News

7,000 Vertical Feet in Ten Minutes

Peter Landsman1 Comment

Two new aerial tramways are about to open on the Italian side of Mont Blanc that will be among the steepest in the world.  This is Doppelmayr’s largest project ever on Leitner’s home turf.  The €110 million contract was awarded in late 2011 and construction began in 2012.  Two sets of 80-passenger cabins will ascend a crazy 7,093 vertical feet in ten minutes.  For comparison, Palm Springs’ tram does 5,873 feet in 12 minutes, Jackson Hole’s 4,084 feet in nine minutes.

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Mont Blanc will have CWA’s first fully-rotating cabins.

Mont Blanc can be accessed from both the Italian and French sides.  There is also a highway tunnel under the mountain, but that’s not nearly as cool.  The existing setup on the Italian side requires riding three lifts built in the 40s and 50s to reach Point Helbronner at 11,358 feet.  The French side has two tramways, the famous Aguille du Midi 1 & 2 that reach 12,392 feet.  Connecting the French and Italian summits is a 3.1 mile bi-cable pulse gondola that opened in 1957.

Both new trams will have the world’s first 360-degree rotating cabins (others like the Palm Springs Tramway have only rotating floors.)  Built by CWA, these 80-passenger cabins will feature heating, air conditioning and video screens showing live camera views.

System Statistics
System Statistics

Both sections will be in new alignments as shown in Google Maps above.  The first section ascends from the village of Entreves to a mid-station called Le Pavillon with three towers along the way.  It will move 600 passengers per hour with a four minute ride.  The second section from Le Pavillon to Point Helbronner has only two towers and ascends over 4,000 feet in six minutes.  Both sections will operate year-round once they open in mid-June.

News Roundup: Getting There

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Moving along at Snow King Mountain, WY.
Getting there at Snow King Mountain, WY.
  • Fire at Misery Mountain (A movie title if I’ve ever heard one!)
  • Another urban gondola proposed, this time in Belgrade, Serbia
  • Poma makes it clear they don’t have a deal with Israel to build a gondola in Jerusalem.
  • Speaking of conflict-torn places, Myanmar may gets its first aerial tram.
  • Another Midwest ski area closes.  Anyone need a Hall double, Riblet quad or VonRoll triple?
  • Environmental group files objection to Eldora’s master plan that includes building 3 new detachables.
  • How does a ski hill with 200 vertical need $15 million to stay afloat?
  • Someone in business development at Doppelmayr has some very dramatic music and a lot of time.
  • Red McCombs’ 28-year battle with the Forest Service over the Village at Wolf Creek may be coming to end.  A private lift would access Wolf Creek Ski Area, although the owners of the ski area do not support the Village.
  • Powderhorn is moving along with their refurbished detachable quad from Marble Mountain, Newfoundland.

The Next Big Resort?

Peter Landsman3 Comments

Last Wednesday, New Hampshire Governor Maggie Hassan signed a bill that may create the largest resort in the east out of a tiny, closed ski area called The Balsams.  The resort hotel and Wilderness ski area have been closed since 2011 when the owners began renovations and ran out of cash.  Now Les Otten, founder of American Skiing Company, has partnered with the Balsams ownership group to create the next big eastern ski resort.  The bill the governor signed allows the state to back $28 million in development loans for the $143 million project.

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The Balsams Wilderness ski area has been closed since 2011. Photo credit: NH Public Radio

Otten is perhaps best known for turning Sunday River from a one-lift operation to a 525,000 skier visit beast of the east.  Circa 2002, his empire included Sunday River, Sugarloaf, Cranmore, Attitash, The Canyons, Killington, Sugarbush, Mount Snow, Heavenly and Steamboat.  After leaving the ski industry, Otten created a renewable energy company and ran for Governor in Maine.  He lost.  Now, six years after selling The Canyons, he’s back in the lift business.

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The master plan includes 22 lifts in three phases.

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News Roundup: Lifts in Strange Places

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Chair 7 at Mt. Baker, WA
Chair 7 at Mt. Baker, WA

2015 Doppelmayr Worldwide

Peter Landsman3 Comments

The 2015 Doppelmayr Worldbook is out!  It’s 150 pages of statistics and pictures of the 83 lifts Doppelmayr and Garaventa built last year.  The book comes out every spring and the last seven of them are available online.

