- The Forest Service approves three lift projects at Taos, including a base to base gondola.
- Red Lodge Mountain reopens all lifts except the Triple Chair involved in last month’s fatal incident.
- The widow of the man killed at Red Lodge hires a law firm and engineer to look into the circumstances.
- Telluride Ski Resort declines to help fund a new Mountain Village gondola so the town looks to pass a lift ticket tax.
- Powder Mountain to construct a new lift in Wolf Canyon/DMI.
- A child falls from a lift at Park City.
- An urban gondola is floated in Denver.
- Cataloochee, North Carolina lists parts from the Omigosh double for sale.
- New York’s state-owned ski areas report visitation up over 3 percent this season with revenue up more than 8 percent.
- Black Mountain, New Hampshire delays going to a co-op model, will continue to be run by Indy Pass for now.
- Whaleback, NH passes $100,000 toward its goal of $250,000 to continue operations.
- The Caribou-Targhee National Forest weighs whether to change its forest plan to accommodate Grand Targhee’s proposed South Bowl and/or Mono Trees expansions.
- The Arapaho National Forest releases the Draft Environmental Assessment for Winter Park’s proposed Gemini Gondola, Copper Creek South chairlift, Looking Glass replacement, Endeavour replacement and Discovery replacement.
- Park City shutters Sunrise to resume construction of the Sunrise Gondola.
Lift Blog 
A gondola in Denver would be crazy. I hope this plan is implemented!
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I have gotten to ski Black Mountain 3 times on the Indy Pass, this year was so so so great, so excited to see the changes, looking forward to returning next winter.
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What will happen with old Sunrise chair?
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More than likely they’ll auction off the chairs and scrap the rest. Maybe save some towers for terrain park crap around the mountain. Space is very limited down in the base area so I doubt anything old will be left standing. Gotta make room.
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It would be best if it could be sold to another mountain. It has relatively few hours.
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Sorry I misread. For some reason I thought you were talking about the chairs at Sunlight mountain. It was the damn Sun that got me. Time for more sleep. I’d like to think Sunrise at Park City will find a new home somewhere, perhaps out east or in the mid-west at small hill areas.. Given how short it is. Perfect length for a beginner lift.
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PCMR’s statement in the link Peter provided: “P.S. Keep an eye out for details as we will be auctioning the adorable double-chairs from Sunrise Lift this summer to benefit local non-profits!”
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I am very confused about the Telluride situation. Is the gondola in need of replacement, if it was I would imagine Telluride would go ahead and do that. If not is it just that it was supposed to have been replaced in the original contract? Do they no longer WANT a village gondola and plan to just shut it down? Does the gondola get long lines or smth? I feel like none of this makes sense because most likely they would just replace the gondola if needed. I cannot even tell who is being the petty one in this situation.
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Yeah I found it rather confusing and a bit frustrating myself. In my opinion, the mountain benefits from this chair by bringing in riders from city side of things, many of whom will be spending money at the mountain. but at the same time, this thing is not cheap to operate, with it running day and well into the night hours all throughout the year, the maintenance and utility costs have got to add up. There is more to this story but the story right now almost makes it seem like the mountain isn’t happy about something and is pushing back and pulling out somewhat if they don’t get their way. Hopefully there is some clarification out there.
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Also- Yes the Gondola is going to need replacing. Been running a LOT for almost 30+ years and Stage 2 at 33 years now. Pulled this from the web:
The Telluride gondola operates daily from 6:30 a.m. to midnight, with extended hours until 2 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays during the busy season (December 20, 2024-April 5, 2025
That’s a TON of hours on it, not sure how many others if any other gondolas/lifts run this much. overall though you hardly if ever hear of any maintenance issues with this thing, so kudos to Telluride for keeping it running like it has and to CTEC/Garaventa for making such a great lift.
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Since it has newer AG grips and equipment from Doppelmayr, could they refurbish the rest and not replace it?
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it just makes no sense because if that was true wouldnt telluride simply want to replace it anyways? why bother with a fight?
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The fight is over who should be made to pay for it. It’s millions of dollars that the town would rather the resort pay, and the resort would rather the town pay.
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if thats the case this is a level of pettiness that just seems almost unbelievably ridiculous. Do you think Telluride ski area would rather just have a lift that is broken and barely working or just remove it than have a workhorse lift on the mountain. It just seems to me that its the most childish thing possible. There has to be more to this than just that.
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The Telluride gondola is in a somewhat unique situation. If I understand it correctly, it is jointly owned by the town of Telluride and Mountain Village. It is maintained and operated by a separate team from the mountain’s lift maintenance department. It has very high hours- I taught one of their new mechanics last year and I forget exactly, but I think he said it’s approaching 80,000- and as such is probably getting difficult to keep going. There have been numerous upgrades over the years to keep it running. I know that a full replacement is going to cost a great deal of money and the current co-owners would like the mountain to help out since they benefit from it.
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Could they overhaul the gondola since it received Doppelmayr upgrades earlier?
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I could picture if they wanted to go cheaper maybe something like wild blue at steamboat if they wanted to stay with the Uni Gear since it already uses Agematic grips. But seems like they want to do a full D line upgrade
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Not sure. I haven’t been there to see it in person since it was a full Garaventa CTEC lift. There are probably some things that can’t be overhauled.
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