- The Summit at Snoqualmie releases renderings of and begins construction on the new Wildside Quad.
- Jay Peak intends to replace Bonaventure next summer.
- Stratton eyes replacing Tamarack with a high speed quad in 2025, may swap the gondola for a bubble six or eight place chairlift after that.
- Brian Head, Utah appears to be working on an expansion.
- Powder Mountain plans to build a new lift in Wolf Canyon next year and add additional private terrain in the Davenport zone. Owner Reed Hastings tells the New York Times privatized terrain will subsidize the money-losing public operation.
- A wild video from Italy shows the dangers of bubble chairs in high winds (no injuries).
- Obstructors sue to halt progress on the proposed Los Angeles Dodger Stadium gondola.
- Park City highlights unique operational aspects of opening Ninety Nine 90 with no electricity or vehicle access to the summit.
- The Forest Service approves Sun Valley’s Seattle Ridge six pack, slated for this summer, and the future Christmas chondola.
- Whistler Blackcomb debuts two wrapped cabins on the Peak 2 Peak Gondola with designs crafted by indigenous artists.
- Hatley Pointe works to reactivate two backside chairlifts, teases another lift upgrade skiers will be “really surprised” about.
- Deer Valley hopes to break ground on a Snow Park-Silver Lake gondola in 2025, says the line could eventually become part of a five segment network from East Village all the way to Old Town Park City with stops at Park Peak, Silver Lake and Snow Park.
- Highlander is hiring construction crew members for multiple lift installations at Deer Valley this summer.
- Sun Peaks faces another lawsuit for another Burfield Quad mis-unload.
- Sugarbush catches flak for closing much of Lincoln Peak early to begin construction of the new Heaven’s Gate quad.
- There’s further evidence MND will launch a new detachable line at Mountain Planet next month.
- Funding for a new Telluride-Mountain Village gondola will likely be on the ballot this fall alongside the Presidential choice.
Lift Blog 
But naturally the bigger question is why does this need to start now? Why can’t we wait a couple weeks to get this project going? After all, we have all summer to get it done. Unfortunately it’s a little more complex with that. The biggest immediate time constraint revolves around the Bicknell’s Thrush.
Would love to see an assessment of the total economic cost to Vermont’s tourism economy wrought by the Bicknell’s Thrush. Don’t get me wrong, it seems like a lovely little bird. I just find it endlessly amusing how many construction decisions above 4000 feet seem to revolve around its ability to procreate in peace.
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Given the lack of economic productivity above 3600 feet, the impact is probably quite low beyond the few ski resorts that have odd construction windows. The much larger impact is Act 250, which kicks in at only 2500 feet.
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My understanding was it has also been a consideration in terrain development on the highest peaks (e.g. Killington had to cede Upper Juggernaut in exchange for tree clearing for the South Ridge Quad). I also wonder to what extent it was a factor in Sugarbush never connecting Mt Ellen via trail pods.
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Sugarbush had the opportunity to connect its two halves via a proper trail network instead of a single lift in the 80s and it did not have the capital necessary at the time. When Les Otten entered a decade later, he could have pursued this option and would have likely won any potential environmental lawsuits. However, he wanted to build as quickly as possible, so he signed an unnecessarily limiting deal to appease as many groups as possible.
You are correct that many small swaps occur today (like Upper Juggernaut) as a result of the Bicknell’s Thrush laws, but the lost tourism due to it is likely zero. For a sense of comparison, the Bicknell’s Thrush laws apply roughly above Launchpad on Skye Peak. Act 250 applies to everything at or above K-1 Lodge and also large developments. Act 250 is the real hurdle.
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I don’t think two weeks would have made that much difference. You also have skier traffic which can be disturbing too.
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I don’t think two weeks would have made any difference. You also have skier traffic and noise, that can be disturbing to nesting also. Most of the higher terrain is undisturbed and natural, this shouldn’t be an issue.
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I feel like replacing the gondola at Stratton with a six or eight place bubble lift would completely change the way people look at Stratton. On the plus side, Stratton could just sell their gondola cabins to Gore to replace their existing gondola cabins.
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A Question regarding Deer Valley. For the lift installations besides the planned “Lift 3”, will the new lifts be in the Expanded Excellence Plan, or replace any existing lift infrastructure?
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So let me get this straight, Sugarbush is replacing a Poma Alpha fixed grip triple with a design from the early 80’s……….. with a Poma Alpha fixed grip quad with a design from the 80’s, with a loading carpet. Why not just replace the tower heads, haul rope, and chairs and install a loading carpet instead of buying a “new” lift with the same outdated terminal design
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The new lift will be a Doppelmayr Tristar with loading conveyor.