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CWA’s new Titlis cabin is on the cover.

Some of the projects I found interesting:

  • Universal Studios’ Hogwarts Express, a modern funicular designed to look like a train from Harry Potter.
  • Oakland’s airport connector which is the first Doppelmayr CableLiner Shuttle to have multiple haul ropes and detachable cars.  $484 million buys a pretty cool train.
  • Three gondolas in China including one to the Great Wall with heated seats.
  • The world’s longest chondola at Beaver Creek (also the first with 10 passenger cabins.)
  • World’s tallest 3S gondola in Ischgl, Austria.
  • A two-section system in Greece which runs as a gondola at the bottom and chondola at the top with every 4th cabin making the entire trip.

News Roundup: That’s a first

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Flooded lift at Avoriaz. Photo Credit: Avoriaz Facebook page.
Flooded lift at Avoriaz, France. Photo Credit: Avoriaz Facebook page.

News Roundup: 80 Years

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Another “Lost” Detachable lift?

Peter Landsman5 Comments

This week, we learned Willamette Pass in Oregon has put their base-to-summit six-pack up for sale for $2.65 million.  The Eagle Peak Accelerator was built in 2002 by GaraventaCTEC for $3.5 million.  After three terrible seasons in a row, the ski area says it can no longer afford to operate such an expensive lift.  This winter, Willamette Pass got 7 percent of its normal snowfall and essentially didn’t operate.  The plan is to buy or trade the detachable for a fixed grip lift and reuse the existing tower tubes.  If this happens Willamette Pass will become the first resort in North America to remove a six-pack.  (Mount Washington on Vancouver Island might not be far behind – they have a similar lift and barely opened the last two winters.)

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The “biggest, fastest uphill transportation in Oregon” may go away.

The list of “lost” detachable lifts is short.  Ascutney Mountain in Vermont spent $2 million to build the North Peak Express in 2002 but went into foreclosure in 2010 and never reopened.  Creditors sold their flagship lift to Crotched Mountain, NH and SkyTrac moved it there in 2012.

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New Roundup: Ouch!

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Squaw Valley | Alpine Meadows Base-to-Base Gondola

Peter Landsman7 Comments

This week Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows announced plans for a base-to-base interconnect gondola.  Such a project has been likely ever since Squaw and Alpine merged in 2011.  The gondola’s alignment will include two angle stations with skier unloading – one below the summit of KT-22 at Squaw and the other on the ridge above the Alpine Meadows base area.  The two end sections will be within their respective ski areas and able to run independently of the middle stage.

Rendering of the Squaw Valley angle station near KT-22.
Rendering of the Squaw Valley angle station near KT-22.

It took Squaw four years to come up with this plan in part because the gondola will cross land owned by three different entities.  The Squaw section will be mostly on private land owned by Squaw Valley Ski Holdings.  Just before the first angle station, the alignment will cross into land known as White Wolf owned by Troy Caldwell.  You may remember Troy began building a private lift on his property a few years ago.  So far only the towers have been completed. One thing that many people don’t realize is that the top terminals of the KT-22 and Olympic Lady lifts are already on his property.  We will never know how much Squaw Valley Ski Holdings pays Troy Caldwell to lease this land but I am sure it is a lot.  The second midstation and all of the Alpine Meadows section will be in the Tahoe National Forest.

Map of the proposed gondola alignment.
Map of the proposed gondola alignment.

This would be the first gondola in North America with the ability to run three sections independently.  Breckenridge’s BreckConnect has two angle stations but only one drive and haul rope.  Examples of gondolas with two independent sections are the Whistler Village Gondola and Revelstoke’s Revelation Gondola although these resorts rarely run sections independently.  Killington sometimes runs just the upper stage of its Skyeship Gondola.

As proposed, the base-to-base gondola will be about two miles long and take 13.5 minutes to ride.  Capacity will be a relatively low 1,400 skiers per hour in each direction with 8-passenger cabins.  Squaw’s CEO, Andy Wirth, noted they are in talks with both Doppelmayr and Leitner-Poma.  Squaw has never had much brand loyalty – They built a Doppelmayr six pack in 2007 and an L-P one in 2012.  Before any contract is signed Squaw needs approval from the Forest Service and county which could take a few years.  In the meantime they could really use a good snow year or two!