- Big White announces a CA$3 million renovation of Black Forest Express with Ridge Rocket Express to receive similar treatment next year.
- Dagmar, Ontario to lengthen the Big Daddy quad.
- Waterville Valley’s awesome ops blog shares stories of freeing a chair hung up in a comm line, sending a snowmaker cross country for a lift engine and summer preventative maintenance.
- The Bitterroot Resort property that never really got off the ground south of Missoula is for sale.
- More details emerge on possible aerial transit in Oshawa, Ontario.
- The Tennessee State Fair christens its new sky ride chairlift.
- The new head of NSAA calls for a cultural shift toward restraint bar use following a tough season.
- Sigma Cabins introduces a new logo to match sister company Poma’s rebranding.
- An update on the Los Angeles Dodgers gondola project with Leitner-Poma and Zero Emissins Transit.
- Insurer Safehold pulls out of Oregon, leaving resorts scrambling with just one carrier in the state.
- Sipapu formally announces its Lift 3 replacement (no it’s not the last of its kind in North America.)
- Chair sales are ongoing at Mammoth and Alpental.
- London’s IFS Cloud Cable Car adds glass floored cabins to increase revenue.
- Guests got stuck mid trip on Snowbird’s Tram for two hours yesterday.
Instagram Tuesday: Eight High
Every Tuesday, I feature my favorite Instagram photos from around the lift world.
News Roundup: On & Off
- The first towers and top terminal are set for the new gondola in Idaho Springs, Colorado, which will feature 22 cabins and North America’s first five Bike Cabs.
- Winter Park’s proposed town gondola secures local approval.
- Also at Winter Park, a draft Forest Service decision green lights removal of Looking Glass, replacement of Gemini, Discovery and Endeavour as well as construction of the Copper Creek six pack (subject to an objection period.)
- Holiday Mountain plans to re-use 1969 towers on a new chairlift.
- Sommet Saint-Sauveur commissions the first Mantis AI software in North America tied directly into a lift control system.
- An update on Deer Valley’s six lifts going in this summer.
- Park City flies towers for the Sunrise Gondola.
- Utah posts its third highest skier visits in history.
- Teton County, Wyoming to oppose Grand Targhee expansion; Teton County, Idaho not sure yet.
- The Forest Service approves Sipapu to replace Lift 3 with completion slated for Fall 2025.
- The Forest Service hosts a public meeting on the proposed Green Peak gondola.
- Jay Peak President and General Manager Steve Wright tells US Senators the Bonaventure replacement is sidelined by Canadians’ redicence to visit and tariff-related cost increases.
- Eaglecrest permanently closes the Black Bear double, will focus on upgrading Ptarmigan to a triple and installing a used gondola.
- Garaventa and CWA debut tram cabins in Switzerland made to look like wood with flower pots on the ends.
Sugar Bowl to Build New Gondola
Seventy three years after building the West Coast’s first gondola, Sugar Bowl will invest in a brand new gondola for 2026. The eight passenger, Doppelmayr D-Line system will anchor a major revitalization encompassing multiple lodges and facilities. The new gondola will run from an overhauled parking garage along Donner Pass Road to North America’s only snowbound village at the base of the Disney Express.
CTEC manufactured the current Village Gondola in 1983, carrying four passengers at a time between the parking area and village. The low angle gondola traverses over several roads, past several railroad tracks and under high voltage power lines. Historically the system ran 24 hours a day during the winter season. Recently it has operated less and become subject to frequent maintenance closures. The new lift will be more reliable and one of two new D-Line gondolas in Tahoe next year, the other being at Homewood Mountain Resort.
The new Sugar Bowl gondola is expected to be completed in November 2026.
Instagram Tuesday: Big Dutch
Every Tuesday, I feature my favorite Instagram photos from around the lift world.
News Roundup: Third Best
- Vail Resorts reports pass sales down 1 percent in units and up 2 percent in dollars. Full season skier visits fell 3 percent (7 percent in March and April), quarterly net income rose 8.5 percent, lift revenue rose 3.3 percent, ski school revenue fell 0.6 percent, dining revenue rose 1.4 percent, retail revenue fell 10.1 percent and rental revenue fell 5.5 percent.
