- The last North American ski area still operating, Lookout Pass, closes for the season.
- Leitner-Poma is hiring installers for projects at Arapahoe Basin, Arizona Snowbowl, Aspen Snowmass, Breckenridge, Keystone and Okemo.
- A group of 150 former members buys the Hermitage Club and its five chairlifts for the bargain price of $8.06 million.
- Arapahoe Basin lays off 430 seasonal employees and cuts the hours of year round staff.
- Children of the man who died on a Vail chairlift earlier this season retain a Denver law firm for possible litigation.
- In addition to virtually all ski resorts worldwide, coronavirus shuts down urban gondolas including La Paz’s Mi Teleférico, Medellín’s Metrocable, Santo Domingo’s Teleférico and London’s Emirates Air Line.
- New owners take over Great Divide and will reevaluate proposed lift additions through a master planning process.
- The newest gondola operation in Australia becomes insolvent and enters administration, partly a result of COVID-19.
- SAM gathers leaders from Alterra, Boyne, Vail and more to talk about the crisis. A common theme: capital budgets being reexamined.
- A Vancouver developer thinks about a gondola as part of a hillside housing development near Cypress Mountain.
- Lift construction grinds to a halt in New Zealand but carries on in Alaska.
- Ski Inc. and Ski Inc. 2020 author Chris Diamond shares an optimistic view of the crisis under the assumption it won’t last into next winter.
Arapahoe Basin
News Roundup: Sunshine
- The Summit at Snoqualmie shuts Hidden Valley for the season due to an “unusual mechanical problem.”
- Sugarloaf closes King Pine due to a sheave assembly issue.
- Dave Brownlie, former head of Whistler Blackcomb and current Revelstoke President, weighs in on the state of the British Columbia ski industry and his company’s plans for Grouse Mountain.
- The Colorado Sun interviews three Colorado resort pioneers about industry trends and challenges.
- As the gondola at Mont-Sainte-Anne reopens, the resort says an external power issue caused last month’s sudden stop. A lawsuit has been filed and the power company denies responsibility.
- Just the Leitner portion of Mexico City’s new urban gondola network will feature seven stations and 300 cabins.
- Experienced resort executives Andy and Jace Wirth may take over operations at Granby Ranch.
- Limited Ikon/Mountain Collective visits to Arapahoe Basin are 69 percent lower than unlimited Epic visits last year and the “experience is way up,” says Al Henceroth.
- Another informative podcast from Stuart Winchester features an executive from Mountain Creek and Big Snow talking about the next new lift and a possible Big Snow Miami.
- Smugglers’ Notch has no intentions of losing its independence or ditching its fleet of fixed grip double chairs.
- Whitefish will begin work in Hellroaring Basin this summer and move the current Hellroaring triple to a new alignment in 2021.
- Jay Peak expects multiple parties to submit offers in a second round of bidding this spring.
- The Epic Pass franchise keeps growing with added Northeast options and a new rewards program.
- Wyoming’s Sleeping Giant changes its mind on closing after this season, citing an outpouring of community support.
- Whaleback is closing early due to a lift problem.
- Gatlinburg, Tennessee already has five scenic lift rides but an outfit called Pigeon Forge Snow plans to build a sixth.
- A U.S. Department of Labor inspector finds 14 and 15 year old ski instructors riding chairlifts and lowering restraint bars constitutes “operating heavy machinery.”
- Tremblant will announce its next major investments on March 10th, a day we may hear from other Alterra resorts as well.
- Guests are responding well to a slate of recent improvements at Catamount.
- Cuchara is on track to reopen one of three remaining chairlifts next winter.
News Roundup: Millions
- Crystal Mountain reopens after being closed nearly a week. Mudslides along its access road cost the resort more than $1 million in business.
- Dave McCoy, the visionary founder of Mammoth Mountain, dies at 104.
- Great job Elk Mountain staff for this rescue of a dangling young skier.
- You can also watch a heroic Mt. Hood Meadows employee remove seven inches of ice from Vista Express towers this week.
- The Sea to Sky Gondola finally reopens, six months after a crime which cost nearly $4 million dollars in damage and lost revenue.
- Chair 5 at Greek Peak breaks down and gets rope evacuated.
- Highland Mountain Bike Park will add 40 chairs to its chairlift, increasing uphill capacity by 50 percent.
- Vail Mountain COO Beth Howard explains the circumstances behind last weekend’s epic lift lines.
- The Balsams may be closed but Les Otten opens the doors for himself and four others to cast first in the nation presidential votes.
- Swiss manufacturer Bartholet launches a fresh website.
- The Little Mountain that Could is a short film by L.L.Bean exploring the rebirth of Whaleback as a nonprofit.
- Locals frustrated with Whistler Blackcomb operations and staffing petition Vail Resorts to do better.
- One of those involved in the Stoos chair accident succumbs to his injuries. Two others have been released from the hospital.
- Stevens Pass reopens Seventh Heaven 11 days after this incident.
