- Telluride’s ski patrol strike ends after 13 days.
- Le Massif partially reopens with limited hours as a strike drags on.
- More than 500 people spend most of an overnight atop the Palm Springs Tramway following a technical issue, now resolved.
- Nearly 200 are rescued safely from Whitefish’s Big Mountain Express in a multi-hour rope evacuation.
- Sugarloaf’s SuperQuad goes down due to a gearbox issue.
- Leitner-Poma will build the new Canyons Village gondola at Park City.
- Anakeesta’s new LPOA gondola to be called Crystal Express.
- Doppelmayr wins the contract for Killington Snowdon with a total project cost of $7.04 million.
- Doppelmayr also will build the world’s longest urban gondola in Mexico City with 12 stations, 462 cabins and 114 towers over 9.4 miles.
- Wildcat reopens its beginner chair after a year-long closure.
- Castle Mountain’s new map shows lift expansion on Mt. Haig.
- A state evaluation following the Park City gondola mishap last week notes no mechanical malfunction but says “a gondola cabin leaving a terminal with a passenger being suspended by the foot is not acceptable and has the potential for extremely serious injuries.” During a Utah Passenger Ropeway Safety Committee Meeting, Park City’s Director of Mountain Operations Nick Dana notes “we did have a loading incident on Red Pine Gondola last week so we’re continuing to look into that and work with the manufacturer to investigate into our door monitoring switches there at top of Red Pine Gondola.”
- Also from the UPRSC, the Forest Service notes several recent chair detachments on Riblet and Stadeli lifts in Montana.
Lift Blog 
How is the Snowdon project 7 million? Heaven’s Gate at the Bush last year was only 4 million, and it was a more difficult alignment. Is this just tariff related or am I missing something?
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Snowdon is slatted to be a detachable six-pack, which is a much more complicated and expensive type of lift than a fixed-grip quad, like Heaven’s Gate, even if the latter has a more challenging alignment
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That is incorrect. It is also going to be a CLF-4. Look at the act 250 page as well as the announcement on here about the lift from a little while back.
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Yes, Snowdon is slated to be a Doppelmayr 4-CLF, or fixed-grip quad. I think you’re confusing the new lift with the current one, which is a detachable bubble six-pack or 6-CLD-B.
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Whoops, I think I got Snowdon confused with Superstar. I apologize for the misinformation and I don’t really know why Snowdon would be more expensive than Heavens Gate.
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I’m sure the tariff impact is part of it (this would be a great reporting angle, Peter!), but there’s also more that goes into a project like this than just the lift.
It looks like they have 7.5 acres of earthwork and regrading, and some reconfiguration and a tight construction area at the base. Plus, it’s not a short fixed-grip, with 20 towers.
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I feel like the Whitefish/Kalispell media (and social media) is unnecessarily harsh on WMR. It’s not common, obviously, but it’s not that unusual to do a rope evac. There are procedures in place to do it safely and efficiently. The media and social media peanut gallery give the impression that the WMR situation (What? Two rope evacs in three years?) is unique. It isn’t!
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rope evacs should be uncommon. 30+yrs in the industry and only seen 2 done. Rope evacs should raise an eyebrow or two.
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Sounds like Mt. Baker did one today on 3/4. 🤷♂️
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And another rope evac today at Summit West (Dodge Ridge)!
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Add Boulder Lift at Heavenly to the rope evacuation list on 01-11-2026. It may have involved a deropement?
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They always raise mine. It has to be a significant event- something like a gearbox failure- to warrant one. APUs/EPUs can and do fail but that sort of thing is pretty rare. We’ve had a couple in my career. One was an input bearing seizing (unfortunately the APU coupling utilised the electric shaft as well) and the other was the output shaft on a YAN-250 shearing.
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Of the rope evacs I’ve been a part of/have first-hand knowledge of, a secondary power unit failure has only been related to one. Others have been (near) deropements that have been too complex to resolve in a reasonable time (for the weather) or tension problems reducing friction between the haul rope and drive bull wheel.
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I’m in high school, and skiing is pretty much my whole life. While I have some small-time sponsors (gear, not money), skiing isn’t going to work out for a career. I would like to ski-bum (at least for a few years), but I’m being cautioned against that.
One of the options I found was CMC or similar for a ski-related degree. I’m really interested in the ops (mostly lifts and snowmaking) part of skiing. Does anyone know more about this, like how much it helps to get a job at a resort, how much of it is classroom school stuff vs. ski stuff? And how much would I get to ski there?
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Well i don’t know what others will say, but I personally would not go for a ski related degree. Get a degree that is actually useful if you think you even need a degree. In this day and age, degrees are not holding their value and are no guarantee to get any type of job. Get yourself into the tech/hands on industry- maybe some trade courses in electrical or other mechanical related stuff but don’t limit yourself to the ski industry only. I love mechanical things and if you are mechanically inclined you’ll have a heads up.
If you have a few local ski hills nearby go buy some of the lift techs a coffee at the lodge and ask for a few minutes of their time to talk about what they have to suggest for you and what you could do to learn and to help you stand out.
Maybe reach out to Peter, the owner of this site and see if he has any advice for you. Peter is not just a content creator, but he actually works on lifts and has lots of experience. (The man works at Jackson Hole! how can you go wrong!?) The comments on here are far and between sometimes and many won’t see your post. Wishing you the best of luck!
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Exit 32- I actually teach the ropeway portions of the CMC programme when I’m not wrenching on lifts at Copper. I can tell you that pretty much everyone who goes through our campus gets a job. Feel free to pm me on IG- same username as here- and I can get you some more information/answer questions you may have.
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Some interesting lift news out of Mission Ridge. Due to low snow conditions this year, they are currently installing a mid-offload on Chair 4 to allow skiers to ski the lower half of the lift, which has snowmaking.
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Chair 4 already had a midstation.
https://liftblog.com/chair-4-mission-ridge-wa/
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