- Moonlight West to launch in Big Sky with four lifts planned.
- Alterra all but cancels Main Lodge redevelopment at Mammoth, including gondola replacement and several base lifts.
- Here’s the latest official Deer Valley construction update and a look at how Deer Valley East was designed on a blank canvas.
- Doppelmayr goes vertical on its new Salt Lake factory.
- The President expands 50 percent steel and aluminum tariffs to more products.
- ORDA defends financial losses, citing increased revenue and visitor numberts.
- Indy Pass promises dozens of new resorts coming next week, introduces a $189 Learn to Turn pass with lessons and rentals.
- Long lost Utah ski area Snowland to reopen this season with rope tows, may add a T-Bar in 2027.
- Bigrock, Maine has Mueller double chairs for sale.
- Sandia Peak to sell rare Stadeli center pole chairs.
- Killington to auction gondola cabins from Skyeship starting Monday.
- Park City billionaire Matthew Prince suggests activist investors could break up Vail Resorts.
- Purgatory works on what it can in the parking lot while awaiting permission to build the Gelande lift.
- A Colorado unseated passenger lawsuit heads to trial.
- Ober Mountain rebrands its aerial tram as the The Gatlinburg Tram.
- I stopped by the Mighty Argo last week to check out progress on their new D-Line gondola.
Lift Blog 
I remember when I visited Big Sky in 2022, there was (what looked like) a planned lift on lookers right of the Six Shooter (now Madison8) lift. There were a couple towers with crossarms but no sheaves running up the Pine Marten trail. I’m wondering if that lift alignment would’ve extended to either the top or bottom of Lone Tree. Judging by the photos & map rendering, that former lift alignment doesn’t look like a part of the new plan, but it would be great to see that revived in a way.
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Ski patrol has used that area for rope evac training. Thats why the towers and cross arms are there.
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I’m sure that’s what its used for now, but I think there was a definitive plan for a lift there quite awhile ago and was just forgotten. From where the towers are looking are uphill, there is an exact lift line cut that is roughly the same size / length as the Madison8, and does extend to Lone Tree. Google Maps really doesn’t do it justice here, but if you look to the right of the Madison8 you can clearly see a lift line running through the trees. https://www.google.com/maps/@45.3269487,-111.4342104,541a,35y,188.26h,77.77t/data=!3m1!1e3!5m1!1e1?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDgxOS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
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Moonlight indeed had plans for a second out of base lift following that cut lift line, however the tower and chair are not in it. They are in that clearing about 1/3rd of the way up to the east of the cut line.
It was built as a training area using parts from the Stagecoach lift that were not used. As far as I know it is abandoned now and the cable was removed.
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The lift you are describing (bottom of Madison to top of Lone Tree) was a part of the original Moonlight Basin master plan, but Lone Tree was built instead due to cost savings (the company was already in a poor financial state in 2004 before going bankrupt during the Great Recession).
From what I understand, there is currently no plan to install that original lift. Instead, there is a plan for an infill lift from roughly the intersection of Meriwether/Ice House to the top of Lone Tree. The rationale is that a much shorter lift is less expensive, Madison base does not need more capacity, and the whole pod being a higher elevation better holds snow. Plus, they can install a future Madison base to Lookout Ridge/Meriwether lift to work in tandem if they do ever need additional capacity out of Madison base.
If this is indeed the approach they are taking, I disagree with it due to the navigational challenges others have mentioned. Big Sky is massive, and a large part of why it functions as a singular resort is that it has long lifts that maximize the horizontal distance skiers can travel to different parts of the mountain from a single starting point. This proposal of small pod segmentation would make the area akin to Pony Express and Iron Horse, where shorter lifts heavily restrict where else you can go.
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That was the plan at one point but they pivoted back towards the one longer lift, see Everett’s comment from Ski Talk:
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https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WsBGQxJptYL1mBTxnQumnOSWuEp6GCSL/view?usp=sharing
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There’s really no good way to get to moonlight west other than taking Madison 8 then riding up lone tree. If it ends up going ahead, Big Sky should build the long planned HS6 from the bottom of Madison 8 to the top of Lone Tree. Will greatly improve skier flow and allow access to lots of underutilized terrain.
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That lift from the base of M8 to the top of Lone Tree is likely to happen some time in the near future, especially now that it will be the gateway to Moonlight West. I know Everett Kircher, Taylor Middleton, and Troy Nedved have all mentioned it.
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Mammoth is a sad story. A 50 year perfect storm of overregulation, NIMBYism, poor timing and luck, and corporate greed and incompetence. As the only viable weekend trip from LA it really needed to become a Tahoe or Wasatch style group of complimentary resorts. Comfortable carrying capacity probably requires 10,000-15,000 skiable acres along 395 somewhere between Olancha and Bridgeport. June Mt is great but the layout seems intentionally and suspiciously designed to prevent it from being a viable relief valve – Chair 1 may be the biggest eff-you to prospective customers in the industry and the lodge overflows with even modest crowds (I admit to appreciating this personally, but in a sane world/state this would not be the case). The obviously-needed Sherwin Bowl is 40+ years in proposal limbo and it would probably take 20 years and $10 billion to cut the first tree due to opposition from the town, forest service, Sacramento, and anyone else who wants to take their pound of flesh. There was a brief window between the late 70s and early 90s when significant terrain and services expansion might have been possible, but McCoy was aging out and younger leadership lacked the dynamism, money, and foresight to make it happen.
