- Vail Resorts reports annual skier visits down 9.5 percent, net income down 14 percent, EBITDA down 1 percent and season pass sales down 3 percent in units but up 3 percent in dollars. The company announced no new 2025 lift projects and will lay off 14 percent of corporate staff along with limited operational staff.
- Hatley Pointe, North Carolina retires the Laurel double, plans to build a new chairlift eventually.
- County planners unanimously reject the Shadow Mountain Bike Park proposal in Colorado.
- Sleeping Giant, Wyoming will hibernate again this winter.
- Huff Hills, North Dakota reaches a one year agreement to operate this winter.
- Aspen’s proposal to replace Lift 1A remains alive.
- Whitetail, Pennsylvania to sell Hall chairs from Jib Junction.
- Leitner to build a seven station urban gondola in Morella, Mexico for $100 million.
- Mexico’s President and President-elect inaugurate a six station urban gondola line by Doppelmayr in Mexico City.
- A Hezbollah rocket strikes a chairlift in Israel held territory.
- Snowbird turns an old tram cabin into a bar.
- Sandia Peak proposes replacing Chair 1.
- Tamarack scales down expansion plans to seven new chairlifts and an extension of the Wildwood Express with no new gondola.
- The under construction One&Only resort with a two station gondola connecting to Big Sky Resort catches fire.
- Ever optimistic Les Otten still aims to re-open The Balsams with three new chairlifts in phase one.
Lift Blog 
allow me to translate the gobbledygook in the vail resorts press release. “We expanded too quickly, have too many under performing ski areas, have hit a wall on growth but Wall Street won’t support any new acquisitions or big capex especially in the US, our lack of imagination limits our scope to two-bit cost cutting and we won’t bid on bachelor”
you’re welcome
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Makes one wonder if the Alterra, and on smaller scales MCP & Boyne models are more sustainable. Targeting destination and/or high volume but “interesting” mountains. I don’t think any of them operate a resort with less than 1000′ vert other than Boyne and Highlands. Or is powdr’s recent divestment + Vail’s news signs of larger uncertainty in the NA industry as a whole?
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Vail’s “uncertainty” is because Wall Street is seeing Vail as a potentially volatile company for the first time after thinking for years that it solved the volatility of the ski industry. Wall Street hates volatility, so its stock price is down, and the company is therefore making moves to mitigate this given its obligation as a public company to maximize stock price. Alterra, Boyne, MCP, etc. are private, so they can ignore short-term trends in favor of long-term ones and act accordingly.
It’s not that one company is more sustainable than another, rather that one model has to care about the short-term while the other does not have to.
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With Sandia removing everything from Chair 1, I at least hope that the chairs, towers and return terminal aren’t scrapped. The return terminal on that lift is the last one of its kind. I at least hope the return terminal makes it onto a Riblet double at some point (ex. Sierra at Ski Santa Fe)
Here’s an image of the super rare terminal design (image from 2018, not mine)
I also hope the drive terminal building can be a decorative piece of the ski area, since it’s super nostalgic
With the existential towers, I plan to put them in a field (even though I’m 14) with the chairs, as I don’t want the lift to be scrapped or even have the chairs sold
Maybe the lift could go somewhere like Ski Santa Fe? It’d have to receive new sheaves and grips from another company
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The Balsams continues to be a Les Otten pipedream which, with poor lines of communication to get there, will NOT “revitalize” the North Country. Not one penny of State money or loan guarantees for this project, please. The one time I met this guy, I counted my fingers after I shook his hand.
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I never thought I’d see a ski lift get hit by a rocket in a war zone. I doubt it was deliberately targeted…but if it was, I wonder why?
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Hezbollah rockets are notoriously unpredictable so it is most likely not the intended target.
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Not surprised to see that Tamarack has scaled back their plans. Still a hefty plan though.
The combination of Tamarack (once built out), Brundage, and Bogus Basin could make for a nice Trio trip.
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