- The Forest Service green lights Breckenridge to construct a Peak 9 gondola, remove A-Chair, replace C-Chair, remove Eldorado Platter and relocate Camelback Platter.
- Aspen Mountain proposes replacing Little Nell and Bell Mountain with one new chairlift.
- Another insightful Deer Valley East Village construction update.
- Park City identifies specific gondola alignments for study between Old Town and Deer Valley.
- Park City Municipal councilors and the new owner of Town Lift Plaza float replacing the existing Town triple chair with a gondola.
- I got to tour Sunrise Gondola construction at Park City’s Canyons Village earlier today.
Lift Blog 
So excited for the new lifts at Breck!
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For those not ready to ski Frosty’s Freeway to Lift E (or during early season when Lift E has yet to open), the C six pack will be a godsend, given it’ll be eliminating the need to traverse all the way to Beaver Run on days when Lift C is closed.
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I’m glad they’re putting in a six person lift rather than a HSQ. More uphill capacity is always a good thing. I just wish they had done that for the Freedom SuperChair as well, as that lift also gets surprisingly crowded some days.
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I’m not sure why Breck went with a quad for the Freedom SuperChair. My guess is that they felt that 5,400 pph combined between it and the Independence SuperChair was adequate (that’s pretty close to the combined 5,600 pph uphill capacity that the Peak 9 high speed quads combine to have).
With C, I imagine they’re going with a six pack because they expect that the vast majority of people transiting from Peak 8 to Peak 9 will jump to use it instead of the Sawmill catwalk, along with traffic siphoned off of the quads. And six pack chairs have wider spacing between them, which should maybe cut down slightly on misloads and misunloads. I think wind might also play a factor here; even if wind exposure isn’t as bad here as it is on Crystal Ridge (for the Falcon SuperChair) or above timberline on Peak 6 (for the Kensho SuperChair), the heavier chairs will not sway around as much.
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The Riblets are dropping like flies now.
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Yes and no. On average five come out each year and there are 230 remaining. There will be some operating for decades to come.
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Word on the street is that if the NellBell proposal is accepted by the Forest Service, Pitkin County, and town of Aspen in time for it to be constructed in 2026, then ASC will put it ahead of the Alpine Springs replacement at Snowmass, bumping Alpine Springs to 2027
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I think Nell Bell is pretty important, given that it’ll be supplementing the gondola and also make the trails below Ajax more easily lapable by chairlift.
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So trilled for Nell Bell. I love skiing on Bell Mountain but have always hated how lapping it can be tedious. I wonder if we’ll will see a mid station at the bottom Spar Gulch since the master plan called for a potential replacement starting down there, and that would make it a true lapping lift while still providing an alternative to the gondola from the base
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I agree that lapping Bell Mtn is tedious, but I’m not sure how Nell Bell solves that problem unless there is a mid-station no lower than where the current Bell Mtn chair starts, and preferably higher than that. Otherwise Silver Queen is effectively the same line, letting you off at a location that’s a quick cruise away.
I’d love to see that mid-station at the junction of Spar and Copper but that’s not happening unless they opt for a very expensive angle station. Even then I’m not sure there’s enough room there for traffic and that station..
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