Lift Blog

As the world bids farewell to 2025, 49 new lifts are up and running across North America. Forty five of those rose in the United States plus four in Canada. That’s eight fewer installations than 2024 as the Covid-era outdoor travel boom waned slightly. Marquee projects in ’25 included ten passenger gondolas at Big Sky, Deer Valley and Park City – all providing new out-of-base access. Several ski areas pushed boundaries, most notably Deer Valley with six new lifts in the East Village.

The Rocky Mountain region saw strong investment with 24 lifts opening in Colorado, Montana, New Mexico and Utah. The East also proved strong with 15 new lifts, up by three from 2024. The Pacific states, the Midwest and Canada fared weaker with just a handful of projects each.

Both fixed and detachable chairlift sales fell significantly while gondola projects increased to an impressive eight machines. Surface lifts also outperformed with four new platters and T-Bars supplied by three manufacturers. No aerial trams opened this year but that could change soon with projects on the horizon at Cannon Mountain, New Hampshire and Franklin Mountains, Texas.

Expansions prevailed with more lifts breaking new ground than any year since 2019. In Alberta, Lake Louise opened Richardson’s Ridge with a Doppelmayr detachable quad and Castle Mountain built the Stagecoach Express serving hundreds of acres of alpine terrain. Stateside, Powder Mountain completed the Davenport addition for homeowners serviced by a Leitner-Poma detachable quad. Monarch Mountain, Colorado will soon debut Tomichi, a Skytrac triple ascending No Name Basin for the first time. In the east, Bryce Resort also partnered with Skytrac to debut a backside expansion with four new trails. Only 30 of 49 new lifts this year directly replaced old lifts, down by nine from last year.

Doppelmayr and the HTI duo of Leitner-Poma and Skytrac continued to dominate the market in North America. LPOA won slightly more than half of projects (22) with Doppelmayr completing 20 installations. HTI paricularly excelled in the fixed-grip realm with five new Leitner-Poma Alphas and seven Skytrac Monarchs. Doppelmayr dominated the gondola and detachable spaces with six D-Lines and six UNI-Gs. By vertical transport feet per hour (VTFH), Doppelmayr edged out HTI with 46 percent of installed capacity vs. 45 percent. MND Ropeways built its first new lift in three years here, a T-Bar for Waterville Valley, New Hampshire.

Lifts at places other than ski resorts took off in 2025. The State of West Virginia invested in two fixed grip gondolas at state parks, one of which opened this fall and the other of which will launch come spring. Riverbanks Zoo in South Carolina debuted a gorgeous river crossing gondola in partnership with Leitner-Poma, the first detachable ever built in that state. The Tennessee State Fair debuted a fixed chairlift and OZ Trails Bike Park in Arkansas is putting the finishing touches on a Leitner-Poma high-speed quad, the first detachable in that state.

Nearly 90 percent of lift projects were new-from-manufacturer with just six used lifts re-installed. They represented just under eight percent of new VTFH with Castle Mountain’s high speed quad the largest followed by Alta’s relocation of the Supreme chair. The majority of used lifts were Pomas of various vintages and types.

Deer Valley’s new gondola earned largest new lift of the year followed by Big Sky’s Explorer Gondola then Elk Camp Express at Snowmass. Both Doppelmayr and Leitner-Poma engineered lifts across the VTFH spectrum while Skytrac and MND lifts skewed smaller.

There’s a narrative that only conglomerates can afford new lifts. While lifts have certainly become costlier, this year showed that isn’t the whole story with dozens of independent operators buying really nice machines for their customers. From Wachusett to White Pass and Welch Village, independent ski areas are thriving. Setting aside the Deer Valley megaproject funded in part by Extell Development Company, Alterra only added one new lift to its existing portfolio at Crystal Mountain, Washington. Same story with Vail Resorts, which built the Sunrise Gondola at Park City in partnership with the Canyons Village Management Association. More than half of all new lifts this year went to what I would consider mom-and-pop, family-owned single mountains.

The industry also retired 53 lifts in 2025, three more than last year, at an average age of 42 years. Eight Halls, six Riblets and four Borvigs went to scrap as resorts modernized fleets. Some 211 Halls, 213 Riblets and 118 Borvigs still spin across the continent, however, with more to be replaced in 2026.

Next year is shaping up to be similar to 2025. Announced new lifts are pacing just slightly behind this time a year ago with 41 installations on my list of likely projects. Several installs initially intended for 2025 were pushed to 2026 including Purgatory’s Gelande triple, Powder Mountain’s DMI and Halfpint lifts, Homewood’s gondola and Bluewood’s summit lift. Several ski areas already announced fresh investments for 2026 including two replacements at Sun Valley, two lifts at Little Switzerland and a new gondola at Sugar Bowl. Independent mountains are poised to continue out-investing conglomerates per capita despite accounting for less than half of skier visits.

As these projects unfold, I hope you’ll continue to read Lift Blog. 2025 was another record year for the site with 841,000 unique visitors reading nearly 4.7 million pages. Thank you for your support, think snow and Happy New Year.