- The first D-Line chairlift will open at Hochfügen, Austria with Doppelmayr’s new, wider six-passenger chairs for 2016-17.
- Four lifts from the defunct Talisman Mountain Resort in Ontario are up for sale on Resort Boneyard: A 1968 Hall double, 1987 Frankenlift quad, 1987 Poma triple and 1991 BM Lifts quad. A fifth chairlift is noticeably absent.
- Leitner and Aguido complete the world’s longest conveyor ropeway stretching 4.3 miles in Brazil.
- Doppelmayr flies the guide rope for the newest gondola in La Paz with a drone (video here.)
- Progress report and photos from the two new lift projects at Big Sky.
- Cannon Mountain’s board discusses moving the Brookside triple to The Banshees area.
- The new six-pack at Le Relais looks sharp in gray.
- Sigma’s new gondola cabin is reportedly called the Symphony 10.
- The entire 2016 Jägerndorfer Collection model ski lift line is now available in the States.
- Group proposes Sea to Sky-style gondola attraction in Nelson, BC.
News
News Roundup: Villages
- Designer Jared Ficklin talks about his dream for urban cable in Austin.
- More details surface regarding Aspen Mountain’s replacement 1A lift.
- The Yellowstone Club unveils plans for The Village, anchored by a new Eglise Gondola and high speed quad.
- Vail Resorts’ Canyons Village Master Plan includes a strategic new Sunrise lift providing access to the Quicksilver Gondola.
- Peak Resorts lost $3.2 million last year and will not make any major capital investments at its 14 mountains in 2017.
- Another Yan detachable has found its way to Iran.
- Doppelmayr may build another urban gondola project in The Philippines, this one in the southern city of Davao.
- Caberfae Peaks is nearly finished building its new chairlift.
- Sunday River’s insurance company indicates a failure of the grout that secured the top terminal to bedrock caused last week’s failure.
Mi Teleférico to Build 11th Gondola Line in La Paz
The urban ropeway revolution will continue in Bolivia’s capital city of La Paz, where President Evo Morales announced Friday an 11th gondola line, Linea Celeste (Sky Blue Line) will join the Mi Teleférico gondola network. La Paz and the neighboring city of El Alto announced the Red, Yellow and Green gondola lines in 2012 and the world’s largest urban gondola system opened throughout 2014. President Morales unveiled plans for phase two with six more lines in 2015 with another added to the mix last February. All 11 lines will be 10-passenger monocable detachable gondolas built by Doppelmayr. This latest investment of $110 million comes on top of $234 million for phase one and $450 million for the first six lines of phase two.
The Sky Blue branch will stretch nearly 9,000 linear feet with four stations, 27 towers and 159 CWA 10-passenger cabins. It is expected to be the busiest line in the system, serving the heart of the city and up to 4,000 passengers per hour at six meters per second. The three existing lines operate at up to 5 m/s. A trip from end to end on Linea Cileste will take 11.8 minutes. A line previously dubbed Sky Blue will now be known as the Gold Line. At the current rate, Mi Teleférico is going to run out of colors soon!
Leitner-Poma MiniMetro Debuts at Miami International Airport
Aerial lifts are far from the only transport applications where cable-propelled systems make a lot of sense. Earlier this month, Leitner-Poma celebrated the opening of its newest MiniMetro train at Miami International Airport. It’s the first phase of a system that will carry up to 30 million passengers annually to the Concourse E Satellite using less energy and with lower costs than a traditional automated people mover. Leitner-Poma of America President Rick Spear said of the opening, “we are very pleased with the new MiniMetro train at MIA. We have demonstrated our ability to be a competitive alternative to existing self-propelled technology both on price and performance, and in particular on the yearly operating and maintenance costs.” Many of the train’s components were manufactured at Leitner-Poma’s Grand Junction facility that also builds ski lifts for North America, Australia and New Zealand.
The new train at Concourse E replaces one built in 1980 by Bombardier. The Leitner-Poma project is the fourth people mover at Miami International Airport and the first to be cable-driven instead of having propulsion in each car. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries constructed the MIA Mover & Skytrain and also bid on the Concourse E replacement project. Miami-Dade County awarded Leitner-Poma the $87 million contract in 2014, which includes 15 years of operation and maintenance. “The Leitner-Poma team has delivered a train that is aesthetically appealing and has a very smooth ride. The south lane is open and is being well received by our passengers,” said Eddie Chinea, Miami-Dade Aviation Department APM/Transport Systems Chair and Assistant Project Director.
News Roundup: Signs of Life
- Another of Ascutney Mountain’s old lifts is headed for Pats Peak.
- A local firm will conduct a feasibility study for an urban gondola across the Hudson River in Albany, NY.
- The 11th International Ropeway Congress will be held in Italy next June.
- Work might begin at The Balsams this Fall.
- Signs of life with lift maintenance ongoing at Saddleback.
- Check out these sweet photos of the big new 3S that turns at Mayrhofner Bergbahnen.
- Doppelmayr will build at least four new D-Line lifts in Europe this summer.
- SAM looks at resorts formalizing training for lift mechanics.
- Grouse Mountain will launch the Skyride Surf Adventure™ on Friday (yes, they trademarked the name.)
News Roundup: New in New Zealand
- Whistler Blackcomb Foundation raises $221,000 at 5-course charity dinner aboard the Peak 2 Peak Gondola complete with in-cabin chandeliers.
- Mt. Baldy, BC gets a new owner and plans to re-open next season.
- Powderhorn says its big new lift boosted visits.
