- Pomerelle’s new SkyTrac triple gets a name: E-Z Rider. Unfortunately 15 lifts already have the exact same name! Where’s the creativity?
- Speaking of questionable lift names, Summit Express towers are in at Solitude as are Sunshine Quad towers at Okemo.
- Lutsen’s new gondola is a beauty.
- The Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest approves replacements of two Riblet doubles at Stevens Pass. Kehr’s chair will be a replaced by a fixed-grip triple and Brooks by a shorter fixed-grip quad. Stevens saved the old Jupiter quad (a 1993 CTEC removed in 2013) presumably for one of these locations. The Forest Service also approved construction of a new rope tow!
- “On paper it works, in reality we’ll see,” says FIS race director Markus Waldner of the rush to finish the South Korean ski resort that will host FIS races this February and the 2018 Olympic Downhill. Doppelmayr has reportedly sent extra workers in hopes of completing the lift system by January 10th.
- Take a ride on the hottest chair in Canada.
- You can buy a complete Borvig double chair right now with your credit card for only $65,000. (For anyone curious it’s from Hidden Valley, NJ which is re-opening this winter with two new Partek lifts.)
- Whistler-Blackcomb is not a fan of the proposed Garibaldi at Squamish resort along the Sea to Sky Highway and 30 minutes closer to Vancouver than Whistler. Some background: the same developer invested $200 million to bail out Revelstoke Mountain Resort in 2008 and owns an NHL team. The master plan for Garibaldi has 18 lifts including a gondola, two six packs and four high speed quads. I put this proposal in the same category as Jumbo Glacier and Saddle Mountain.
- Ski Cooper near Leadville, CO wants to build a new T-bar with a pod of 5 trails but not for 3-4 years.
News
News Roundup: London’s Gondola
- The non-profit organization that bought Soldier Mountain in Idaho from Bruce Willis wants out after three years. Now the entire ski area is for sale for just $149,000 (that’s the amount the organization owes its bank.) Included are two Stadeli double chairs built in 1970 and 1974. I’ve also heard Soldier has at least one lift from nearby Sun Valley in storage for expansion. The ski area’s master plan includes four new lifts that we may never see.
- Doppelmayr and Skidata think they have perfected gondola loading with the “easy boarding gate.” The system uses multiple ‘pods’ with turnstiles to enter. Flat screen monitors display how many spaces remain in each pod and guests self-select where to go. As gondola cabins enter the loading area, full pods are assigned to cabins with LED lights directing riders. I’m sure it works but why would a ski area want to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to do what a $9 an hour lift operator can do?
- 22 towers fly at the Hermitage Club, soon to be home to the only 6-person Doppelmayr bubble lift in North America. Ironically the same helicopter flew towers from the Hermitage Club’s old triple the very next day at West Mountain in New York.
- Lots of new pictures of Sipapu’s new quad chair and an update on their blog.
- Drone footage of Crystal Mountain, Michigan’s “Backyard” expansion with eight new runs served by a used CTEC triple chair.
- Leitner-Poma takes the Facebook plunge. Their counterparts in Europe also have a pretty cool page!
- Peak Resorts, the fourth largest operator of lifts in North America, secures a $15 million line of credit for “resort development and acquisitions.” Might we see a new lift at one of their 13 resorts next summer?
News Roundup: Finishing Up
- Take a photo tour of Doppelmayr’s new six pack and new-used double chair at Sugar Mountain, North Carolina. Looks like it will have 90-degree loading and unloading.
- Views from the air of Snowmass’ new High Alpine detachable quad and Arizona Snowbowl’s new SkyTrac.
- The Gondola Project has a new interactive map showing the world’s urban ropeway systems.
- Speaking of urban gondolas, Poma won a $70 million contract for a 10-passenger gondola in Santo Domingo, the capitol of the Dominican Republic. Looks like this one will be built in Europe even though it’s not that far from Miami (where coincidentally Leitner-Poma is currently building an airport people mover.)
