- Michael Seeber takes a ride on Berlin’s new mile-long gondola built for the International Garden Exhibition.
- Guests can now view bears and gorillas from gondolas with glass floors in Spain.
- Paris launches study of 2.8 mile, €120 million urban gondola.
- The press takes a tour of the Partek-built State Fair Flyer in North Carolina.
- Regional district approves rezoning for Valemount Glacier.
- The future of the Grand Canyon Escalade will likely be decided Oct. 17th, construction could be complete by 2020.
- Follow this thread to see LST’s very first detachable lift take shape in La Plagne.
- NewEnglandSkiIndustry.com posts a grim progress report from Sunday River.
- Waterville Valley cuts the lift line for Green Peak.
- Good news for Leitner-Poma: Ruapehu Alpine Lifts in New Zealand plans another quad chair for 2017, gondola in 2018 that will likely be built in Colorado.
- The Teleférico do Alemão in Rio unexpectedly shut down Thursday for at least six months following the discovery of abnormal wear in the haul rope which now needs to be replaced.
- As Snowbird plans for construction in Mary Ellen Gulch beginning in 2018, environmental group takes the media on a tour of abandoned mines there. The 500-acre expansion will likely include a two-stage gondola, Sunday Saddle lift and a new, longer Mineral Basin six-pack.
- Jan Leonard, of CTEC and Skytrac fame, will be inducted into the Intermountain Ski Hall of Fame at a ceremony in Park City tomorrow.
- Big Sky posts lots of pictures as their new lifts near completion.
- Grouse Mountain is for sale, including two aerial tramways and four quad chairs.
- Doppelmayr signs agreement with the United Nations Human Settlements Programme to collaborate on mobility solutions worldwide.
- Yet another city in Mexico – El Marqués – looks at building a gondola.
Instagram Tuesday: Lattice
Every Tuesday, we pick our favorite Instagram photos from around the lift world.
Mexico’s Big Urban Gondola to Open in October
Commuters in a Mexico City suburb will take their first flights on a two-stage, $26 million gondola system called Mexicable in a few short weeks on Monday, October 3rd. State of Mexico Governor Eruvio Ávila announced the city of Ecatepec will join the growing list of cities in the Americas building ropeways over congested neighborhoods. The Governor’s Facebook Live test run video has been watched more than 461,000 times. Mexico joins Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela that operate (or will soon open) gondolas for urban commuters.
In Ecatepec, two loops will combine to serve seven stations and up to 3,000 passengers per hour in each direction. The State of Mexico and its private operators Grupo IUSA and ALFA Group awarded Leitner Ropeways a contract to build the two gondolas in January 2014 and construction began later that year. The lifts were largely completed in 2015 but station build-out and testing took longer than expected and the opening comes a few months late.
The new lifts will transit three miles over 32 towers in 17 minutes, replacing a bus line that takes 45 minutes. 185 10-passenger Sigma Diamond cabins painted in Mexico’s national colors will move up to 26,000 commuters each weekday. Line speed is 5 m/s and the span of service will be 17 hours per day. A ticket will cost eight pesos (43 cents) and the line will complement the Mexibus line 4, a 20-mile Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line currently under construction.
News Roundup: Losses
- Wire Austin gets some attention from folks who matter – the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority.
- Peak Resorts loses $7.9 million in the first quarter (it owns Alpine Valley, Attitash, Big Boulder, Boston Mills, Brandywine, Crotched Mountain, Hidden Valley, Hunter Mountain, Jack Frost, Mad River Mountain, Mt. Snow, Paoli Peaks, Snow Creek and Wildcat.)
- The deropement and evacuation of the pulse gondola between the Aiguille du Midi and Pointe Helbronner makes CNN.
- Austria’s Foreign Minister meets with former London Mayor Boris Johnson to talk Brexit. The mayor says the Doppelmayr cowbell that came with the Emirates Air Line is one of his most prized possessions.
- Federal receiver hopes to sell Jay Peak in the spring, says resort President Bill Stenger was duped.
- Laurel Mountain’s new Skytrac is complete.
- Maine’s Attorney General sues the owner of Big Squaw Mountain for not operating the ski area as promised.
- Tamarack Homeowners meet to discuss the future of Idaho’s newest ski resort ahead of an October lift auction. Owner Credit Suisse and its operator Replay Resorts appear to be on the way out.
- The owner of Montana Snowbowl tells the Missoulian he started construction on a new TV Mountain lift a few weeks ago and there’s a chance it will be completed in time for the coming winter season.
- Preservation group calls abandoned mines in American Fork Canyon a “ticking time bomb,” calls on Snowbird to turn private land over to the Forest Service where the resort plans to build two new lifts.