- Colorado as a whole reports its third best season ever with 13.8 million visits.
- Vermont also posts strong results with skier visits 6.2 percent over the 10 year average.
- Lake Louise looks to open the Richardson’s Ridge expansion sometime during the 2025-26 season.
- Monarch releases the map for the No Name Basin expansion with a lift named Tomichi. The frontside of the mountain also gets a new map.
- Angel Fire shows where two new lifts will go.
- Steel and aluminum tariffs increase to 50 percent as of June 4th.
- An Austrian resort fits tables to chairlift restraint bars for happy hour chairlift rides with food and drinks.
- A new master plan for Crescent Hill, Iowa includes replacing both chairlifts.
- The Town of Mountain Village, Colorado seeks feedback for replacement gondola station designs.
- A 2024 French tram crash is blamed on human error with several safeties bypassed.
- Sunlight to offer retired chairs to the public through a raffle, online auction and live auction.
- Hawaii’s first gondola proposal faces opposition.
- Dagmar, Ontario teases major mountain investment.
- Sponsored job: Mountain Designer and Planner at SE Group.
Instagram Tuesday: Melt Off
Every Tuesday, I feature my favorite Instagram photos from around the lift world.
News Roundup: Ajax
- Epic Pass adds one more Austrian partner – the mighty Sölden.
- Kirsten Lynch resigns as CEO of Vail Resorts and is succeeded by former CEO Rob Katz.
- Vail details the next phase of its Resource Efficiency Transformation Plan, including reorganizing resort divisions, combining snowmaking/grooming/terrain parks into one department and restructuring summer operations.
- President Trump delays implementation of a new 50 percent tariff on the European Union to July 9th.
- The 10 percent “Liberation Day” tariffs are briefly struck down then reimposed by different federal judges.
- Entabeni Systems closes on its purchase of Black Mountain, New Hampshire.
- Holiday Mountain, New York looks to fund a new chairlift in part by making the top station a billboard along NY-17/future Interstate 86.
- A guest gets caught hanging from clothing on a Mammoth chairlift over Memorial Day Weekend.
- Bartholet releases its 2025 Reference Book.
- A new chairlift project pops up in the Forest Service NEPA system for Aspen Mountain.
- No one bids on privatizing Marble Mountain; the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador will continue operations.
- A new aerial tramway in Texas gets $7 million closer to construction.
- Deer Valley won’t break ground on Snow Park Redevelopment this summer after all.
Quebec’s First Skytrac Coming to Mont Sutton
Mont Sutton plans to revitalize its teaching side of the mountain in 2026 with a fixed grip quad from Skytrac. The new lift will replace three aging Mueller doubles and become the first Skytrac in Quebec. The news marks a significant milestone as Doppelmayr dominates the Quebec market and its 75 ski areas (more mountains than any other Canadian province or US state.) Skytrac’s expansion into Canada has been measured thus far with the first Monarch in Canada debuting in 2018 and three projects following at Searchmont, Ontario in 2020, 2021 and 2022. The Leitner-Poma subsidiary has yet to build any lifts in Western Canada.
Sutton’s new lift will load near the main chalet and transport 2,400 skiers per hour. It will feature a loading conveyor and greatly improve the learning experience for beginners and intermediates. As part of the project, Mont Sutton will move an existing conveyor lift, add a second conveyor, implement RFID gates and improve snowmaking around the new chair. The CA$8 million lift project, funded in part by the Government of Quebec, represents the largest investment in the resort’s 65 year history. “This announcement is the culmination of the planning work of all the teams over the past few years,” noted Jean-Michel Ryan, President and CEO of Mont Sutton. “The Skytrac quadruple chairlift, thanks to the quality of the overall proposal made by Poma Canada, meets all the essential criteria sought by Mont Sutton.” Construction is expected to commence in spring 2026 and be complete in time for the 2026-27 ski season.
Instagram Tuesday: Alyeska
Every Tuesday, I feature my favorite Instagram photos from around the lift world.
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