- Epic Pass adds one more Austrian partner – the mighty Sölden.
- Kirsten Lynch resigns as CEO of Vail Resorts and is succeeded by former CEO Rob Katz.
- Vail details the next phase of its Resource Efficiency Transformation Plan, including reorganizing resort divisions, combining snowmaking/grooming/terrain parks into one department and restructuring summer operations.
- President Trump delays implementation of a new 50 percent tariff on the European Union to July 9th.
- The 10 percent “Liberation Day” tariffs are briefly struck down then reimposed by different federal judges.
- Entabeni Systems closes on its purchase of Black Mountain, New Hampshire.
- Holiday Mountain, New York looks to fund a new chairlift in part by making the top station a billboard along NY-17/future Interstate 86.
- A guest gets caught hanging from clothing on a Mammoth chairlift over Memorial Day Weekend.
- Bartholet releases its 2025 Reference Book.
- A new chairlift project pops up in the Forest Service NEPA system for Aspen Mountain.
- No one bids on privatizing Marble Mountain; the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador will continue operations.
- A new aerial tramway in Texas gets $7 million closer to construction.
- Deer Valley won’t break ground on Snow Park Redevelopment this summer after all.
News
Doppelmayr to Grow Canadian Headquarters
Doppelmayr Canada will dramatically expand its base in Saint-Jérôme, Quebec, situated between Montreal and the Laurentian Mountains. The new facility will feature approximately 120,000 square feet of indoor production, service and warehouse space; 31,000 square feet of covered outdoor space; and a 34,000 square foot office and training facility. The news comes just a few weeks after Doppelmayr broke ground on a similar expansion in Salt Lake City. “The new facility will be a state-of-the art manufacturing facility where we will continue to design and produce the highest quality ropeway systems in North America,” noted Luc Guy, CEO of Doppelmayr Canada. “We are excited to expand our production capabilities and our workforce and continue Doppelmayr’s legacy of building ropeways in Saint-Jérôme.”
The existing Saint-Jérôme plant opened in 1978 and today specializes in building UNI-G detachable equipment for Canada and the United States. The new headquarters will rise alongside the existing building and allow Doppelmayr to better serve the growing North American market. “Our employees do an outstanding job completing all our ropeways on time and to the highest standards,” said Gerhard Gassner, Doppelmayr Group Managing Director. “However, due to growing market volume, the new building has become essential to continue meeting these expectations,” he continued. The United States and Canada comprised 29 percent of the Group’s revenue last year, eclipsing €300 million.
Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions (CED) granted Doppelmayr Canada a repayable financial contribution of $3 million for the project. Construction is anticipated to start at the end of May with production set to begin at the new facility by the fourth quarter of 2026.
News Roundup: Austrian Giants
- Austria’s Saalbach, Zell am See-Kaprun, Mayrhofen, Hintertux and Silvretta Montafon join the Epic Pass as partner resorts, bringing Epic to nine European destinations.
- Poma releases its 2024 Reference Book highlighting projects around the world.
- Eaglecrest may not meet a 2028 deadline to complete its used pulse gondola.
- America’s only summer only ski area will open this year for the first time in three.
- Whaleback meets a $250,000 fundraising goal for lift repairs.
- Opposition organizes against proposed Grand Targhee expansion.
- Bluewood, Washington to sell chairs if its new lift project is on track by September 1st.
- Hawaii’s first gondola is proposed on the North Shore of Oahu.
- A gondola is floated for Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
- Also Anaheim, California.
- Marmot Basin’s visitation drops 30 percent due to last year’s fire in Jasper.
- Silver Mountain delays summer opening due to gondola repairs.
- Timberline Helicopters, the company that installs the majority of lift towers in the West, breaks ground on a $13 million expansion in North Idaho.
- The nonprofit organization that’s been trying to revive Cuchara, Colorado inks a 40 year operating lease for the mountain.
- Vail Mountain intends to begin work on the lift projects I wrote about last week next summer, subject to Forest Service approval.
- President Trump proposes a 50 percent tariff on imports from the European Union starting June 1st.
News Roundup: Retrofits
- US ski resorts report their second best season ever with 61.5 million visits.
- Colorado releases a detailed report on Winter Park’s gondola tower evener beam failure last December. Leitner-Poma will retrofit or replace similar beams on existing lifts and modify the beam’s design for future installations.
