Author: Peter Landsman

Seven New Lifts Approved for Expanded Northstar California Resort

Peter Landsman14 Comments
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Northstar California has expanded rapidly over the past two decades with nine new lifts since 2000, including the Highlands Gondola serving a new Ritz-Carlton hotel.  More lifts are coming with this week’s approval of the Northstar master plan by Placer County.

Vail Resorts got welcome news yesterday that went largely unnoticed with the big Stowe buy. The Placer County Board of Supervisors finally and unanimously approved a new master plan for the 3,200-acre Northstar Resort on the northwest shore of Lake Tahoe.  Booth Creek Ski Holdings started working on this plan way back in 1990 before eventually selling the mountain to Vail in October of 2010.  Today’s approval includes seven new lifts: a gondola, two detachable chairlifts, one surface tow and three additional fixed-grip chairs.  Two of those lifts would have mid-stations and three will serve an exciting 550-acre expansion called Sawtooth Ridge.

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Master plan map showing 14 existing lifts and seven new ones.

“The plan is designed to help lengthen current guest stays and solidify Northstar as a premiere destination resort,” Vail Resorts said in a statement.  “It provides guests with a wider, more diverse array of terrain offerings and recreational activities, facilitating an improved and extended vacation experience for the destination and day-use guest.”  Northstar’s current fleet stands at 14 lifts, nine of which are detachable.  The proposed additions are:

  • Castle Peak Gondola: A six-passenger gondola to Northstar Village that wouldn’t serve any ski trails but would reduce traffic on Northstar Drive by diverting more vehicles to the offsite Castle Peak parking lots.  The gondola alignment would require two stages and an angle station to the east of Northstar Village.  It would serve a similar function to the Vail-owned BreckConnect Gondola.  Upon completion of Castle Peak, Northstar will operate a whopping four gondolas.
  • Lift C: A fixed-grip or detachable chairlift east of the existing Vista Express serving three new intermediate trails above Sawmill Lake.
  • Lift J (Lookout Mountain Access): A long new detachable quad or six-place chairlift starting near the bottom station of the Highlands pulse gondola and ending near the Lookout Vista surface lift providing increased out-of-base capacity.  A mid-load station would serve new trails to the north of the Tahoe Zephyr Express pod.
  • Lift V: A bottom drive fixed-grip lift starting near the Backside Express/Promised Land Express rising into the new Sawtooth Ridge expansion area.
  • Lift W: A second fixed-grip chairlift serving Sawtooth Ridge.  No trails would be cut in this pod; it would be dedicated to serving natural tree skiing.
  • Lift Z: Surface tow similar to Lookout Vista providing access to “backcountry-style” terrain beyond lifts V and W.
  • Lift Q: A second lift on Lookout Mountain to the west of the Martis Camp Express.  This one would be fixed-grip and top drive.

Build out of the ambitious plan is expected to take two decades and Doppelmayr stands to gain, having built every lift at Northstar since 1985.  I’m guessing we might see the Lookout Mountain access lift and Sawtooth Ridge lifts first.

News Roundup: China

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Vail Resorts Buys Stowe for $50 Million

Peter Landsman12 Comments
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Vermont’s Stowe, which operates a mixed fleet of Leitner-Poma and Doppelmayr chairlifts along with two gondolas, will join the Vail Resorts family this spring.

In a move that should surprise no one, this morning Vail Resorts officially went east, agreeing to buy the mountain operations of Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont for $50 million from a subsidiary of insurance giant AIG.  The move had been rumored for months and was signed on Friday.  Stowe will join Vail Resorts’ hugely popular Epic Pass next season and will become the second mountain newly-acquired by Vail to abandon the Mountain Collective following Whistler-Blackcomb.  Like Whistler, Stowe will probably also abandon its SKIDATA RFID lift access technology in favor of the proprietary Epic system.

“We’re thrilled to add Stowe Mountain Resort to our family of world-class mountain resorts. With the investments in both mountain infrastructure and base area facilities that AIG has made over the years, Stowe Mountain Resort has become the premier, high-end resort for East Coast skiers and snowboarders. We look forward to working with AIG to continue enhancing the guest experience and to ensure the resort’s long-term success,” said Rob Katz, chairman and chief executive officer of Vail Resorts.

Like the flagship Vail Mountain, Stowe has invested heavily in new lifts from both Doppelmayr and Leitner-Poma in recent years, adding six new lifts since 2004.  Four of those additions are located on the redeveloped Spruce Peak at Stowe.  The addition of Stowe’s eight chairlifts and two gondolas brings Vail Resorts to operate more than 260 lifts across 13 mountain resorts.  Vail has already announced four new high-speed lifts (three Leitner-Poma, one Doppelmayr) to be built at Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Keystone and Vail for next winter.  The purchase of Stowe is expected to close sometime this spring.

Steamboat Commits to Major Gondola Upgrades

Peter Landsman26 Comments
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The Steamboat Gondola rises more than 2,000 vertical feet to the heart of Mt. Werner.

Fresh off a 30th birthday, Intrawest and Steamboat said yesterday they will make a major investment in the Steamboat Gondola this spring, pushing back the start of summer operations. The world’s first 8-passenger monocable gondola, once called the Silver Bullet, opened in 1986 and has amassed 80,000 hours operating day and night, year-round.  Changes include:

  • Replacement of grips, likely with Agamatic 108s, the larger version of the new Elkhead Express grips.
  • New hangers.  The 128 first-generation Omega cabins will remain.
  • Completely new terminal rail systems and tire banks.
  • Reconfiguration of cargo loading areas at both stations.
  • New electronic control system.