- The last rides on Lutsen Mountains’ Hall Skycruiser gondola will be this Sunday, October 18th. The gondola is coming down this fall along with the Bull and Eagle double chairs.
News Roundup: Hauling to 12,000 Feet
- The US Forest Service denies much of Eldora’s proposed expansion in a surprise decision. Approved: six-person detachable replacements for Corona and Challenge/Cannonball. Rejected: new Jolly Jug and Placer lifts.
- Crystal Mountain, BC (not to be confused with resorts of the same name in Washington/Michigan) will stay closed for another season. The BC Safety Authority revoked the ski area’s operating permit on March 1st, 2014 when a Mueller double chair de-roped and sent four people to the hospital.
- Doppelmayr’s September 2015 customer magazine Wir is now available online with a huge focus on urban ropeways.
- The President of Austria visits La Paz, the city in Bolivia that bought 34 Uni-G terminals and 1,350 CWA cabins from Doppelmayr.
- Leitner-Poma assembling chairs for Powderhorn’s first detachable lift, the Flat Top Flyer.
- Doppelmayr begins 15 months of construction on a new $16 million gondola to Arthur’s Seat near Melbourne, Australia. As usual, not everyone is happy about a gondola in a public park.
- I hesitate to even post this silliness:
News Roundup: Tower Time
- The East’s next big resort at The Balsams still hopes to break ground before the snow flies and open in late 2016. Still no word on who will supply the lifts.
- Leitner-Poma flies towers at Loveland, Snowmass and Sipapu. Brian from Timberline Helicopters has flown every tower in the west so far this summer with his K-Max. At Sipapu it reportedly only took him 37 minutes!
- Meanwhile, Doppelmayr puts up some big terminals.
- SkyTrans Manufacturing helps crews from Sugarloaf take down the Bucksaw double. Probably means it’s coming soon to a zoo near you.
Two Big Gondolas Opening South of the Border
Park City and Lutsen Mountains in Minnesota won’t have the only new gondolas in this part of the world come December. Leitner Ropeways is in the final stages of building a $72 million gondola system in Ecatepec near Mexico City. Two connected gondola lines will include seven stations and 184 10-passenger cabins. They will feature the first Leitner DirectDrives in North America. DirectDrive technology eliminates the need for a gearbox and associated points of failure.
The longer of the two lines will have a slope length of 9,577 feet while rising 180 feet in 10.5 minutes. It will have 20 towers and 108 Sigma Diamond 10-passenger cabins. The second line will be 5,922 feet long with a slightly larger vertical of 203 feet and ride time of 7.5 minutes. This one will have 76 cabins and 16 towers. Both lines will travel at a max speed of 1,181 feet a minute and transport 3,000 riders an hour each way. With five mid-stations, it would be difficult for cabins to be shared between the two haul ropes. A fault or stop at any of the seven terminals would halt the entire system which is just one of the reasons it is being split up with cabins turning around in the middle.
News Roundup: Modifications
- Apparently Cannon Mountain in New Hampshire will get the first LST Ropeways lift in North America. Manufactured in Germany, it will be a T-Bar for the Mittersill racing area which has an existing Doppelmayr CTEC double chair. SkyTrac will be doing the installation. LST Ropeways is owned by the MND Group which also owns Gazex (avalanche release systems) and Sufag (snowmaking systems) with a North American facility in Eagle, CO.
- Leitner-Poma will re-engineer and modify towers on the Grey Mountain lift at Red Mountain, BC this fall. The quad chair was built in 1992 at Alyeska and moved to Red in 2013. The re-installation was done by Summit Lift Co. of Fernie, BC and the lift has 18 towers in its current configuration. No word on the exact reason for the re-design.
- The Camelot chair at Boyne Highlands is losing its vault drive terminal that is literally part of the ski area’s base lodge. In its place will be a used CTEC drive terminal. Does anyone know where it came from?