- The Kicking Horse gondola hanger failure remains under investigation but the resort will replace all hangers and not operate the gondola until mid-summer at the earliest.
- Homewood to install its D-Line gondola in 2026 after years of delays.
- McCauley Mountain to sell Hall chairs from the former Big double.
- The Covid-delayed Timber expansion at Tremblant is back on the table.
- The White Mountain National Forest seeks comments on Waterville Valley’s proposed village-to-mountain gondola.
- Eaglecrest, Alaska continues to lose money with its planned gondola still in the parking lot.
- Salt Lake Community College launches a training program for lift maintenance professionals.
- Wildcat’s Snowcat triple, which missed all of last season, to get a new haul rope, drive, controls, comm line and operator houses.
- A Park City billionaire acquires the PCMR Town Lift plaza, envisions a future gondola.
News Roundup: Ropera
- Deer Valley updates its expansion site to show Lift 6 as two detachable quads (6A and 6B) instead of a six pack with mid-station.
- Vail Mountain seeks permission to replace Orient Express #21 with a six pack, swap Little Eagle #15 for a detachable quad and remove Wapiti #24.
- Leitner-Poma discusses the impact of tariffs on the SAM huddle.
- Burke Mountain emerges from nine years of government receivership with new owners.
- Mount Saint Louis-Moonstone, Ontario teases a new era coming to the Outback side of the mountain.
- Leitner introduces its next generation monocable detachable called Ropera, combining technology from Leitner, Poma and Bartholet. The launch customer will be Speikboden, Italy with a six place chairlift.
- Leitner and Doppelmayr release annual yearbooks.
- Snoqualmie unveils new renderings of the Edelweiss project at Alpental.
- A Colorado man succumbs to injuries sustained in a fall from Keystone’s Ruby Express last December.
- Powder Mountain tells the Utah tram board it’ll install between one and four new lifts this summer.
- A jury declines to award millions to a Mt. Bachelor skier who fell getting off a chairlift.
- Killington to donate and match proceeds from closing day to Whaleback Mountain’s chairlift replacement fund.
- Snow Partners to launch a new multi-mountain pass product offering three total days at six to ten Eastern resorts.
- Mt. Ashland, Oregon looks to replace the Ariel and Windsor doubles with Skytrac triple chairs in 2026.
News Roundup: SLI Retirements
- Big Moose, Maine hints at reviving summit lift access.
- Austria’s KitzSki and SkiWelt could connect to form the world’s largest ski area.
- Lake Louise cuts trails for the long-awaited Richardson’s Ridge expansion.
- Hatley Pointe decommissions the SLI-built Laurel double.
- Telluride seeks approval to replace its last two SLI doubles.
- Big Sky to be the North American launch customer for the Doppelmayr S-Line surface lift, replacing the Bear Back Poma.
- Big Sky will also enclose the Lone Peak Tram‘s top terminal this summer.
- Doppelmayr releases its latest customer magazine featuring projects at Big Sky and Deer Valley.
- Snowmass to keep the Elk Camp quad spinning for bikes through August 4th while work begins on its replacement.
- Eldora seeks approval for unspecified projects from its master plan.
- A court blocks the proposed Los Angeles Dodgers Stadium gondola for now.
- Wachusett looks to sell the Polar Express to another ski area.
- I stopped by Deer Valley for a quick look at the progress to build two gondola sections and four detachable chairlifts this summer.










News Roundup: Passport
- Vail Resorts reports skier visits down 3.1%, lift revenue up 3.4%, ski school revenue up 2.7%, dining up 2.2% and retail/rental down 4.0% with pass sales for next year down slightly in units.
- Burke Mountain to be sold to Bear Den Partners for $11.5 million.
- Park City explores possible routes for a Main Street-Deer Valley gondola.
- Ski Utah continues advocating for a Little Cottonwood gondola.
- Telluride seeks approval for yet-to-be-specified projects from its master plan.
- Boyne launches two multi-resort pass products good at all their resorts.
- Local artists to transform Park City Sunrise chairs into works of art to be auctioned for charity.
- Italy opens a criminal investigation into last week’s fatal tram incident involving a haul rope failure and track rope brake failure on one of two cabins.
- Steeplechase, Minnesota turns to crowdfunding to finance expansion.