- Poma will build a 3-stage urban gondola in the Moroccan port city of Tangier.
- The latest plan for Aspen Mountain’s 1A envisions a bubble quad chair and possibly a platter lift.
- Whaleback, NH buys the old Hall T-Bar from Plattekill, NY for its West Side Project.
- Poma leads a group of French companies on a trip to Iran promoting mountain development.
New England Gets a Lift: Suicide Six to Build New Quad Chair
Vermont’s Woodstock Inn & Resort unveiled plans Thursday for a new quad chairlift at its Suicide Six Ski Area. Normally this wouldn’t be a big deal, but it marks the first (and possibly only) major lift project in the Northeast United States for 2016. Over the last ten seasons, Northeastern ski resorts have built an average of ten new lifts each year, testament to this year’s huge departure from normal in the wake of a rough winter.
The new Lift #1 will replace a 1975 Borvig double and be built by Leitner-Poma of America. The Laurance S. Rockefeller Fund will foot the bill for the $1.5 million project. The Rockefeller Family’s RockResorts once owned Suicide Six and the Woodstock Inn and spun them off as the nonprofit Woodstock Foundation in the 1980s. Vail Resorts bought RockResorts in 2001.
The 2000′ Borvig double chair being replaced closed in February after the ski area found tower cracks following the Timberline, WV crossarm failure. Although the two lifts’ towers were of different design, the State of Vermont ordered inspections of all Borvig-brand lifts. The new quad will be Suicide Six’s first new lift since Poma built the 1,600′ chairlift way back in 1978. The mountain first opened for skiing in 1936 and currently has two double chairs, a J-Bar and 24 trails.
Woodstock President and General Manager Gary Thulander said in a news release, “We recognized the need to upgrade this chairlift as part of the long-term support of the regional ski community including local schools, season pass holders, the Woodstock Ski Runners program, and visiting skiers. Increased chair capacity means a dramatic upgrade to the overall experience of the mountain by all levels of skiers, racers and snowboarders.” Removal of the old chair is already underway.
This is Leitner-Poma’s eighth new lift project for 2016, up from seven last year. With this news from Suicide Six and other recent announcements, the total new lift count for North America stands at 39, up 11 percent from last summer’s 35.
News Roundup: Making Moves
- Sunshine Village will spin its gondola this summer for the first time in twenty years.
- ZGF Architects, the firm conducting the feasibility study for the Rosslyn Gondola in Washington, D.C. will hold a community open house on July 7th.
- The Jay Peak Tram re-opened last Saturday.
- More trouble from Vermont as the state pauses investment in the South Face Village EB-5 project adjacent to Okemo Mountain Resort. The developer completed one new chairlift last year while the future of another is uncertain.
- Waterville Valley’s World Cup triple is coming down in advance of a move to Green Peak.
- Doppelmayr confirms talks to build urban gondolas in the capital city of the Philippines.
- Caberfae Peaks shows how it’s done keeping guests informed during a seven-figure lift project.
World’s Largest Aerial Tram Opens for Business
The Nu Hoang Cable Car’s 230-person cabins carried their first public passengers across Ha Long Bay in Vietnam Saturday after a dedication with owner Sun Group, builder Doppelmayr/Garaventa and representatives from the Guinness Book of World Records. The spectacular 7,100′ reversible aerial tramway crushes records for the largest cabins and tallest towers of any lift worldwide.
Meaning Queen in English, the Nu Hoang Cable Car links Ha Long City with Ba Deo Hill and a huge observation wheel. It’s part of a $270 million, 500-acre development called Sun World Ha Long Park. The taller of the tramway’s two concrete tripod towers is 619 feet while the other is only 436 feet. The old record was 373 feet on a tramway in Austria built in 1966.
CWA built the monster red and yellow Kronos cabins in sections and shipped them to Ha Long for assembly. Each cabin has two levels and six sets of doors! With these new cabins, the double-decker, 200-passenger Vanoise Express in France loses the title of world’s largest tram.
The Queen is the latest mega lift project for Doppelmayr and Vietnam’s Sun Group, which also operates the world’s second longest gondola and the longest 3S. In 2015, Sun Group ordered an even longer 3S to link three islands and the mainland on Vietnam’s Southern Coast. This stunning 26,000 foot gondola will become the world’s longest lift of any type when it opens in the second quarter of 2017.
News Roundup: Big Week
- Cloudchaser construction begins July 1 at Mt. Bachelor.
- La Paz’s gondola network sets a new daily ridership record – 180,000 passengers on three lines last Monday.
- Poma signs three year partnership with the World Wildlife Fund to promote environmentally-friendly urban cable transport.
- Doppelmayr sponsors exhibition at the Vienna Technical Museum showcasing ropeways in cities.
- Vista Ridge lost a carpet lift and might have to do some extra NDT but came away from the Fort McMurray wildfire relatively unscathed.
- It’s still not entirely clear when Vermont’s only aerial tram will reopen.
- The first LST lift in North America is under construction at Cannon Mountain.
- Local paper gives a progress report on Wilmot Mountain’s Vail makeover.
- Powdr announces Woodward Park City with lift-served downhill mountain biking and terrain parks to be built on 126 acres at Gorgoza Park.
- Powdr also commits to building a new lift at Eldora next summer, most likely the Cannonball six-pack.
- Laurel Mountain hosts a tower flying party.
- The President of Simon Fraser University puts the Burnaby Mountain Gondola back on the table in hopes of replacing 25,000 daily bus trips between campus and Vancouver’s SkyTrain Millenium Line with a 3S.
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