News Roundup: Wild Europe Weather

5 thoughts on “News Roundup: Wild Europe Weather

  1. CharlesO's avatar CharlesO February 20, 2026 / 7:05 pm

    I’ve always thought those old Riblet center-pole doubles looked incredibly flimsy, and apparently I was right.

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  2. Snowmaster's avatar Snowmaster February 20, 2026 / 9:16 pm

    Calling Outpost an orphan lift is a little rich when Killington/Pico murdered it’s parent.

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  3. yooper skier's avatar yooper skier February 20, 2026 / 9:40 pm

    I work at Marquette Mountain and was actually in line for the lift off-duty when it happened. There was a massive race last weekend but it was not anyone affiliated with the race. Poor guy mis-loaded twice (breaking it the first mis-load) and got cheered for when he finally made it on. The head of maintenance was stationed at the top of the lift because of the race and I talked to him shortly before he took a chair off the closed for the season Rocket lift and was able to swap the chairs out in roughly 3 minutes. Super quick response times from everyone involved!

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  4. Ryan G.'s avatar Ryan G. February 21, 2026 / 6:40 pm

    Note from Pico regarding one of the lifts that is down:
    The Outpost Double experienced a more significant mechanical failure on Wednesday, February 18, involving the lift’s drive shaft. Outpost is a 1969 Carlevaro-Savio fixed-grip double chairlift. It is considered an “orphan lift,” meaning the original manufacturer is no longer in operation. Because of this, replacement parts are extremely limited and must be specially sourced or custom fabricated. Due to the age of the lift and the complexity of sourcing components, the Outpost Double will be down for an extended period. There is currently no estimated timeline for its return to service.

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  5. LH's avatar LH February 22, 2026 / 12:44 pm

    Sad to hear that Red isn’t placing any emphasis on existing lifts. Red chair and Tbar were installed in ’71, Paradise in ’76, Topping ’79 (@Big White), Motherlode ’80 (@Blackcomb), Grey ’92 (@Alyeska), and Silverlode new in ’07.

    5 of 7 lifts are nearly or over 50 years old, and 3 of those are from manufacturers that are no longer existing. So I guess we can expect more long shutdowns (like Motherlode recently) from unexpected failures as parts for these old lifts become increasingly scarce, or need to be custom fabbed.

    For a resort with no high speed lifts, that is charging over $200 for a day ticket, where is the money going? Not into lift renewal, thats forsure.

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