- Nelson, BC moves forward with Fringed Hill Gondola project.
- Leaders look at building a four stage gondola between famous tourist sites in Jerusalem.
- Amtrak’s Winter Park Express train returns January 2017 after a seven-year hiatus. A new platform alongside the Union Pacific Railway’s main line will be just 90 feet from the Gemini Express.
- Poma and Sigma are building a triangle-shaped gondola at a wildlife park in China with 224 cabins. They will come in four different animal designs and 70 will feature glass floors. The innovative lift will debut in January.
- Leitner Ropeways will attend the global transportation technology summit Innotrans in Berlin.
- The first cabin takes a spin on the White Line in La Paz. The White and Blue lines will open in 2017 joining the Red, Yellow and Green lines and the world’s largest gondola network.
- Mi Teleférico also opens two retail stores dedicated to gondola souvenirs and public outreach. Does your local public transit authority have 200,000 Facebook fans?
- Cloudchaser takes flight at Mt. Bachelor.
- A progress report from Arizona Snowbowl where Leitner-Poma is building the state’s first six-pack.
- The State Fair Flyer at the North Carolina State Fair is a brand new Partek.
- Mexicable opens October 3rd in Ecatepec, Mexico. The Leitner-built system has two haul ropes, seven stations and 190 cabins. The local Governor took a test run earlier this week and the video has been viewed more than 430,000 times.
- An empty chair falls from the Gunbarrel Express at Thredbo, Australia during public operation. The lift is a 1988 Doppelmayr with DS grips.
News
Waterville Valley’s Green Peak Expansion is a Go
Waterville Valley will open new terrain for the first time in thirty years this winter, CEO Chris Sununu confirmed at a press conference this morning. With $2 million in financing clearing just recently, SkyTrans Manufacturing will relocate the World Cup Triple this fall to serve the ten new trails on Green Peak. The U.S. Forest Service approved the 45 acre expansion in 2013. In addition to managing Waterville Valley, Mr. Sununu is running for Governor of New Hampshire which could have something to do with the late-summer timing of the announcement. He frequently cites his leadership and job creation at Waterville Valley on the campaign trail.
The Green Peak triple chair will rise 1,011 vertical feet and move up to 1,800 skiers per hour over a slope length of 4,380′. SkyTrans, which specializes in refurbishing old lifts and relocating them to smaller ski resorts and amusement parks, has experience at Waterville. SkyTrans General Manager Rich Combs said in a press release, “this project builds on our history, starting when O.D. Hopkins Associates, the predecessor to SkyTrans, installed the very first lifts at Waterville Valley Resort.” Those lifts were all built by Stadeli and the mountain still operates six of them!
The 1985 triple formerly known as World Cup has numerous Doppelmayr components thanks to a June 2000 lightning strike and fire. The bottom station building burned to the ground and the haul rope separated due to the heat. Doppelmayr came in and replaced both stations and added a mid-station at the same time. After the installation of the parallel White Peaks Express in 1988, World Cup only ran weekends and holidays and was removed starting in June. The move to Green Peak comes sooner than many expected and the new lift and terrain will open sometime this winter.
News Roundup: Co-Op
- A movement is afoot to turn Saddleback into a Mad River Glen-style cooperative.
- Red Mountain seeks to raise $5-10 million through crowdfunding.
- Leitner Ropeways launches interactive map of installations since 1996.
- With the haul rope being pulled, Mi Teleférico anticipates an early 2017 opening of the Blue Line in La Paz with 5 stations, 38 towers and 208 gondola cabins.
- Killington renews permit for the Pico interconnect to include four chairlifts and 110 acres of new terrain.
- BMF wins a contract for an 8-passenger gondola and six-pack at a new venue for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. The company is currently building 5 lifts in Switzerland along with ones in Val Thorens and Moscow.
- New York University gets behind the East River Skyway as a solution to the looming L-Train subway closure in NYC.
- Public gets a sneak peak inside the Banff Gondola’s new $26 million top station.
Crazy Gondola Opens at Wynn Palace Cotai
It seems the lift companies can build just about anything these days, even a gondola that turns six times at the request of a casino magnate. Steve Wynn opened his $4.2 billion Wynn Palace yesterday in Macau, China along with one of the most complex gondola lifts ever built. The casino’s SkyCab is monocable detachable that turns six times. Doppelmayr designed the lift to run slowly enough that cabins can round four different bullwheels at line speed while only detaching at two loading and unloading stations, one of which has a ~110-degree angle on the roof of the main lobby. An upcoming rail station will be integrated with the second station. The entire system relies on the same principles Doppelmayr used to build a gondola at a zoo in Sweden that also makes six angle changes.