- Leitner-Poma Canada is hiring lift installers for a project at Whitewater, BC.
- Loveland to operate the new Lift 7 quad as a triple.
- Killington is full steam ahead on Superstar replacement.
- Red Lodge Mountain begins repairing the chairlift involved in a fatal incident last month.
- Palisades Tahoe invites local high school students on mountain operations tours to aid with recruitment.
News Roundup: Court of Appeals
- Sipapu, New Mexico proposes replacing one of the last detachable Poma lifts in the United States.
- Four people are killed in an aerial tramway crash in Italy.
- Skiland, Alaska rope evacuates its only chairlift.
- Kicking Horse closes for the season without its gondola; any compensation for passholders affected by five weeks of gondola closure to be determined at a later date.
- Two new gondolas near completion in West Virginia.
- South Carolina’s only gondola is almost ready to roll.
- Bretton Woods formally announces the Bethlehem Express replacement project.
- A Utah court of appeals hears arguments from Park City the town and Park City the ski area re: canceled 2022 Eagle and Silverlode lift projects.
- Vail also tussles with South Lake Tahoe over Heavenly parking and taxation.
- Titcomb Mountain, Maine fundraises to build a new T-Bar as soon as this summer.
News Roundup: Pacific Northwest Icons
- HTI, the parent company of Agudio, Bartholet, Leitner, Poma, LPOA and Skytrac, reports stable revenue of €1.4 billion and record R&D investment of €41 million.
- Leitner teases “the exclusive launch of a groundbreaking new standard for monocable uni-directional ropeways” at Interalpin.
- Leitner also nears completion of a material transport gondola that includes a 1,600 foot underground tunnel.
- The next phase of the Bartholet RopeTaxi on demand gondola network is delayed to December.
- President Trump tempers announced tariffs on most countries to 10% for 90 days.
- Calls continue for the Government of Quebec to terminate its lease with Resorts of the Canadian Rockies for Mont-Sainte-Anne.
- Freakonomics tackles the economics of ski areas with help from Loveland and Mt. Ashland.
- Mt. Hood Meadows to retire the Blue double without replacement, raffle the chairs.
- Alpental plans an all weekend celebration for the retirement of iconic Chair 2.
- Doppelmayr breaks ground on its new Salt Lake City building.
- French authorities propose nearly €2 million in fines against MND and its investors for alleged disclosure and insider trading violations.
- You can buy an Overbrook chair from Ski Butternut
- McCauley is also selling chairs.
- CBS drama Fire Country to feature a ficticious ski lift disaster tonight.
News Roundup: Contingency Plan
- Homewood to reopen next season but its D-Line gondola delivered in 2023 won’t be installed this summer.
- Powdr abandons plans to sell Mt. Bachelor.
- Powdr’s sale of Eldora is said to be in the final stages.
- Le Massif, Quebec signs on to the Ikon Pass.
- New details emerge from the antitrust case against the owner of Song Mountain and Labrador Mountain, New York; he plans to appeal.
- Whaleback, New Hampshire looks toward a new chairlift.
- Sun Valley seeks to be removed from a lawsuit filed by a homeowner regarding the placement of the new Flying Squirrel quad.
- Stratton’s American Express closes early and will reopen for summer later than normal for a major systems modernization.
- The Forest Service approves Steamboat to replace Sunshine Express with a six pack.
- The world’s second largest gondola network is proposed in India with 15 stations and 660 cabins.
- If Bluewood, Washington can’t complete its planned relocation of a used high speed quad from Austria next season, it will keep its Borvig lift and credit passholders $100.
- The US government implements a blanket 20% tariff on goods from the European Union and 31% on products from Switzerland, both major source regions for lift components.
- Skeetawk, Alaska works to repair its only chairlift but snow may run out first.
- Arctic Valley, Alaska’s T-Bar will be inoperable the rest of the season due to an incident damaging the haul rope.
- Holiday Mountain, New York looks to reopen long lost terrain with a third chairlift.
- Alta to realign Supreme this summer, re-doing every foundation and re-using towers and terminals.
- Castle Mountain’s expansion lift to be called Stagecoach Express.
- The owner of Berkshire East and Catamount would operate Burke Mountain under a proposed sale to local investors. The group also plans to refurbish the J-Bar and relocate Willoughby if the sale goes through.


