- Breckenridge proposes building a new C-Chair and gondola to mid-mountain learning center on Peak 9.
- Park City’s Sunrise Gondola project receives unanimous support from the local planning commission.
- Whitefish’s one year old Snow Ghost Express misses the holiday period due to continued mechanical issues.
- A teenager who fell 25 feet from a Wachusett lift secures a $3.3 million verdict.
- A viral video shows an unseated passenger travelling the entire way up Copper’s Woodward Express.
- Vandals continue to damage haul ropes at a ski resort in Italy.
- Vermont taxpayers are on the hook for $16.5 million going to Jay Peak investors and their attorneys under a settlement.
- A French-Swiss company which recently purchased two Quebec ski areas forms Quebec Ski Mountain Company (CMSQ) and looks to invest in more mountains.
- The Forest Service publishes a draft decision approving Jackson Hole’s Sublette replacement project.
Lift Blog 
The Peak 9 lift improvements amount to adding a new gondola to a new learning center below Ten Mile Station, while replacing Lift C with a high speed six pack (in the process taking lapping traffic off of the Mercury and Beaver Run SuperChairs, while also encouraging intermediates and beginners to not use the flat Sawmill traverse to Beaver Run).
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Some kind of problem with the links in this weeks news roundup
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Yeah I’m not seeing the Forest Service documents.
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Praise be on Sunrise!
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The current C-chair at Breck is a very outdated lift. Way too slow, terrible offramp placement, and only runs on peak days. Investing in a detachable should mean they’ll staff and run it regularly, which would be very welcome.
That said, a 6 pack seems like it might push the carrying capacity of Peak 9 over what is comfortable. Particularly as one expects the Beaver Run lift to be upgauged to a six (and eventually Mercury?).
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C running daily and detachable would certainly be enough of an improvement to the mountain, since then you’d ensure that most traffic heading from Peak 8 to Peak 9 uses it instead of taking the Sawmill catwalk to Beaver Run. Plus it’d shift some crowds away from the existing high speed quads (especially the Mercury SuperChair).
Though yeah, I would expect the Beaver Run SuperChair to be upgraded sometime in the next few years given it’s over 33 years old and older high speed quads of that vintage have been retired and upgraded elsewhere on the I-70 corridor. Admittedly the same is the case for the Mercury SuperChair but just less slightly (26 years). That lift might be better off being upgraded to a chondola, and not a high speed six pack, given that Bonanza is marked as a learning trail.
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