CWA adapted standard 8-passenger Omega cabins into 6-passenger VIP versions with custom audio-visual systems and air conditioning. Doppelmayr Cable Car will manage operations and maintenance for the system under a long-term contract. If you are looking to make a career move and like the sound of dragon bullwheels, they are hiring.
Sunday River to Build New Lift on Spruce Peak
Sunday River announced this morning a $2.1 million Doppelmayr fixed-grip triple will replace the Spruce Peak triple, where a terminal literally fell over last month. Willis MountainGuard and Boyne Resorts deemed the lift a loss after suspected grout failure sent the top station sliding from the bedrock it was anchored to the weekend of July 9th. The 1986 Borvig triple was Sunday River’s second oldest lift and the new version will re-use its new Chairkit loading conveyor. Doppelmayr will also replace the top terminal of Sunday River’s other Borvig triple on Locke Mountain.
Exactly when the new lift will open is unclear. Doppelmayr already has a packed summer building 17 lifts across the US and Canada. In the meantime, most of Spruce Peak can be accessed from the Chondola and Aurora lifts.
This is far from the first (and won’t be the last) late-season lift replacement after unexpected disaster. On June 11, 2012, a wildfire burned through Ski Apache in New Mexico, damaging two chairlifts and a gondola. The Native American tribe that owns the mountain announced a $15 million deal with Doppelmayr on September 5th and three new lifts were completed by January.
News Roundup: Commonwealth
- Highland Mountain Bike Park is closed this week as crews reinforce a 1987 Borvig triple top terminal foundation, surely as a result of the Sunday River Spruce Peak incident. The bike park, which is no longer a ski resort in the winter, hopes to re-open tomorrow.
- At Sunday River, Spruce Peak’s haul rope has reportedly been cut. Its sister lift, the 1984 Borvig Locke Mountain triple had its rope removed from the top bullwheel.
- Cardrona Alpine Resort in New Zealand will build a Doppelmayr 6/8 chondola for next season.
- Splicer Bill Alsup died last Tuesday in a crane accident at the age of 78. He started working for Poma in 1959, ran the Poma distributorship in Vermont for more than 25 years and was also an Indy Car driver.
- Steamboat inches towards two new gondolas.
- Leitner-Poma of America is designing the huge gondola from Queenstown to The Remarkables that would have three stations, 80 towers and cost approximately $36 million.
- Italy’s first heated-seat chairlift will be an 8-pack.
- Ski Magic, LLC signs purchase agreement for Magic Mountain and will immediately begin work required by the Vermont Passenger Tramway Board to make lifts operational. First priority is the Pohlig triple chair that’s sat idle the past two seasons. Geoff Hathaway, President of the new ownership group commented, “it was either Magic or Whistler Blackcomb. I think we got the better deal.”
- Aspenites continue to argue over the placement of 1A’s new lower terminal.
News Roundup: South America
- The White River National Forest conditionally approves new lifts at Arapahoe Basin including a Beavers chair, Zuma surface lift, replacements for Molly Hogan/Pallavicini and removal of Norway.
- The Science Channel profiles the Palm Springs Tramway, which has the largest vertical rise of any lift in North America.
- Two more American urban gondola ideas pop up: Uptown Gondola in Cincinnati and Honolulu Aerial.
- Austrian ski pass merger creates a ticket valid for a record 925 lifts.
- Dubai will get a gondola to serve a $1.6 billion artificial peninsula called Blue Waters Island.
- China reverse-engineers the Doppelmayr Uni-G, with poor results.
- A consortium led by Poma beats out Doppelmayr in the bidding to build a two-stage urban gondola over water in Guayaquil, Ecuador with a second line in the works.
- South America now makes up 17 percent of Doppelmayr’s global revenue, approximately equal to North America.
- Peru’s President recently visited the ancient fortress of Kuelap, where Poma is 90 percent finished with a new 8-passenger gondola. The only problem? The haul rope hasn’t been installed yet. So crews slung cabins from towers for the Presidential photo-op to make it look closer to being done!
- 2017-18 reopening of The Balsams is an open question.
- Burke Mountain Academy will buy a T-Bar to replace the 1956 Mountain Poma at Vermont’s Burke Mountain in 2017.