Instagram Tuesday: Abroad
Every Tuesday, we pick our favorite Instagram photos from around the lift world.
Big Sky Flies Towers for America’s Most High-Tech Chairlift
The new bowl lift will dramatically improve upon the old Lone Peak Triple, cutting a 6.2 minute ride to just three minutes. The triple chair opened in 1973 and was among two remaining lifts from the Chet Huntley era. Challenger and Lone Peak are the first all-new lifts built at Big Sky since 2005 and hopefully the first of many upgrades and additions. Capacity in the bowl will remain the same at first – 1,800 skiers per hour – with the ability to upgrade the six-pack to 3,200 pph in the future. Thirty-three six-place chairs running 985 feet per minute will move the same number of skiers as the old lift did with 122 triple chairs! The bowl lift is designed for 26 chairs to be added as needed for an eventual total of 59.
Bartholet Completes Zero Gauge Tramway in France
What if you could squeeze a large double-reversible tramway into the footprint of a much smaller single-haul system? The city of Brest, France and Bartholet of Switzerland will open such a tram in October. Because its two cabins are never on the same half of the line at the same time, the Téléphérique de Brest has only one dock at each end and cabins pass directly on top of one another near a 270-foot tall center tower. Other lifts have been built with zero-gauge sections before (notably in Caribbean rainforests) but never on this scale or for their entire length. The new ropeway is also France’s first lift in a true urban environment.
Facing a need connect two points high over The Penfeld river in this Navy port, the City of Brest selected a ropeway instead of a massive bridge or expensive tunnel. The government held a design competition in 2014 and selected the Swiss firm Bartholet Maschinenbau Flums (BMF) together with the French construction conglomerate Bouygues. Fellow BMF Group subsidiary Gangloff supplied two ultramodern 60-passenger cabins. The project cost €19 million versus an estimated €30 to 60 for a new bridge. BMF also recently built two double-reversible tramways in Mexico.
The system has four track ropes, two haul rope loops and four drive motors. The cabins are hung like those on a funitel and can operate in winds up to 70 miles per hour. Each loop is driven by two 135 horsepower motors but if one fails the loops can be mechanically connected and run using the remaining three motors to ensure near 100 percent uptime. The slope length of the tramway is a short 1,352 feet with a line speed of 7.5 m/s. The system will transport up to 1,220 commuters per hour in each direction starting in October. Check out videos of system testing here.
Sweetwater Gondola September Update from Jackson Hole
Jackson Hole Mountain Resort opens for skiing 76 days from today and the new Sweetwater Gondola will open for business in mid-December. Since my last update, the Doppelmayr crew finished the enclosure at the bottom terminal and erected the entire drive station up top. Doppelmayr custom-designed the lower station skin in Austria for JHMR with a round end to mimic the shape of Teewinot and Bridger. After some initial skepticism, the consensus around here is it looks awesome and we will have to see if Doppelmayr offers the design to anyone else going forward. The UNI-G is Doppelmayr’s standard detachable terminal worldwide but the new, boxier D-Line will be offered as an option in North America beginning next year.
The drive platform was hauled up the hill in the back of a dump truck and includes an electric motor along with CAT auxiliary and evacuation drives. Operator houses for the mid-station and summit arrived from Salt Lake last week along with the haul rope from France. 48 cabins from CWA will follow next week to meet their hangers and grips which are already here. Doppelmayr’s supply chain is fascinating – Sweetwater includes key components built in the USA, Canada, Austria, France, Germany and Switzerland.
News Roundup: Champagne
- Doppelmayr is reportedly working on a concept 3S gondola that can switch between being cable-driven and self-propelled along elevated guideways.
- The Mexican coastal town of Manzanillo plans to build a sightseeing gondola in 2017.
- Videos of child falling from a six-pack in New Zealand make the rounds.
- Transport for London wants to serve champagne to riders aboard the Emirates Air Line.
- Newly-named Arthur’s Seat Eagle unveils innovative gondola cabins with removable windows.
- Les Otten talks about what he hopes will become the largest ski resort in the Northeast.
- The Green Peak expansion is progressing rapidly at Waterville Valley.
- A new, longer Sunrise lift from Park City’s Canyons Village will likely be built next summer.
- The Rio Grande National Forest seeks public comments on the Meadow lift at Wolf Creek, also likely to go in next summer.
- A progress report from Suicide Six where Leitner-Poma is building a new quad chair.
- More than 32,000 people submitted comments to the Navajo Nation last week regarding the proposed Grand Canyon Escalade.
- Sweetwater Gondola is on schedule at JHMR.
Instagram Tuesday: Doing Work
Every Tuesday, we pick our favorite Instagram photos from around the lift world.
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