- A man dies in a terrible accident involving the Skyline Express at Vail. A preliminary investigation suggests he slipped through a chair’s seat, was caught by his jacket and asphyxiated.
- Former Vail Resorts mountain division head Chris Jarnot becomes a consultant for the upcoming Mayflower Mountain Resort in Park City.
- Sunday River President Dana Bullen talks about the Merrill Hill expansion, future lift projects and which lifts are staying put.
- Al Henceroth confirms the Pallavicini double will be replaced by a Leitner-Poma double this summer.
- Utah Business magazine makes the case for One Wasatch.
News Roundup: Docs
- A former employee plans to reopen Crystal Mountain, BC in December with one of three lifts in operation.
- The Hermitage Club bankruptcy is now a Chapter 7 liquidation and the current receiver will be relieved of his duties.
- Grafton inches closer to opening the midwest’s only chondola.
- The Forest Service approves Mt. Bachelor’s upcoming lift project.
- The USFS also releases the Environmental Assessment for Arizona Snowbowl’s proposed Telemix, which would also include cabin parking.
- The Skyliner officially goes on Walt Disney World’s park map.
- Here’s the alignment for the proposed new lift on Breckenridge’s Peak 7.
- The number of U.S. ski resorts that operated last season jumped by four from 2017/18 to 476. New York still leads the pack with 51 areas followed by Colorado and Michigan.
- Arapahoe Basin becomes Ikon Pass destination number 40.
News Roundup: Atria
- Poma’s largest single lift contract ever is worth more than $110 million for a six station, 100 cabin 3S system in China.
- Whitecap Mountains still wants to build its first new lift since 1991 but doesn’t yet have funding.
- A 70 year old woman is okay after falling from Whistler’s new Emerald 6 Express last Saturday.
- Doppelmayr will introduce two new products at Interalpin: a new 3S cabin called Atria and something called Smart Ropeway.
- Mi Teleférico crosses the 200,000,000 passenger mark and is on track to transport more than 40 million by gondola this year.
- A feasibility study will look at whether Teton Pass could reopen as private company, nonprofit or co-op.
- West Mountain confirms a Partek quad will replace its last classic chairlift.
- Casper, Wyoming is unlikely to put six figures towards a Hogadon quad chairlift after all.
- The Glenwood Gondola reopens today with all 44 cabins.
- The Hermitage Club founder’s wife files for bankruptcy and lists $8.5 million in debt related to the closed ski resort.
- Mount St. Louis Moonstone’s Louis Express is up for sale.
- Arapahoe Basin is in talks with the Mountain Collective and others about possibly joining a multi-resort pass on a limited basis.
- A judge will consider whether to place Timberline Resort into receivership next Thursday.
News Roundup: Four Too Many
- Attitash’s Summit triple is down indefinitely again, this time with a gearbox issue. Peak Resorts executives say even if they wanted to replace the lift with a detachable, there is about a two year wait with both lift companies.
- Northstar California partially evacuates the Promised Land Express by rope on a busy Sunday.
- The new master plan for Timberline Lodge prescribes replacing Pucci with a detachable quad and Bruno’s with a series of carpets.
- At Pajarito, Townsight will end up missing the entire season due to unspecified mechanical issues.
- Alyeska retires its last of seven Riblet double chairlifts, Tanaka.
- A six year old falls 29 feet from an Eldora chairlift after failing to load properly and a petition is asking for policy changes.
- The founder of The Hermitage Club is contesting a no trespass order.
- A child falls from Park City’s Silverlode Express.
- Architectural Digest profiles leading resort design firm SE Group.
- Leitner will build what is sure to become an iconic 3S gondola between Switzerland and Italy from 2021.
- 2019/20 Ikon Passes go on sale March 5th and are virtually unchanged from this season’s versions.
- Tuesday is also the day you should vote if you live in Aspen.
- Timberline, West Virginia throws in the towel and the local paper has an update on the the circumstances.
- A night evacuation takes place at Ski Vorlage.
- James Coleman’s brand new bike park is already a hit.
- Five teenagers perform a flawless catch of a Screaming Eagle lift dangler and earn free Grouse Mountain season passes.
- Somehow a sit skier and lift operator both fall 17 feet from Snowmass’ Elk Camp quad on Tuesday.
- Following a brutal 16 day road closure, Snow Valley eyes a Saturday reopening.
- Bloomberg Businessweek visits the Vail/Alterra HQs and catches up with partners like Boyne Resorts and Telluride.
News Roundup: More Epic
- Arapahoe Basin ends its Epic Pass partnership with Vail Resorts due to concerns about parking and crowding.
- A year into Ikon, Alterra Chief Marketing Officer Erik Forsell talks about the new season pass landscape.
- Vail takes stock at Crested Butte and may or may not build the Teo II lifts proposed by Triple Peaks.
- As rumored, Vail is acquiring Falls Creek and Mt. Hotham in Australia for $124 million.
- The Spanish ski resort that closed when a chair fell from its Yan detachable quad reopens with uploading via snowcat.
- The San Diego Fire Department performs a successful over water night evacuation of the Bayside Skyride at SeaWorld San Diego.
