Park City and the Canyons Village Management Association today announced plans (pending approval) to retire the aging Cabriolet, which carries guests from a lower parking lot and transit center to Canyons Village. The new lift would be a gondola, though specifics on cabin size and design will be detailed later this month. The one year build is expected to follow closely behind the Sunrise Gondola, slated to open this coming winter between Canyons Village and Red Pine Lodge.
Open air cabriolets became popular in the 1990s as a way to efficiently move guests over relatively short distances. These lifts were usually chosen to quickly move crowds between parking lots and villages. On the plus side, they’re efficient people movers and rarely stop. On the less great side, they require guests to remain standing while exposed to the elements and don’t easily accommodate bikes.
Intrawest installed four cabriolets between 1994 and 2008 (at Tremblant, Mountain Creek, Panorama and Winter Park) while American Skiing Company’s lone cabriolet debuted at The Canyons in 2000. At opening, The Canyons Cabriolet carried 3,000 passengers an hour in 40 eight place carriers. Talisker Corporation inhereted the lift when it acquired The Canyons in 2007 and Vail Resorts took over operations in 2013 while combining Park City and The Canyons into one mountain. The Cabriolet kept spinning through all this change, reliably transporting thousands of skiers each day from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm.
The new gondola would be designed to “enhance mountain accessibility for lodging guests, base and mid village area residents, and day skiers and snowboarders,” Vail Resorts said in an email to media. This opens up the possibility of an intermediate station. The new lift would also likely feature larger cabins to service the new Canyons Village Parking Structure. Park City broke ground on the expansive new garage and pedestrian plaza this spring. The first phase will open in 2025-26 with 653 parking spaces. The full five story, 1,850 stall facility is expected to debut in winter 2026-27 alongside the new gondola, again pending approval.
Residents can learn more about the project at an Open House on July 14th.
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Any word on manufacturer? It could be Leitner Poma given the Red Pine Gondola and New Sunrise Gondola sport Poma and Leitner-Poma equipment. Or it could go Doppelmayr (D-Line?) especially given the high hours the Cabriolet is at not just for summer but also for operations until around the evening.
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I asked. No answer yet.
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The standing layout of a cabriolet can be imitated with a normal gondola as well I assume. Are they considering that or is there not a point?
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1 cab down :( going to be a sad day when the last one gets retired.
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There was a CVMA board meeting this afternoon and it sounds like a mid-station is part of this.
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where will mid-Station be? Will summit station be where current top station is?
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Where towers 6-7 are, Red Hawk parking lot.
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Nice, now the parking structure will be “reasonably priced” at $50 a day. Thanks Vail.
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Why not replace this with another cabriolet? They seem like excellent transport methods between parking lots and base lodges. Now there are only 4 in North America. Are there any in Europe or elsewhere, though? I assume the current lift will be scrapped due to high hours, but is there a chance it might sell?
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It’ll be the new and improved Frostwood
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So there relocating it to Frostwood?
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That would be fantastic!
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I feel like a good spot for it would be from the castle peak parking lot to the village at Northstar
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I mean what are the advantages of a cabriolet over a gondola in the first place? I’ve never used one so I don’t know but they seem like what would happen if you take the worst part of a chairlift (open air) and the worst parts of a gondola (skis off, cramped), combined them, and still made it worse (standing).
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Since everyone is already standing, they are a lot easier to load and unload. Some people need assistance to stand up based on weight.
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Also, cheaper than gondolas since cabs aren’t as complex as cabins. Besides, they are only for a short distance. I think there aren’t more because of what you mention, additionally since not that many mountains really NEED a parking lot transport lift. Unless it is a congested area, you might be better off with a pulse gondola (like Steamboat).
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I’ll be honest, I think this lift would be better off being relocated to Whistler to operate in the same fashion it currently does as Whistler has some massive parking lots.
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relocate to copper mountain. the parking lot bus sytem there is a mess and takes forever.
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Canyons Village Management Association owns the lift, not Vail, so it’s not going to Whistler.
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Interesting, I wasn’t aware of this. Is this an ASC spin off? If Vail is able to acquire it, here is my proposal for Whistler. https://ibb.co/NdRJvthM
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If Doppelmayr is able to make a midway station to accept the AK400 grip, my second but best route is this. https://ibb.co/HL6pZ18M
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Unload is too close to the road. You couldn’t get the rope elevation to change quick enough to get adequate clearance over the roadway.
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Go to CVMA.com and you will learn about the Management Agreement from 1998//1999. Summit County required Canyons to agree many things before the Village could be built. A people mover (Cabriolet) was a requirement, along with a parking garage, golf course and more before Developers could build properties.
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My money is on the Cabriolet being scrapped instead of relocated. Cabins are really beat up and rusty (and were never repainted from Canyons orange to PCMR red), there aren’t many lifts operating anywhere with AK400 grips and Stealth 3 terminals, tons of hours from operating all the time for 25 years.
Back when The Canyons had their crazy late-90s master plan, this was proposed as a monorail instead of a gondola. I’ve been waiting on that monorail for three decades
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Mammoth had a Yan monorail back then. They were all the rage. Its the village gondola meow.
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Have heard the cabriolet possibly replacing the frostwood pulse gondi in its next life.
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will it still have the turn in the line?
is the 7/11 still in the parking lot?
rode it in June 2002
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7-11 lives.
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Am I the only one who likes the open cabins like this, its kinda a fun way to get across the parking lot. No seats also definitely means its easier to get out of
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I also like these open cabins.
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