Mt. Hood Meadows updates skiers on the windstorm that sent two hundred-foot hemlock trees onto the Shooting Star Express the night of November 17th.
Vail Resorts announces $100 million in capital improvements across its mountains for 2016/17 including replacement of the last major fixed-grip lift on Vail Mountain. The new Sun Up Lift #17 will be a detachable quad, manufacturer unknown.
SkyTrac splices the Humphrey’s Peak Quad at Arizona Snowbowl.
The latest from Sugarloaf on the new King Pine. An apparent Doppelmayr delay will push opening until late-December. Luckily (or unluckily) there’s no snow anyways.
Doppelmayr’s 10th 3S gondola, the Penkenbahn, is ready to go.
A nonprofit ski area in Ontario that’s been unable to operate its quad chair since 2011 due to a 2006 Doppelmayr service bulletin hopes to crowdfund $80,000 for repairs.
West Mountain celebrates their new lift with fireworks rather than skiing and already has the drive terminal up for another new-used lift next summer.
We're upgrading the Sun Up Lift (#17) from a fixed grip triple to a high-speed four-psgr lift for the 16/17 season! pic.twitter.com/LFCL04VEnL
CWA Taris cabin design for the Eiger Express in Grindelwald, Switzerland.
Back in September, I wrote about three new 3S gondolas under construction in Vietnam, Switzerland and Austria. As reader Michael E. let me know, there are at least four other 3S systems in the pipeline by both Leitner and Doppelmayr that will bring the total number to over twenty. Below is a look at the systems I missed in my last post, all of which happen to be in the same three countries.
Fansipan Cable Car – Sa Pa, Vietnam
If you look closely, you can see the four tower locations along what will be one of the world’s most spectacular ropeways scaling Mt. Fansipan.
The Fansipan Cable Car is another partnership between Doppelmayr and the Sun Group, which will operate at least five unique ropeways in Vietnam by 2017. Fansipan is the tallest peak in Southeast Asia at 10,312 feet and the cable car, which has been under construction for the last three years, goes just shy of the summit. It will slash a two-day trek up the mountain to 15 minutes. The gondola departs from the town of Sa Pa at 7,000 feet and travels over four towers and 20,063 feet of rugged mountainside. It will be the world’s longest tri-cable gondola when it opens early next year. Doppelmayr designed the system with an hourly capacity of 2,000 at a line speed of 8 m/s and with CWA Taris 35-passenger cabins.
The first non-prototype photos of Doppelmayr’s new detachable terminal that will replace the Uni-G model over the next few years. It’s certainly different; note the huge windows, Frey controls and stairs instead of ladders on the Kirchenkarbahn’s terminals. Thanks for the head’s up, snowtirol.
Maine’s chief tramway inspector releases his report with pictures on the King Pine rollback and Sugarloaf’s GM responds. Eight months after the incident, the replacement drive terminal is nearly finished.
Doppelmayr Garaventa Group revenue was down 7.5% to $841 million in fiscal 2015 while the company’s global employee headcount rose to 2,546.
Still more bad press surrounding Saddleback and the resort’s asking price is down to $9.5 million for 2,000 acres. Meanwhile Boyne offers passholders in the lurch last spring’s rates on New England Passes.
Peak Resorts, the fourth largest operator of lifts in North America, buys Hunter Mountain for $36.8 million. After the deal closes the publicly-traded company will operate 14 ski resorts with 153 lifts in Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Missouri.
Two different models of LPOA chairs going up at Okemo and Purgatory.
West Mountain demonstrates an old lift can be new again with help from Leitner-Poma, SkyTrac, Green Mountain Control Systems and Alpine Engineering.
They call it ‘The Beast’ for a reason. Killington opened for skiing on October 19th and is running 240 snow guns nightly, all while flying concrete and adding a mid-station to their Snowdon triple. The 1973 Heron-Poma is evidently going to stick around for awhile. Fun fact: Snowdon had a mid-station in nearly the same spot which was removed in 1990.
Lutsen’s recently retired Hall Skycruiser gondola cabins sold out in 4 minutes on Cyber Monday for $1200 each. A new gondy opens to passengers December 11th after a brief delay. If you missed out on the $1200 gondola cabins, you can still get someone a $150 double chair this holiday season.
The Balsams will not break ground this year as originally planned but still hopes for a 2016-17 opening with a mix of new and existing lifts.
Leitner-Poma would supply a gondola proposed to run from Queenstown to The Remarkables on the South Island of New Zealand. L-P built The Remarkables’ flagship six-pack “Curvy Basin Express” in 2014. The new gondola system would span 6.1 miles in two sections and take 27 minutes to ride with a potential opening in 2018. It would feature an impressive 4,200 foot vertical rise and 140 8-passenger cabins from Sigma.