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Well, Powder’s public operations will fall farther down if they keep going with this privatization. Might as well block the whole resort with a big sign up front that says, “NO PLEBS ALLOWED”
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Reed Hastings wants to make Powder Mountain profitable, but he doesn’t want want customers to do so. This isn’t how business works and certainly wasn’t how Netflix achieved success! This guy doesn’t seem like an industry disruptor, but instead a clueless moron. My apologies to anyone who may be offended, but I think the choice of words here is appropriate.
There are plenty of independent ski areas that are riding a wave of success without Epic, IKON, or Indy passes by differentiating themself from the competition. He clearly doesn’t get it.
But the question I really want answered is his schtick that Powder Mountain isn’t profitable. Is that in fact a true statement or just a facade to try to privatize? I suspect it’s a lie.
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Shaun Sutner’s article does a pretty good job at giving a high-level overview of what is going on at Stratton. The established leadership group wants to lower the gondola’s height on the existing alignment, while the new leadership group wants to realign the lift to go to the Mid Mountain Lodge (before potentially continuing up Frank’s Fall Line to the summit). The problem is that both options aren’t good solutions. The former idea doesn’t fully address the wind issues of the existing alignment while the latter idea fails to realize that the gondola’s current bottom terminal is in the perfect location and dumping more people at the Mid Mountain Lodge will make Ursa a nightmare once again as it was pre-Snow Bowl Express.
The best solution is to realign the gondola very slightly to instead end at the Hubert Haus. Upper Standard is far more wind protected on the looker’s left side of the trail, and this still enables skiers to have a one seat ride to the top without overcrowding any particular area. This idea was dismissed under Intrawest because it is much more expensive than simply lowering the towers, but Alterra now has the capital to do whatever is necessary to improve the skier experience.
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I do not believe that putting the lift where Matt Jones wants it will cause many issues regarding the lines at Ursa, if not improving them.
On very windy days, Ursa is often the only way to the summit, and by doing this alignment it would have similar, if not better wind protection than Ursa if they are smart, provided much needed relief to Ursa on those days. Also, although it may feel that left side of Standard has better wind protection, there is much more wind once you are a number of feet in the air, which would force your proposed alignment to cut off some sections the Upper Standard trail towards the summit to keep the lift low to avoid the wind.
People using this lift will not be getting off at the assumed mid station just to go to Ursa when instead they have a direct trip to the summit if they stay on, and it’s also possible that there would be loading at this mid station. Also one may notice that we have been more aggressive with running the lifts, especially Ursa, at close to 1000fpm weekends, so lines at Ursa have been further reduced already this year. Why we do not run it at the full 1100 should hopefully be dealt with this summer.
I do agree that the current lower terminal location for the gondola is ideal for a gondola, however the location of the South American terminal makes a lot more sense for a chairlift.
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The looker’s left of Upper Standard is just as wind exposed as Frank’s Fall Line. The two differences are that you would be able to keep the lift very low to the ground at the top and simply block off skiers due to the Upper Standard’s width, like Superstar at Killington, and the top terminal of a Frank’s Fall Line lift in the best alignment for wind is where Ursa currently unloads. There is a reason North American was removed when Ursa was installed.
Ursa has the perfect alignment for wind protection on the upper mountain, and no new lift will match it. Therefore, with a midstation at Mid Mountain, there will be days when Amex, Tamarack Express, Sunrise or Solstice (Shooting Star would be on wind hold), AND this new 6-8 person lift would all be feeding Ursa. That is a recipe for disaster, regardless of whether or not Ursa is running 10% faster.
Fundamentally, this boils down to the resort wanting a high speed lift to Mid Mountain so that they can renovate the lodge and utilize it for events year round. The original plan of having that new lodge be at the summit has fizzled out due to cost and permitting issues, and the more expensive Tamarack Express plan originally floated of having the lift end at Mid Mountain and originate across the access road at a new Liftline Lodge hotel was deemed too ambitious. This plan would tackle multiple problems they have, but it would not be the ideal solution to any of them.
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North American was removed because it was deemed redundant with Ursa serving identical terrain, and it also being on the more wind exposed lookers left side of the trail. Additionally, with Shooting Star being installed that year, there would have been far too much uphill capacity to the summit with the Kidderbrook Quad also around then. The proposed alignment will most likely run lookers right of Franks instead, I don’t think it would be possible to run an alignment on lookers left of the trail without either cutting off a majority of the Mid Mountain area, or it cutting through the lodge. I can also attest that lookers left of Franks has far better wind protection than lookers right of Standard. Nevertheless, having the lift end where the old NA quad ended would cause crazy crowding issues at the summit too, having both Ursa and this lift dumping tons of people in essentially the same spot. Here are some alignments that I drew up, they can also run the lift up lookers left of Suntanner instead of Yodeler. I think this way they still get that lift access to Mid Mountain lodge, and ideal wind protection towards the summit.