“Steamboat is fortunate to have some of the best mechanics and electricians in the business looking after our gondola,” said Doug Allen, vice president of mountain operations. “These upgrades give us time to look at the big picture for the base area, while also enhancing our current uphill transportation system.”  Doppelmayr will assist with the work, which will begin April 16th and require complete removal of the gondola’s nearly 18,000 foot haul rope.  Doppelmayr did an almost identical upgrade to the 1985 6-passenger gondola at Northstar California Resort in 2015, with new terminals, hangers and grips.  Leitner-Poma also recently completed major refits of the Whistler Village and Aspen Silver Queen gondolas that included new cabins.  Telluride is also grappling with a similar need for upgrades or replacement.

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Chain-driven systems will be replaced with tires.

In its press release, Steamboat acknowledged the gondola as the main access to the mountain and that acting now preserves future reliable transportation.  Doppelmayr plans to be finished with the work by June 30th for the mountain’s summer season.

Instagram Tuesday: Bahn

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Every Tuesday, I feature my favorite Instagram photos from around the lift world.

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Belleayre to Get Base-to-Summit Gondola

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Just weeks after unveiling plans for two new chairlifts and a gondola for Whiteface Mountain and the state fairgrounds, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo today announced $8 million in improvements at Belleayre Mountain, including a new high-speed gondola.

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“Belleayre Mountain is one of the crown jewels of the Catskills and a major driver of the region’s tourism economy,” Governor Cuomo said today. “With this investment, we are supporting vital upgrades at this mountain to ensure it remains an unparalleled year-round recreation destination and continues to leverage economic growth for the entire region for generations to come.”

The new 8-passenger lift will feature 65 cabins, a six-minute ride time and vertical rise of 1,300 feet.  A manufacturer and timeline were not specified but the cost will be approximately $5 million, which sounds like a screaming deal.  The last new lift built at Belleayre was the Superchief Express, a 2006 Doppelmayr CTEC.  All five of Belleayre’s current chairlifts will likely remain after installation of the gondola in 2017 or 2018.

Disney Possibly Planning Gondola Network at Orlando Resort

Peter Landsman5 Comments

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The Walt Disney Co. is like Apple. It doesn’t like to reveal plans for its theme parks until it has to.  However, a user on a fan website called Walt Disney World Magic yesterday unearthed a recent watershed permit drawing that includes buildings looking an awful lot like those for a multi-stage gondola system.  I’ve heard similar rumors for months and apparently the theme park world has too.  Major newspapers joined the fray today, including the Orlando Sentinel and Orlando Business Journal.  If true, this could become the largest lift project in North America since Peak 2 Peak.

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It all started with drawings like these, which I agree look spot on like detachable lift terminals and angle stations.
The forum thread on WDWMagic now has 656 replies and users have pieced together a conceptual five-stage alignment based on the permit application that would require at least two haul ropes, some 200 cabins and three angle stations.  The system could connect Disney’s Boardwalk, Caribbean Beach Resort, Epcot and Hollywood Studios, the latter of which is slated to house Star Wars land beginning in 2019 and all of which are scheduled for expansion/improvements in the next few years.  Visitors currently go between these hotels and attractions by car or bus and gondolas would certainly be more in keeping with the Disney brand.

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New Roundup: French

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Chronicles from a Crazy Week in Jackson Hole

Peter Landsman12 Comments

Let me start by noting this post, like all others here, is my own and not an official account of my employer, the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort.

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Checking on the mid-station of the new Sweetwater Gondola during the unprecedented five-day closure of the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort this week.

Tuesday nights are my Sunday nights at home before I start my work week every Wednesday.  I was watching the news last Tuesday when our risk manager casually posted on Facebook that the power was out in Teton Village.  I didn’t think much of it on a day when the roof of the local bowling alley had collapsed due to snow and with both a Winter Storm Warning and Flood Watch in effect.  Unlike at some ski areas, losing power is a rarity for Jackson Hole (Crystal Mountain, where I grew up skiing, has its own dedicated power plant for such occasions; Kirkwood and Mt. Baker run without grid power every day.)

Seven minutes after the initial Facebook post, another employee wrote, “the power poles along the village road totally toppled,” just as thousands of workers and guests were headed home.  We later learned seventeen 75-foot steel transmission poles had indeed fallen to the snow along ‘the windy mile,’ that last stretch of Wyoming 390 before Teton Village.  The time was 6:05 pm, the stamp that would grace the webcams on jacksonhole.com for days.  It was no doubt howling that night, but the poles had withstood forty years of fierce winds Wyoming is known for.

Lower Valley Energy is the electricity provider in Teton County.  It’s a co-op, owned by 15,000 members like myself.  While our tiny utility got to work recruiting much-needed regional help, ski area employees who could make it rallied first thing Wednesday morning.  Instead of heading up, cat operators headed out to push ten feet of snow away from the power corridor.  Lower Valley conceded at 9:40 am to “expect Teton Village to be out of power for 5-7 days,” and the resort announced it would not open until at least the following Monday.  The internet thought it was crazy, we knew it was not.

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Prinoths to the rescue.  Photo credit: Lower Valley Energy

Complicating matters, Teton Pass has closed earlier that day and ended up staying closed for almost five days amid the biggest storm cycle since 1986.  WYDOT also closed the two canyon routes leading into Jackson Hole due to avalanches relentlessly coming down across them.  The Teton Village substation also serves the Jackson Hole Airport and all Tuesday night flights were canceled.  Whether it was workers, generators or fuel, it became tough to get anything we needed. The mountain was able to buy every available 2000-watt generator from a Honda dealer in Afton, Wyoming.

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