Sunshine Village cuts the ribbon on Canada’s first new bubble chair since 1999. Tee Pee Town LX (Luxury eXpress) also has the first seat heating in Canada. Congratulations to Sunshine on completing one of the most modern lift fleets on the continent while others curate lift museums.
Gunther Jochl, the Austrian-born owner of Sugar Mountain, got the CEOs of both Doppelmayr and CWA to come christen his new six-pack Saturday along with the governor of North Carolina. Apparently the lift may get gondola cabins in the future.
A lawsuit from a homeowner could force the closure of Pennsylvania’s second largest ski resort. Seven Springs Mountain Resort operates two six-packs and eight fixed-grip lifts on 300 acres. Unfortunately, four of those lifts and 75 percent of the mountain’s ski runs cross a public road that the homeowner wants opened in winter. There are plenty of other ski resorts that have major highways passing through that close seasonally, including Deer Valley, Bridger Bowl and Mt. Baker.
Cherry Peak, the new ski area in Utah, won’t be able to complete their Summit lift in time for this season. When I was there a few months ago, towers were laying on the ground along the line which will either have to be set or moved elsewhere. Two other triple chairs and a carpet are set to go.
Arizona Snowbowl’s first new lift in 30 years is almost finished.
Bartholet’s aerial tramway across the city of Puebla in Mexico will be finished December 15th, about a year behind schedule. Speaking of BMF, they have a new website.
Staying on the mega-resort topic, Hemlock Resort near Chilliwack, BC receives approval to spend $1.5 billion on 23 new lifts and 20,000 lodging beds among other improvements over the next 60 years. Hemlock currently has a 1977-vintage Doppelmayr triple and two even older Mueller doubles. Buried in the linked article is the fact that the ski area never opened last year due to lack of snow.
Hemlock Master Plan rendering from Brent Harley & Associates.
When Sigma decided to develop a new 3S gondola cabin, they turned to a designer of Ferraris and Maseratis to create Symphony. Now Leitner is giving its chairs the same treatment with automotive-style upholstered seating. The new ‘Premium Chair’ combines real leather with heated seats and bubbles for the ultimate in rider comfort. The chair also has automatic locking footrests for safety. One of Audi’s design firms created the chair and it is manufactured at Leitner’s plant in Telfs, Austria. In a press release announcing the new option, Martin Leitner remarked, “The Leitner Premium chair delivers optimum comfort, ergonomics, and elegant design in one luxurious package. ‘Business Class for ski resorts’ sums it up perfectly.”
Leitner’s new ‘Premium Chair’ will debut in Austria next month.
Kitzbühel is the launch customer for the new chair, debuting 62 of the 8-passenger version on their new Brunn chairlift this winter. Brunn is the resort’s eighth Leitner installation and will serve a pod of three new runs. The lift will also feature a 980-horsepower DirectDrive that Leitner claims will reduce noise and electric consumption by 20 percent versus a standard drive with a gearbox. Brunn will haul an impressive 3,300 skiers per hour at up to 6.0 m/s. The lift is 4,790 feet long and rises 1,417 feet with 17 towers. Kitzbühel’s total investment in the Brunn lift and trails is $22.1 million.
Creeping on North Korea’s ski lift construction in Google Earth yields a new building at the summit of Masik Pass. It looks to house a detachable lift terminal with a lift line stretching all the way to the base area with towers and gondola cabins also visible. The existing summit double is on the lower right.
In British Columbia, first Crystal Mountain and now Mt. Baldy will not open this season. Baldy has a T-Bar, Mueller double, and 2007 Leitner-Poma quad that last operated in 2013.
See how Sigma Composite builds gondola cabins in the French Alps. The company also just delivered the first of two trains for Leitner-Poma’s automated people mover at Miami International Airport.
Aspen Skiing Co. submits a formal proposal with the Forest Service to replace Lift 1A on Aspen Mountain with a high speed quad, gondola or combination lift as early as next summer. Meanwhile, this summer’s lift upgrade at Snowmass nears completion.
Powdr Corp.’s Las Vegas Ski & Snowboard Resort changes its name (back) to Lee Canyon.
Pacific Group Resorts, Inc. buys Mt. Washington Alpine Resort on Vancouver Island, becoming the company’s fourth (and largest) mountain resort. The Utah-based group bought Ragged Mountain in 2007, Wisp Resort in 2012, and Wintergreen earlier this year. How’s that for some geographic diversity?
Some pics of a sharp-looking bubble six-pack being built by Leitner Ropeways in the Czech Republic.
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.
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.
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?
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?
Lift tower and terminal components for Solitude’s Summit Express as seen last week. Towers were flown up the hill on Saturday.
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