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=16PCvy_vlgUrHOr88tmitydZOaOi1WX0&usp=sharing
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North American’s alignment was on the looker’s left of Frank’s Fall Line, which is more wind protected than the rest of the trail (and Upper Standard). The lift was removed due to redundancy, but do remember it ended right next to where Ursa now unloads. Hence, no new lift could use the former North American alignment without causing issues at the summit, so any new lift would need to either run right in the middle or on the looker’s right of Frank’s Fall Line. This part of the trail is just as windy as the looker’s left of Upper Standard. Plus, they cannot even keep it too low to the ground, as the race course and associated snowmaking must stay intact for SMS.
This is what leads me to reason that the proposed lift is going to cause severe crowding at Ursa. Any alignment on Frank’s Fall Line is going to have wind issues, so only the bottom half of the lift will be running much of the time. Given the bottom half is essentially redundant to Amex but without the option to go to Snow Bowl, it simply adds extra pressure on Ursa. It sounds a bit silly at first, but given crowd flows on windy days, it makes more sense to have a shut down base-to-summit option than additional Lower Mountain lifts feeding a single Upper Mountain lift (Ursa).
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I’m not sure where you are getting that lookers left is less windy than lookers right. The wind most of the time comes from the West/Southwest, and the trees help lower the wind greatly. There is a reason why we have the majority of our lifts hugging the western edge of the trails instead of the eastern edge, and why we had the new Snowbowl alignment shifted towards lookers right side of Liftline. Yes, Frank’s and Standard towards the top have a double fall line that give the illusion that there is less wind on the east side of the trail vs the west, but there is far more wind once you are a few feet in the air. Stratton can always adjust snowmaking infrastructure on the trail as needed. Additionally, SMS wants to relocate their training venue anyways.
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I have never measured it, but the double fall lines you mentioned are why I figured the looker’s left would be more wind resistant. The trees are noticeably shorter towards the top, and being on the right side would necessitate being slightly above the trees whereas being on the left would keep the lift below the trees, hence greater wind protection. Additionally, being on Upper Standard would allow the lift to be at practically ground level at the top by closing part of the trail to skiers (like Superstar at Killington or North Peak at Loon).
Also, the gully formed by the creek that runs almost under Ursa gives pretty good wind protection from the west, hence Ursa rarely going on wind hold. Whereas Snow Bowl is too far out to take advantage of this, a Frank’s Fall Line lift may be close enough if on the looker’s left side of the trail.
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As with the first lawsuit regarding a Burfield mis-unload, the second one stretches credibility because of Burfield’s intervals between chairs. And how does one get a spine injury from being hit by a chair anyways? I imagine Sun Peaks’ response to be the same: deny the allegations and point out that if the woman was indeed injured in the way she described, it was as a result of her own negligence.
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If a quad chair swinging around the bullwheel hits you, it’s gonna hurt. I don’t think a spine injury is out of the realm of possibility.
That said, I don’t know the scenario in this new lawsuit so I can’t speak to what exactly happened.
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A Stratton base to summit chair doesn’t make tons of sense to me actually, especially starting up by South American. There aren’t many top to bottom combinations that make for good laps, and almost all of the lapping that does take place on it is coming from the Snowbowl side. Skier flow uphill to the new lift would be pretty horrid.
The current lift undeniably is in a broken configuration. It barely runs. If they rebuilt it from scratch, up the lookers left side of Standard would be the spot to build it. At most it should be a chondola.
I think a Kidderbrook HSQ would do more to spread crowds out and is the path they should pursue.
I do wonder if Snowbowl should have been reinstalled as a bubble chair. Food for thought.
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Powder Mountain wolf canyon lift is going in for 25/26 season per X post. “Summer 2025 is the target for lift installation.”
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Jay Peak replacing Bonaventure would be huge. Hope they re-use the old double chair alignment that the old Bonaventure Double used, as it is less wind exposed and ends higher up on the mountain.
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it probably will, as that’s what plans called for back in 2013
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I’m glad I got to ski powder mountain in it’s heyday. The days of free tows up lightning ridge and Woody dropping Powder Country skiers off at the top of Hidden Lake Lodge were the best days. As soon as they began charging for Lightning Ridge and put in that infernal HSQ the resort was no longer the paradise where you could find fresh snow a week after a snowfall.
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