- Powderhorn, Colorado formally proposes replacing West End.
- Off-the-grid Mt. Baker to construct a central generation facility to power numerous chairlifts once driven by diesel prime movers.
- The plan for Aspen Mountain’s Lift 1A replacement “continues to evolve.”
- The Forest Service releases a map of the proposed Nell Bell high speed quad on Ajax, which would span 8,300 feet and 2,650′ vertical.
- Over at Snowmass, crews work to build the new Elk Camp Express while the old lift continues spinning in nearly the same alignment for a few more weeks.
- The WestJet Skyride in downtown Calgary may be shortened or removed to make way for a hotel.
- Urban gondolas are catching on nearly everywhere. Why not the US and Canada?
- Repairs to Kicking Horse’s Golden Eagle Express, closed since early March, will take longer than expected due to supply chain issues.
- The Okanagan Gondola breaks ground in BC.
- Towers go in for the Mighty Argo Cable Car, set to open in March 2026.
- A soon-to-open 3S in Italy will feature automatic cabin washing, a heat recovery system and impressive 3,200 foot vertical rise.
- Doppelmayr updates its Ropeway Configurator to include new products like Stella.
- Analysis shows a new urban gondola in Norway will have lower lifecycle emissions per passenger kilometer than most other forms of transport.
- Deer Valley invites the public to watch tower flying for the upper East Village Gondola and Pinyon Express.
Lift Blog 
Super excited for all these new things to come!
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in other news there is a rumor floating around that the Utah Department of Transportation, in recognition of Deer Valley’s Expanded Excellence project, will change Utah license plates to read “Greatest snowmaking on earth”
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It didn’t make this news cycle – at Snowmass on Friday the Cirque towers were flown out and new tower base forms were flown in. Awaiting a spider hoe to dig the holes for the new bases.
The Cirque was removed softly and has a new home. I haven’t seen any public announcements, so I won’t spill the beans here about where that new home is.
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Wow, so happy for a detachable platter to find a second home.
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Any hints? Haha :)
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Sounds like Cirque’s headed to Wolf Creek but just for spare parts.
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Yup. I was initially given the impression that Wolf Creek wanted the lift for an installation, but after chatting with the crew that came to pick it up realized they just wanted parts. At least it’s not going straight to the recycles. Many of those parts are no longer manufactured. They took the whole thing anyway, including towers and lift shacks. We kept some of the switches and other electrical components that we could use.
Thanks for sharing this IG post, Peter. I don’t use that platform, so would have never seen this otherwise.
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I’m skeptical the “Nell Bell” lift (and higher uphill capacity at Ajax is general) is a great idea. Most of the terrain at Ajax funnels into Spar Gulch and Kleenex Corner … one narrow cat track to the main base. There are only a handful of top-to-bottom intermediate runs, and they’re kind of steep and hard packed and tend to get skied off by people kind of out of their depth coming down the mountain.They haven’t actually expanded upper mountain capacity: Hero’s came in, Gents Ridge came out. And from the perspective of intermediate skiers, there’s maybe *less* upper mountain terrain to lap … Gents is gone, but how many of them are actually making their way on to the sole blue run crossing into hero’s?So now new detachables are gonna be pumping people out on bell mountain and near ruthies. and inducing more people to opt for Ajax over Snowmass or Buttermilk. All those wonderful glades on Bell Mountain will probably get bumped up faster. Copper and Spar Gulch will get skied off earlier. Shadow mountain is kinda icy and wind swept with flat light most of the day. Are people really going to lap that? Will enhanced grooming go a long ways? I think that, unless they have secret plans for a new trail pod back on Richmond Ridge, it’s just gonna make everything feel more hectic.If these companies want to expand visits, it needs to come with more terrain (and more terrain aligned with the core of the market). And it seems like a uniquely plausible time in Washington to go and lobby for expanded SUP boundaries.
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The more I ski at Ajax, the more I feel like there’s no good way to lay out the lift network. It’s just a funky mountain. It would be worth visiting if it wasn’t right next door to two much, much better mountains.
Having a Nell-Bell mega chair like the linked map suggest seems very odd to me, unless there’s some mid load that we’re not seeing. I would have liked to see this chair start at the intersection of Copper and Spar, not go all the way to the bottom. Copper, Spar, and Little Nell are probably the three iciest runs in all of Aspen-Snowmass. Avoiding these is, to me, basically the game of skiing Ajax.
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