Even with that, Mammoth remains one of the best ski resorts in North America. I’ve had some of the best days of my life there. But more and more it is just Wachusett West on weekends and holidays, almost a parody of itself with people lining up for hours after a storm because they know every stash will be skied off in literal minutes after the lift opens. Damn shame.
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mammoth is a destination ski mountain that’s run like a day ski area. It’s the only game in town for so cal skiers looking for weekend big mountain skiing. I think that’s bred a certain complacity that results in underinvestment. They’d clock 1.5 million visits with or without a main lodge redevelopment so why bust their butt? Meanwhile several of their detachable lifts need to be replaced and they have a few 50 year old yan doubles still spinning. Mammoth profits go to prop up June and other Alterra mountains. Great mountain, though. I used to instruct there.
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Believe it or not, Alterra has been trying to spend money at Mammoth, even if it costs more than it would elsewhere, but the regulatory hurdles have become so great that it is just hard to make any forward progress. Now, you can argue that they would have an easier time if they chose other deserving projects, like upgrading lifts 12, 13, or 25 to high-speed quads, but they have selected thus far to only go after bigger fish.
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and they did build twonew d-line 6 packs in the last few years.
the other big factor is that Mammoth solved a lot of its crowd flow in the 90’s and early 2000’s, so there isn’t as pressing a need for a Big Blue or a Deer Valley next level transformative project.
10 already reaches the ridgeline, there are 2 dedicated beginner high speed quads with one on the upper mountain, the gondi has hours but isn’t outdated. Eagle is already a high capacity 6 pack. 16 already has full high speed redundancy.
Basically, Mammoth was ahead of the curve on a lot, meanwhile other Alterra mountains and competitors have comparable projects in the last 5 years. So there aren’t the flashy headlines now, but there also is much less of a need for them.
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Look how bad this was as late as 1997. Parallel fixed grip lifts in beginner areas, fixed grip chair 9, chair 10 stopping near chair 4. This was not a great setup and the 2 D-line 6 packs have helped.
Yeah Eagle is still a temporary structure and Main Lodge resembles the Winchester Mystery House, and thank goodness the 395 locks out Tahoe folks on storms, but visit during the week and it’s even nicer than it is on a weekend.
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complacency***
also, I agree that mammoth was ahead of the curve on converting yan doubles and triples to detachables. They had to be…weekend lift lines at mammoth prior to the 1990s were absurd. I just think (based on one recent visit) that several of those 1990s vintage detachables are long in the tooth.
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Long in the tooth in that Yan’s detachable grip failed and cost to replace on short notice was enormous. Just ask Sun Valley.
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Yeah it was probably the correct decision at the time if your goal is to, like, stay in business… but looking back knowing what we know, I often wonder what we would have if, around 1976 or so they had bought the 6 rickety pre-owned doubles it would have taken to link to June instead, paved Deadman’s campground road and put a day lodge at the halfway point. You would have had an extra 3000+ skiable acres grandfathered in when the Feds lowered the axe in the 90’s.
Sure it would have been a calamity of skier and car circulation for a decade or three, terrain would have been off and on with the whims of lift mechanics and storms, maybe throw in a Les Otten style bankruptcy/firesale or two… but by the mid 2010s the rickety old lifts would be replaced with high speeds, and the day lodge would be a plastic Bavarian village with a few Hilton properties and lots of overpriced day spas and 4.1-on-Yelp overpriced restaurants to pull the $1000/night crowd away from ML & JL… ah well, one can dream!
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Gondi up from the Owens Valley next to Olancha, 1,500 acre bowl at the perfect elevation up to Olancha Peak. 250″ ish of snow and 3 hours or less for a good chunk of the LA metro. Slope angles would allow a ton of beginner and intermediate runs, with some true expert high alpine near treeline.
Give me like $75 mill and problem solved!
(This won’t ever happen, a long with things like the Sherwins. Mineral King/Disney tried and got a whole national park created to stop it. Wilderness has been inserted into what Caldot once considered possible Sierra crossings, especially beyond Onion Valley and Minaret Vista. It goes beyond simple greedy Nimbyism, much of the southern Sierra has seen 50+ years of protections built up to limit impacts from the absolute gigantic masses of population on the coast.
As a skier, yeah… our region could support another few mountains and few bigger towns. But the question of how to manage the additional millions of people who will show up is one that goes beyond Alterra, or any town government, or Caldot.