- Timberline Four Seasons Resort, which has struggled with lift breakdowns and other issues of late, is closed this weekend and could be placed in receivership.
- Snow Valley missed all of President’s weekend will remain closed indefinitely due to road damage. Mountain High is kindly honoring their season passes during the shutdown.
- In France, a six year old is seriously injured after her head gets stuck between a chair armrest and safety bar.
- As a new lawsuit against The Hermitage Club alleges fraud, club founder Jim Barnes tells members a revised reorganization plan is coming soon.
- The New York Times visits the new Taos and its four new lifts.
- Not everyone is happy about changes at Powder Mountain.
- LST Ropeways is still working to repair the company’s first detachable chairlift, which missed its entire first winter, some of last winter and all of this one thus far.
- 49 Degrees North had a challenging weekend with one lift rope evacuated/down for the season and another losing a chair with people on it.
News Roundup: Heavy Snow
- The world’s largest vertical tramway is expected to reopen in time for Christmas, just three months after one of its cabins was destroyed in an unfortunate accident.
- Peak Resorts completes its acquisition of Liberty Mountain, Roundtop and Whitetail in Pennsylvania.
- There was a bit of a setback before American Eagle’s load test on Monday but repairs are complete and the first of two new lifts at Copper opens Saturday.
- A pulse gondola could join the skyline in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.
- Investors who helped the Hermitage Club buy its bubble lift file a lawsuit seeking $9.8 million.
- Did you know the Lone Peak Tram‘s bottom terminal is slowly moving downhill thanks to a rock glacier?
- The White River National Forest grants final approval for Beaver Creek’s McCoy Park expansion and preliminary approval of Aspen Mountain’s Pandora project.
- Plans for a new Oakland Athletics ballpark include a 6,000 passenger per hour gondola across Interstate 880.
- A proposed Portland Major League Baseball stadium also has a gondola component.
- As Utah weighs growth, Alta seeks to retain some of the land it owns in Grizzly Gulch, key to any future connection between the Cottonwood Canyons.
- Heavy snow delays completion of Ascutney Mountain’s T-Bar until next spring.
- Arapahoe Basin drops the ropes on 339 new lift-served acres.
News Roundup: Down to the Wire
- Beaver Creek renames the Buckaroo Express gondola Haymeadow Express, the name of the double chair which ran in the same alignment from 1980 to 2007.
- Whether the Hermitage Club closes a $30 million loan to catch up on lift maintenance and operate this winter is still an open question.
- Arapahoe Basin and Leitner-Poma fly steel for the Beavers project.
- As of yesterday, Vail Resorts officially operates Okemo, Mt. Sunapee and Crested Butte.
- Vail reports fiscal 2018 resort EBITDA was $616.6 million, an increase of 3.9 percent over the prior year. 2018-19 season pass sales are up 25 percent in units and 15 percent in dollars as of Sunday.
- West Mountain adds a million dollar chairlift and looks to build another.
- A New York-based developer receives one of many approvals for Mayflower Village at Deer Valley, which could eventually mean a slate of new lifts.
- Doppelmayr is named in connection with an urban gondola eyed for Long Beach, California.
- Watch a remarkable 3S gondola launch live from Zermatt at 9:15 Eastern tomorrow morning, 6:15 Pacific.
- The CFO and COO of Peak Resorts open up about their decision to buy Snow Time and note the three new mountains don’t immediately need much capital investment.
- The longtime owners of Great Divide, Montana plan to sell to another couple next year.
- Legendary ski resort builder Les Otten remains committed to The Balsams but laments, “time is killing this project.”
- Mountain Capital Partners releases more details on the Spider Mountain Bike Park project.
- The damaged Zugspitze cabin is successfully lowered to the valley for disassembly. The cable car’s operator says damage exceeds $1.2 million and the lift could reopen by year end.
- Boreal names its new quad California Cruiser.
- The latest Leitner-Poma six-pack at Hunter Mountain, seen below, will be called Northern Express.
At Arapahoe Basin, The Beavers Get a Lift
Steep chutes, natural glades, a couple cruiser trails and wide open faces. When Arapahoe Basin drops the ropes on The Beavers this year, there will be something for everyone. Just under 350 new acres make it the largest lift-served terrain expansion on the continent for 2018-19, ahead of Mt. Spokane’s backside development and Hunter North. The Beavers debuted for an earn-your-turns preview last season along with the Steep Gullies, totaling 468 acres of new terrain. Installation of a Leitner-Poma fixed-grip quad chair, the Basin’s sixth chairlift, was in high gear when I stopped by yesterday.
Topping out at 12,475′, The Beavers drainage is beyond beautiful and A Basin is taking great care to implement the project with as little disturbance as possible. The quad drive terminal is the closest you can get by road and dozens of workers are readying the expansion by foot, helicopter and spider excavator. Arapahoe Basin opted to do the development carefully over two years rather than rushing it in one, and it shows. The two blue trails were traditionally cut while the rest of the new stuff is either above tree line or was thinned by hand.
