The Strawberry Express Gondola at Snowbasin Resort will get some much-needed relief next season with construction of a new six person chairlift next summer. The Leitner-Poma built DeMoisy Express will load near the gondola and unload along the Strawberry Traverse, providing much-needed redundancy and capacity. The lift will be named after DeMoisy Peak, which sits between Strawberry and Needles. “Through this strategic placement, we will be able to double the uphill capacity of this region, provide multiple options for skiers and riders into the Strawberry area, and allow access to this varied and sought-after terrain more frequently throughout the season,” said Snowbasin’s announcement. The new lift will transport up to 2,400 skiers per hour with a ride time of 10 minutes. “To say that both the Snowbasin staff and loyal guests will be excited about this lift announcement may be the understatement of the year,” said Davy Ratchford, Vice President and General Manager of Snowbasin Resort. “DeMoisy Express has been contemplated as part of our future plans for the resort, and we are thrilled to be moving forward on this incredible addition.”
The DeMoisy Express is expected to open for the 2023-24 ski season and will be the second Leitner-Poma detachable at Snowbasin, following the Middle Bowl Express built in 2021.
Lift Blog 
Most importantly, this will make lapping this area more fun since there’ll be no need to remove your gear after each run, and DeMoisy will probably have much higher wind tolerance than Strawberry.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s precisely the idea – since Strawberry is on wind hold rather often. They’ve been talking about this since I got hired at Snowbasin for my first season as a snowboard instructor back in 2006, if not longer…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nice Snowbasin reference, there, Dude. Question: did they change the run name now that the lift no longer has 119 chairs?
LikeLike
Its still the same name.
LikeLike
It’s Interesting Snowbasin is now jumping on the Leitner Poma Bandwagon after building Middle Bowl 2 summers ago considering this resort is Doppelmayr-Dominant especially help building Wildcat 5 years ago before Leitner Poma entered that territory! Also the new green colors on the station are a lot more awesome with Leitner Poma than Doppelmayr so it’s interesting Snowbasin is going with it now.
LikeLike
I think this lift will be about 7,400 feet long.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Actually, make that more like 7,950 feet long.
Click to access stelprdb5072886.pdf
LikeLike
The order book for next year is *ridiculous.*
Kind of disappointing it looks like Crystal won’t be able to get an order in despite motions in that direction later this year. Makes me think Snowbasin has probably had a deposit on DeMoisy for a while.
LikeLike
Snowbasin had this planned for serveal years. It looks like they are getting around to building the chairlift now.
LikeLike
I just meant in terms of construction. Many resorts have many *plans,* but that doesn’t mean that they have an order in with a manufacturer.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Another LPA in Utah? After Alta, Nordic Valley, and Wasatch Peaks Ranch? If I were Doppelmayr, I’d be terrified.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Just wait there are more LPA lifts that will be built at some unlikely resort customers in UT, unfortunately I cannot say more.
LikeLike
^^ “my disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined” -Food review guy
LikeLike
You never know.. They just might replace Becker and Porky with Doppies.
LikeLike
If they do I hope basin uses them somewhere else instead of just throwing it away. Like they did with the old backup engine for wildcat (the triple).
LikeLike
Middle Bowl is still off to the side of Wildcat lot so there’s a possibility. I think there’s a chance that either one could be reused somewhere else outside of Snowbasin, possibly to smaller mountains such as Nordic Valley or Beaver Mountain?
LikeLike
Well if that back up engine was the original, that would have been a 1973 Ford straight-6 if memory serves me. While the chairs were sold off, I do believe some equipment from Wildcat did go to other mountains, including Nordic Valley and Powder Mountain.
Additionally I believe Snowbasin donated the drive from Middle Bowl to one of the mountains out east that had their drive station burn up?
LikeLiked by 1 person
I doubt Doppelmayr is too worried. Both major manufacturers have enough orders to be getting on with, and the trend shows no signs of slowing down.
LikeLike
Agree.
Were in a time were it is easier to sell a lift than complete the installation in a timely manner. Slow on parts delivery and not near enough qualified lift installers.
Here in the far west. Snow Summit, Mammoth, Heavenly/NorthStar and Palisades to name a few. All pretty much build there lifts in house. Now all would rely on the manufacturer.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Same here in CO. We used to build everything in-house, but there’s no way we could now.
LikeLike
Finally! This will be an awesome addition to this area. My renewal for Mountain Collective got even more certain with this.
Meanwhile how about seat pads for Porky and Becker?
LikeLike
Nah. They made it this long without them, they’ll replace the lifts before they get seat pads for them.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This will help out strawberry gondola a lot with the lines at the bottom of the mountain. Right now theres no way out of there besides a snowmobile ride with ski patrol so this will act as a backup lift too. Glad that snowbasin is getting around to installing a second lift out of strawberry base area.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Congrats to LP for winning another one at the Basin. It seems lift brand manufacturer loyalty is less and less of a thing vs good install experiences and offering the right price for the job and being able to get it done when needed.
LikeLiked by 1 person
No doubt the main objective of this lift is to have some redundancy, and wind protection. Will allow the dreaded strawberry lift lines to not be nearly as bad as they currently are on weekends and powder days.
Second, I can’t but think this is also somewhat related to planned real estate expansion. Part of snowbasins master plan is to have another base area over at strawberry. This will at some point become “out of base capacity.
With this new lift in and real estate being built I could see this augment early season stuff. We know snowbasin is putting an emphasis on middle bowl in their early season offering.
This lift could take you there. And I’m sure they could make a white ribbon of death back to the bottom of this lift for early season.
Expansion is coming.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m thinking they’ll upgrade Becker for the 24/25 season to help get more traffic over to Strawberry.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think thak be a 2025 or 2026 project. And makes sense. As the detachable way of reaching DeMoisy and Strawberry for now is via Needles Gondola or via Wildcat and Middle Bowl. Probably another six pack for Becker and a high speed quad for Porcupine.
LikeLike