be a beginner pod, the fact that there are no facilities there (i.e. lodge) will not make it conducive to start your day there for beginners at least.
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I want to know what the new trails are to the East of Boom Run in this drawing…
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Almost looks like they may link South Peak and the main mountain?
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They could be related to the new mountain coaster going in over there…?
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Those are the existing trails and lifts of the West Basin.
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Or the existing homeowners trails of the South Peak Resort. It depends on what your looking at.
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Those are just ski in/ski out paths to the condos on that side. Unless you’re talking about the trails in the left corner of the map. which is the existing West Basin pod as others have mentioned. Either way, nothing to see here.
What’s more interesting to me is that these renderings also seem to include what will likely be a new blue run between Cruiser and Ripsaw on the upper half of South Peak, unless that meant to represent Undercut, but then why would it be in light blue?
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Undercut is going to be cleared as a regular blue trail with snowmaking.
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That’s Undercut. That’s the lift line not Ripsaw
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Interesting – Loon has now edited the Map to remove those features…
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Loon has updated that image and now the trails are no longer there. I have a screen capture of what it looked like before they removed them, but doesn’t look like there is a way to include that here.
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Are you referring to the main trail map on their website? It still highlights the expansion, but no trails are shown, it’s just highlighted in red.
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No, it was a map of their new expansion. They’ve since updated it and removed the trails, but I grabbed a screen shot of it first…
https://photos.app.goo.gl/fPzY6WFhr79jdxHn8
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Loon has updated that image and now the trails are no longer there. I have a screen capture of what it looked like before they removed them, but doesn’t look like there is a way to include that here.
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Loon already has the trails cleared. This was taken from Cruiser, just below the exit to Escape Route. https://photos.app.goo.gl/JDroDJoWJxyToTSK8
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