- Echo Mountain sells to a 27-year old D.U. grad for $3.8 million.
- Jay Peak Resort seeks loan in “extremely tight cash situation” after $2.5 million payment to Doppelmayr/Garaventa for tram upgrades.
- Montana Snowbowl begins work on TV Mountain expansion, to include a used Riblet from Snowmass.
- The Vancouver Sun reveals Vail courted Whistler Blackcomb for months, will cut season pass prices in half.
This is an open thread. Feel free to leave a comment on anything lift-related.
Vail Resorts to Buy Whistler Blackcomb in $1 Billion Deal
The largest ski resort company in the world, Vail Resorts, announced a deal this morning to buy North America’s biggest ski mountain for just over USD$1 billion in cash and stock. The acquisition of Whistler Blackcomb brings Vail Resorts’ portfolio to a dozen mountain resorts including the most-visited in the United States, Canada and Australia. Vail Resorts, Inc. will also own six of the top ten mountains by skier visits in North America. The company has been looking to grow internationally since acquiring Australia’s Perisher Resort in 2015.
Whistler Blackcomb Holdings currently trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange. CEO Dave Brownie says the company’s board has been “monitoring the unique challenges facing the broader ski industry due to the unpredictability of year-to-year regional weather patterns.” As a result, the Whistler Blackcomb board accepted a takeover offer from Vail that places a 43 percent premium over Friday’s stock price, valuing W-B Holdings at CDN$1.39 billion.
The deal is expected to close before the end of the year. On the season pass front, Whistler Blackcomb will quit the Liftopia-powered Mountain Collective pass after this season and join Vail’s Epic Pass. Epic pass-holders will have access to 253 lifts at Vail’s 12 resorts in three countries.
Whistler Blackcomb announced a $345 million capital improvement plan called Renaissance earlier this year that will include new lifts on both mountains over the next 20 years and Vail intends to continue investing in this initiative.
News Roundup: New Manufacturer?
- Brian Hepler wants to start a ski lift manufacturing business that builds exclusively double chairlifts for Midwestern mountains under the name Sno Technology.
- Skytrac built a custom Skyride in Sacramento this spring that proved extremely popular during the California State Fair.
- The Poma/Sigma-built British Airways i360 observation tower opens tomorrow.
- Whaleback completes a $100,000 capital campaign to install a West Side T-Bar this fall.
- Nicholas Clesceri, VP of Maintenance at the Palm Springs Tramway and owner of NJC Advisers talks tram maintenance, rime ice and urban ropeways.
- The initial section of the first detachable in the Caribbean will open in the first quarter of 2017.
- Check out photos and video of a four-section system with two haul ropes, glass-floor cabins and Leitner Ropeways’ first gondola aligned in the shape of a triangle, set to open this month at a nature park in Spain.
- Two mechanics were airlifted from Bogus Basin Monday after falling from the Showcase lift while performing line work. Please keep them in your thoughts.
Medellín Pairs Urban Gondolas with Subways
https://www.instagram.com/p/BILLC7aA6FZ/?tagged=metrocable
South American cities are world leaders in urban cable transport, with 24 urban gondolas either opened or planned in Bogotá, Caracas, Guayaquil, La Paz, Lima, Medellín and Rio de Janeiro. I’ve written extensively about La Paz, Bolivia’s capital that went all in on cable transport with eleven gondolas either operating, under construction or planned. But a full decade before the creation of Mi Teleférico in La Paz, Metro de Medellín opened the first of three Metrocable gondola lines in Colombia’s third largest city. Metrocable Line K was the first urban gondola to seamlessly link with a subway anywhere in the world, providing under-served and poor neighborhoods access to the city’s transport network. Metrocable’s J, K and L lines, with ten stations over 5.8 miles, now compose a quarter of the Metro de Medellín network. All three Metrocable lines are 8-passenger monocable gondolas built by Poma.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BGvoGnIiQHy/?tagged=metrocable
Line K debuted in 2004 with a shockingly low construction cost of $26 million. Its four stations branch off from the Acevedo Metro station over a length of 6,798 feet, giving three neighborhoods access to the core subway Line A that opened in 1996. This gondola rises 1,309 feet with a rope speed of 5 m/s. Metrocable Line J opened in 2008 at a cost of $47.5 million, serving four more stations from the terminus of the shorter subway Line B. Line J is longer than the original K at just under 9,000 feet. A ride with seamless transfers between buses, two Metro subway lines and two Metrocable lines costs less than a dollar.
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