- The Aspen Daily News reports on the all new High Alpine detachable quad at Snowmass.
- Snow King debuted Doppelmayr’s new ‘Alpinstar’ terminal this summer and now Caberfae Peaks, MI will debut the ‘Ministar’ in 2016. The new triple chair will replace the Clubhouse double which is a 1967 Hall.
- Developers are still trying to figure out how to get a new Lift 1A back into downtown Aspen like the original single chair.
News Roundup: Tragedy in Oklahoma
- OSHA is investigating the death of one of two mechanics who fell while doing line work on the Skyride at the Tulsa State Fair. A work chair on the 1965 VonRoll gondola appears to have failed below the hanger, dangling both men from their harnesses. Steve Shelton, 43, died of trauma as a result. His family set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for funeral expenses.
- Poma is setting steel for Europe’s new highest lift in Russia. The three-stage, two-passenger gondola on Mt. Elbrus will reach 3,847 m/12,621 feet (Breckenridge’s Imperial Express SuperChair goes 350 feet higher.)
- Sugarloaf begins removing its oldest lift as part of a ‘lift safety’ initiative. I guess a lift that doesn’t exist is safer than one that does.
- Hidden Valley, New Jersey’s three Borvig lifts are out and two new Partek lifts are going in. The ski area which closed in 2013 also has a new name – the National Winter Activity Center. Follow the progress live here.
- The city of Cali in Colombia will open MIO Cable, a 10-passenger Poma gondola, on Friday. The 6,800′ system has four stations and 60 Sigma cabins that move 2,000 passengers per hour each way.
- Deer Valley Resort, SkyTrac and the NSAA will host an evening program honoring Jan Leonard on October 14th at Snow Park Lodge.
- Doppelmayr crews fly 11 towers for a new gondola at Lutsen Mountains, Minnesota. The $7 million system is going up alongside the resort’s Hall gondola, which will run through October 18th.
- It’s looking like Saddleback, Maine will have a ski season without a new lift.
News Roundup: Closings and Openings
- When is a ski resort expansion not really an expansion? When the terrain used to be served by a detachable quad that was re-possessed by Bank of America. Kidding aside, Tamarack seems to be getting back on track.
- Another eastern ski area bites the dust; Tuxedo Ridge, NY and its four double chairs will not operate this winter.
- Saddleback has reportedly canceled this summer’s NDT and let go of its lift mechanics.
- Hong Kong’s Ngong Ping 360 (Leitner bi-cable gondola) may get a third section.
- The Indonesian city of Bandung is still studying a $357 million, 26-mile gondola network.
- Dodge Ridge, Soda Springs, Boreal, Sugarloaf, Cannon Mountain, Pat’s Peak and Wildcat are all looking for lift maintenance managers ten weeks from ski season.
- Leitner Ropeways has a brand new website. It even has a station configurator tool to match Doppelmayr’s.
Three New 3S Gondolas Coming Soon
The 3S Gondola is today’s finest lift technology with large, comfortable cabins quickly moving thousands of people per hour over virtually any terrain. Doppelmayr and VonRoll pioneered the technology with Poma and Leitner developing their own versions in recent years. Thirteen of these systems operate worldwide with at least three more in development in settings as diverse as the Swiss Alps and islands of Vietnam. Here is a summary:
3S Bahn – Zermatt Bergbahnen AG
The world’s highest elevation 3S will open on the Matterhorn in Zermatt for 2018. It will feature Leitner’s DirectDrive technology and new Sigma Symphony cabins designed by the famous Italian firm Pininfarina. Its 25 28-passenger cabins will move 2,000 skiers per hour at 7.5 meters per second. The lift will cover almost 13,000 feet laterally and 3,000 feet vertically in nine minutes. Zermatt will be the first non-urban 3S gondola for Leitner or Poma. Construction begins next summer.
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