You would need a comprehensive Eastern Sierra development plan to make anything sizeable work. That costs a lot of time and money and energy that LA/SF/Sacramento are too busy to care about or spend. Think of it this way: if you built hwy 203 as originally intended to connect to Fresno, imagine the chaos immediately brought to Mono county. Who is going to solve that? The lack of an answer is why June and Mammoth and the eastern Sierra are what they are.)
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I lived briefly in California and was very disappointed to discover what I consider a “look, don’t touch” attitude towards the Sierras … whether you want to go skiing or climb peaks or just visit a national park, everything feels aggressively inaccessible. The sparse bed base near Yosemite was priced into oblivion most weekends. Bots snatched up all the best hiking and camping permits/reservations near instantly. Many peaks I wanted to hike required multi-day backpacking trips, which is great if you’re one of the lucky few who can routinely take several days away from work and family, but deeply frustrating for basically anyone else. And yeah … for a state of 40M people, it’s shocking how few lift-served skiable acres exist (much of it clustered around Tahoe).
Contrast that with a state like Colorado, which has seemingly a much broader diversity of zoning, protections and development patterns. Many mountains sit in federally designated wilderness, yes. And there are peaks that require remote backpacking excursions to reach. But then there are a bunch of mountains with jeep/atv roads, ski resorts, paved scenic drives over high passes, even a cog railway. There is a diverse array of uses for a diverse array of people, ranging from seasoned backpackers to those with severely limited mobility.
Of course, not every acre should be open for recreation or resource extraction. Habitat protection is important. But if access becomes too constrained, if families feel shut out, then the next generation may not see a personal stake in conservation at all.
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It’s fortuitous that CalTrans does not try to keep the high sierra passes open during winter otherwise the traffic would be a lot heavier.
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Olancha is in my top 3 coulda-beens on that drive. That bowl faces NE and drains to the Owens Valley but the snowmaking water would have to come from the west. If snowmaking was a thing in the 50’s and 60’s you could have probably sold it to Mulholland as a storage project. I could see it being Big Bear but with actual terrain, vertical drop, and snow for a few months most years. It’s very day-trippable if you’re young, and it’s a natural freestyler’s mecca. Comp: Mount Snow with Tuckerman Ravine on top.
The second spot I always side-eye on the way up is the avy chutes off the Thumb above Big Pine. The snow there is meh but the preservation is good, most years in May there are still skiable lines down to 9000′. It’s east facing and high desert, so it avoids a lot of the April & May clouds you get at Mammoth… with 3000+ verts of sustained pitch it could be a spring bump paradise (/icy death trap). If that’s all, it’s probably comparable to Las Lenas or Lake Louise… iffy snow but when it goes off it’s legendary. If it spills over the ridge to the Palisades Basin, you’ve got a full-on Hohe Zillertal scale Eurodomaine. A bit sacrilegious but we used to actually allow non-olympians to enjoy our most beautiful spaces… hamlets dug into to steep alpine meadows, cable cars clinging to the side of arretes, miles-wide above treeline bowls, year-round glacier riding.
The third is Twin Lakes outside of Bridgeport. A somewhat access-constrained but idyllic canyon with year-round recreation options, Tahoe-sized snowfall, long ridges with an ideal mix of fall lines, exposures, vertical drops, and storm/sun skiing. Comparison: in the US Little Cottonwood, but I think more apt would be Les 3 Vallees, with villages at different elevations in different climate zones, each catering to distinct seasons and types of visitors. The via ferrata on Monument Ridge would be something else.
Honorable mentions for Lee Vining Peak & Mt Warren. It’s over the crest so the snow is iffy, but the summit plateau is 3000 verts and 5000 acres of perfect cruiser pitched paradise overlooking Mono Lake on one side and Tuolumne Meadows on the other., and trees up to 11000′ for epic storm rides. Think Heavenly with less, but dryer, snow.
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Is there any confirmation on if the Moonlight West ski terrain will be operated by Boyne as part of BSR, or whether LMLC is going to try to operate it as its own private resort?
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it’s directly connected into horseshoe ski run so I would assume it’s part of big sky.
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If Matthew Prince wants PCMR so bad, should just work on buying out Talisker instead and own the actual ski resort land.
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Vail would still have the lease though. I guess he could buy Talisker and hope that Vail forgets to renew on time…
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Lot easier to terminate a lease when you own the asset.
I just enjoy reading him talk about valuations when in most of their locations they only own operating assets not physical land.
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Say what you want about Vail, but Matthew Prince is an entitled ill informed whiny little asshat that knows absolutely nothing about the ski industry, and would run pcmr into the ground if he ever as much as touched ownership. Tech bros might know about software, but the ski industry is about more than dumping money into chairlifts that will never get built due to nimbism.
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I know Argo didn’t have much of a say, but those D-Line terminals look very out of place. Between the flat fronts and the black, just screams modern in a place where you want it to look older and fit in. Feel they could of done better. Doppelmayr probably saved the project (and is partly treating it as a vanity project), but the wood LPA terminals would of been perfect here.
Also Prince is just butt hurt about Park City at this point isn’t he?
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