40 New Lifts: Construction Extends Gains in 2016

Peter Landsman2 Comments
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Steamboat’s new Elkhead Express is one of 40 new lifts debuting in North America for 2016-17.

With work wrapping up on 36 new and four used lifts across North America, 2016 will go down as the best year for lift construction since the Great Recession.  With Skytrac now a member of the Leitner-Poma Group, the big two manufacturers each supplied exactly the same number of lifts in North America – 17 – with one each for LST and Partek (although Skytrac provided controls for and installed the LST lift.)  Doppelmayr and Leitner-Poma also had their best years individually since 2008 and Skytrac its second best in history with five complete lifts and a retrofit terminal for Keystone.  These numbers include four gondolas manufactured in Europe by Leitner and Poma installed in Mexico and the Dominican Republic.  If only lifts built by Leitner-Poma of America in Grand Junction are counted, Leitner-Poma had its third best year since 2008 with eight new lifts.  I call it a tie.

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While everyone knows the East had a horrible season last year, the Pacific states actually showed the softest demand for new lifts in 2016.  Alaska, Washington, Oregon and California have steadily declined for more than a decade and just three new lifts went in there, the lowest number since at least 2004.  The Mountain region saw 12 installations, virtually the same as last year and the second most since 2008.  The Rockies also built the biggest lifts in the country – six-packs at Arizona Snowbowl & Big Sky, high speed quads at Steamboat & Vail and a two-stage gondola at Jackson Hole. The Midwest more than doubled last year’s count, achieving its second best year since 2004 with seven new lifts while the East was well below its ten-year average with six new lifts constructed in 2016.  The big shocker: Wisconsin built more new lifts in 2016 than any other state or province with three new Doppelmayr quads at Wilmot Mountain, two Leitner-Poma quads at Cascade Mountain and a Skytrac quad at Christmas Mountain Village.

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Canada finished right about average with eight new lifts, all built in the eastern provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Horseshoe Resort and Le Relais both added their first six-place detachables, which are sure to be well-received.  Look for Western Canada to rebound next year after struggling since the recession.  Perhaps most interesting is the four gondolas built for public transportation and tourism in Mexico and the Dominican Republic.  I expect growth in Mexico and the Caribbean to continue as the urban ropeway revolution spreads north from South America (and hopefully to the United States!)

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Construction Continues on Two New Lifts at Powder Mountain

Peter Landsman3 Comments
The new lifts will be behind the current ski area, not visible on Powder Mountain's current trail map.
Two new lifts will debut this winter on the backside of Powder Mountain Ski Area near the new Powder Mountain Village.

Three years into its ownership of Utah’s second largest ski resort, Summit Powder Mountain is making a statement by adding two Skytrac quad chairs to serve new intermediate terrain in Lefty’s drainage and Mary’s Bowl.  The new lifts are called Village and Mary’s and will access runs to the south of the existing boundary beginning this winter.  Powder Mountain already sprawls an impressive 7,000 acres but has just five lifts, four of them fixed-grips.  Expanded uphill options will be welcome news to skiers although these latest additions are mostly about access to Powder Mountain Village and 150 new home sites.  I reached out to Powder Mountain for more details about these lift projects and so far they have not gotten back to me.  Luckily public records from Weber County provide some info and pictures tell a thousand words.

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This map of the new Village and Mary’s ski lifts as well as two new runs on the south side of Powder Mountain also shows the top of the Sunrise Platter and Hidden Lake Express in the top left.

Village Quad

Skiing off to the south from the Hidden Lake Express this winter you’ll find the bottom of the new Village lift part way down Lefty’s drainage.  The Village quad and its new sister lift will be the first just the third and fourth top drive lifts for Skytrac.  Rising 582 vertical feet, Village will sport 16 towers and a capacity of 1,500 pph to start.  The chairlift unloads on the ridge between Lefty’s and Mary’s at the heart of the forthoming village.  Construction began on the late side for a lift to 9,000 feet in the Wasatch but all concrete work is finished and steel is arriving.

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Homeowners Buy Tamarack Resort, Pay Back Taxes to Save Lifts

Peter Landsman1 Comment

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Credit Suisse and Replay Resorts are out at Idaho’s Tamarack Resort.  Today the Tamarack Municipal Association (TMA) announced it has entered into an agreement to purchase and operate the troubled resort that debuted in 2004 and filed for bankruptcy four years later.  TMA becomes the fifth operator of Tamarack in 12 years and the first unified owner-operator since 2008.  News of the sale and tax payment comes just four days before Tamarack’s two high speed quads were scheduled to be auctioned by Valley County.  A TMA subsidiary called Tamarack Homeowners Acquisition Company paid $269,075 in back taxes this week for land and assets needed for the ski operation.

The association of property owners previously operated Tamarack from 2012 to 2015 while it was owned by New Tamarack Acquisition Corporation, an entity led by Credit Suisse.  The Zurich-based bank loaned $250 million to the founders of Tamarack and gained control of the resort out of bankruptcy along with other creditors.  Eight years later, the homeowners likely paid pennies on the dollar for what was once worth hundreds of millions.

TMA already owned the Buttercup quad chair since purchasing it from Bank of America in 2012.  Tamarack at one point operated six lifts but lost its Wildwood Express chair in 2012 after years of failing to make payments to BofA.  That lift was sold at auction (reportedly back to Doppelmayr) and ended up at Brian Head in Utah.  Ironically, Wildwood now appears as a “Future Lift” on Tamarack’s trail map.

