- Nordic Valley should know by March whether Apollo can be repaired or must be replaced. Bridger also remains out of service.
- Wasatch Peaks Ranch resolves its dispute with residents, can resume construction.
- Alterra closes a $3+ billion fundraising round with proceeds going to “building out existing properties plus possible property acquisitions.”
- At Mt. Bachelor, Northwest Express loses its electric motor, will run on diesel at reduced speed for much of the season.
- Big White’s Black Forest Express suffers a similar issue but is back on electric.
- A fan video shows construction has begun on a new Leitner-Poma gondola at Legoland New York.
- Gore Mountain plans to replace all 73 cabins on the Northwoods Gondola with new Sigma cabins at a cost of $3,055,977.
- Heavenly admits responsibility for leaving a guest stranded overnight on a gondola last week.
- A French tram where empty cabins crashed into the stations in 2021 will reopen next year with all new cabins and other upgrades.
- An unseated passenger incident at Mammoth makes global news.
- Politicians fight against a gondola in Los Angeles.
- The New Yorker runs a long-form story on Jay Peak’s EB-5 debacle.
- Bloomberg chronicles Vail Resorts’ trials and tribulations in the Northeast.
- Multiple lifts suffer down time at Park City.
- Roland Bartholet will depart as CEO of Bartholet this month but remain on the board.
Lift Blog 
What’s wrong with Bridger at Nordic?
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It’s been out of order for like two years, albeit it’s nowhere close to as big a priority as Apollo, I’d put my money on an LPA high-speed quad for Apollo, it would finally make Nordic Valleys lift network feel complete
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Apollo should become a high speed quad, and I think they also should add a fixed grip quad running from the base of Nordic Express to the top of Apollo for egress purposes.
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Nordic to Apollo doesn’t feel like that much of a challenge. Traverse isn’t too brutal and you get a reasonable amount of skiing still because of the larger vertical. Top half of the Nordic side and bottom third of the Apollo side isn’t too shabby. Going Apollo to Nordic is a nuisance because the catwalk is annoyingly high up, so you are very limited to what runs you can take on the Apollo side, and it feels like the whole run is just spent getting to Nordic.
That being said, small ski areas survive on making decisions that get the most out of smaller investments, and only make big investments when necessary. If this was a flagship mountain, I’d say both Crockett and Apollo should be high speed. But it’s not. I think the wisest decision would be to just call it on Bridger once and for all, get a fixed quad for Apollo, used or new, and decide what the lodge situation needs to look like long term since they have a very “convenient” opportunity to align the area with MCP’s long term interests.
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Maybe if a new lift is available, by now both manufactures have to be near production capacity for 2024 construction season. They might be able to a second hand lift but construction crews are in short supply too.
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I rode the Northwest Express at Mt. Bachelor today and the past few days. Like last season, it was running on the APU, which had a cool sound to it. I will say, the Northwest Express doesn’t feel any slower than the other detachable lifts at Mt. Bachelor, I love the place but they definitely run all of their detachable chairlifts well below their design speed, even their newest Skyliner Express six pack.
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That helps save on ware and extends life.
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POV: You live in DTLA, between a giant football stadium, a train station with sprawling railyard, and various elevated freeways and massive, sprawling parking lots. But you know what would really be an eyesore and a public nuisance? A whisper-quiet, electrically powered, aerial ropeway system. Totally ruins the neighborhood. Basically as bad as the Cross Bronx Expressway.
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So apparently the lake Louise Upper Juniper Express is now gonna be a six person bubble chair instead of a four person bubble chair according to their instagram
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The whole Nordic Valley lift situation sounds like a total joke. The 50 year old lifts have been out of service forever and they need until March to figure out if one of them can be patched up😳??
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