“Today marks the start of a new chapter for Tamarack where homeowners have secured the future ownership and operations of the resort,” TMA said in a release. “This ensures the long-term future of this incredible destination for guests, employees and homeowners as well as the wider community in Valley County and the State of Idaho.”  Tamarack plans to open for the season on December 9th and snowmaking is already underway.

News Roundup: The People

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News Roundup: Happenings

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Sweetwater Gondola Project Enters Home Stretch at Jackson Hole

Peter Landsman4 Comments
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Doppelmayr and subcontractors work to finish the massive Solitude Station, part of Jackson Hole’s new Sweetwater Gondola, September 30, 2016.

A winter weather advisory is in effect all week for Teton Village and the top of the Jackson Hole Tram is already buried under feet of snow.  Luckily the Sweetwater Gondola project lies mostly below the snow line, where the Doppelmayr crew is working on final assembly of America’s only new gondola for 2016.  All three terminals now have roofs and local resident Norm Duke presided over a splice of the 45mm haul rope Sept. 20th.  This week, the team is finishing the final, giant enclosure at Solitude Station.  The mid-station also got its maintenance/parking rail last week, which will eventually link to a storage barn on the south (downhill) side.  JHMR has always parked Bridger’s cabins inside on winter nights but Sweetwater’s will remain on the line this winter.

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48 Omega cabins arrived from Switzerland the week of Sept. 19th and are wrapped in protective covers while they wait for hangers and grips to be attached.  Cabins will be launched from the mid-station as there are no rails at the drive or return.

An eagle-eyed reader, Charles Von Stade, advised me the other day that Sweetwater’s rounded UNI-G enclosure at the return station is not the first in the world after all.  Doppelmayr designed a similar enclosure for the top station of a 2009 six-pack in Austria called Kettingbahn  that looks just as sweet as Sweetwater’s.

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The Sweetwater haul rope before being spliced and tensioned in mid-September.

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Fall Blackfoot Construction Update from Grand Targhee

Peter Landsman2 Comments
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Look closely and you will see the upper tower locations and top station mast for the new Blackfoot quad in this Oct. 2, 2016 photo.

Work on Grand Targhee’s fourth quad chair is in full swing this weekend with new stations and towers arriving for the all-new Blackfoot quad amid fall foliage and fresh snow.  The first shipment of steel from Doppelmayr included 13 towers and the support structure for the bottom station, which is in a new location uphill of the old Riblet. Still to come are the CTEC-style operator houses, bullwheels, motor room, haul rope and chairs. Concrete is in the ground and towers are nearly assembled for when the weather cooperates to fly them.  Although Grand Targhee is scheduled to open Nov. 18, Blackfoot usually doesn’t usually open until December.

The new Blackfoot will utilize a Tristar-model drive/tension station at the bottom with a fixed bullwheel on a concrete mast up top, the same setup as Challenger up the road at Big Sky.  We’ve now seen at least three different return station styles and four drive station models on this year’s new Doppelmayr fixed-grips, including the Alpen Star (Wilmot, Red River); Tristar (Big Sky, Caberfae, Targhee); and Eco (Mont Bellevue).  I find it interesting how many different station models Doppelmayr continues to offer when their competitors each have basically just two.

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The 2016-17 Grand Targhee trail map highlights the new Blackfoot chair on the north side of the mountain.

Stay tuned for more updates in the coming weeks from Arizona Snowbowl, Big Sky, Jackson, Powder Mountain and Sundance as the snow flies and this year’s crop of new lifts is completed.

Banff Studies Gondola to Reduce Congestion in Canada’s Oldest National Park

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93 percent of the 3.8 million people who visited Banff National Park last year arrived in a personal car.  Across North America in places like Yosemite, Glacier and Banff, resource managers are struggling to find transportation solutions amid record visitation and constrained capacity.  Banff National Park is unique – a very popular town of the same name with 7,500 residents that lies in the middle of a 2,500-square mile park.  In 2015, the Town of Banff saw the most visitors in at least the last 15 years, continuing its average growth rate of 1.8 percent per year.  So far in 2016, the daily vehicle count in town exceeded its 24,000-car comfortable capacity on at least 48 occasions.  More troubling, vehicle volume increased eight percent this summer and is projected to exceed 24,000 on 270 days a year by 2045, with a crush load of 40,000 vehicles on peak days.  This is in a town smaller than two square miles surrounded by mountains.

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A 5-stage gondola from Banff Avenue towards Tunnel Mountain and the Banff Springs Hotel is proposed in a new study.

Challenging problems demand innovative solutions.  This spring, the Town of Banff embarked on a long-term transportation study to examine parking, road improvements, traditional transit and a possible gondola to connect key points surrounding downtown.  The Edmonton-based consulting company Stantec identified and studied three possible gondola alignments in addition to two intercept parking lots and increased bus service.  The firm’s draft report notes, “without new interventions, congestion delays are expected to increase in both severity and frequency; Banff’s road system is finite and actions must be taken to solve the issues caused by the volume of vehicles on the road system.”

The Banff community knows gondolas.  The Sulphur Mountain Gondola, a bi-cable Garaventa system operated by Brewster Travel Canada sits just south of town and will likely anchor the southern end of any new gondola.  Sunshine Village ski resort also lies within Banff National Park and its huge gondola connects an offsite parking lot to the slopes and village with two mid-stations along the way.

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A gondola in Banff, Alberta could connect key visitor destinations while reducing environmental impacts in the middle of Canada’s most popular national park.

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