Every Tuesday, we pick our favorite Instagram photos from around the lift world.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BLJMo5BhtJP/?tagged=liftmaintenance
Arizona Snowbowl
News Roundup: Six-Pack
- Granite Peak will announce a plan this fall for new runs and multiple new lifts.
- Crystal Mountain pushes back Kelly’s Gap high speed quad to 2021.
- James Coleman purchases Hesperus, adding to his collective that includes Arizona Snowbowl, Pajarito, Purgatory and Sipapu. A 1961 Riblet double from Mt. Bachelor is Hesperus’ only lift.
- Fatzer opens a new production plant.
- The United States overtakes France as the world’s most popular ski destination. The U.S. is the fourth largest lift market.
- Austin’s NPR station dedicates more than seven minutes to a discussion about urban cable. “Once we went to La Paz, we were up and running within 12 months,” Doppelmayr’s Randy Woolwine tells listeners.
- A six-pack rises at Arizona Snowbowl.
- Eagle Point unveils Vision 2020 with new lifts and expanded terrain planned.
- Next season might be the last for Blackcomb’s Horstman T-Bar due to glacial recession. This video demonstrates one of the pitfalls of the sinking T-Bar.
- SAM reports how Jay Peak employees have made the most of a bad situation amidst a federal fraud investigation.
- Mont Bellevue gets a Doppelmayr Eco quad with a return station design we haven’t seen before and two different-style bullwheels.
- Le Relais’ $5 million six-place chair is just about finished.
- Vail Resorts loses $65.3 million in the fourth quarter.
- Big Sky’s new six-pack will be named Powder Seeker.
- The first Poma EEZII-model compact detachable terminal is assembled in France.
- Whistler-Blackcomb releases Conflicted Obsessions documentary about climate change. “The gorilla in the room is the long-distance travel required to get to these special places,” admits W-B’s environmental resource manager.
News Roundup: Ski Train
- Nelson, BC moves forward with Fringed Hill Gondola project.
- Leaders look at building a four stage gondola between famous tourist sites in Jerusalem.
- Amtrak’s Winter Park Express train returns January 2017 after a seven-year hiatus. A new platform alongside the Union Pacific Railway’s main line will be just 90 feet from the Gemini Express.
- Poma and Sigma are building a triangle-shaped gondola at a wildlife park in China with 224 cabins. They will come in four different animal designs and 70 will feature glass floors. The innovative lift will debut in January.
- Leitner Ropeways will attend the global transportation technology summit Innotrans in Berlin.
- The first cabin takes a spin on the White Line in La Paz. The White and Blue lines will open in 2017 joining the Red, Yellow and Green lines and the world’s largest gondola network.
- Mi Teleférico also opens two retail stores dedicated to gondola souvenirs and public outreach. Does your local public transit authority have 200,000 Facebook fans?
- Cloudchaser takes flight at Mt. Bachelor.
- A progress report from Arizona Snowbowl where Leitner-Poma is building the state’s first six-pack.
- The State Fair Flyer at the North Carolina State Fair is a brand new Partek.
- Mexicable opens October 3rd in Ecatepec, Mexico. The Leitner-built system has two haul ropes, seven stations and 190 cabins. The local Governor took a test run earlier this week and the video has been viewed more than 430,000 times.
- An empty chair falls from the Gunbarrel Express at Thredbo, Australia during public operation. The lift is a 1988 Doppelmayr with DS grips.
Instagram Tuesday: Yellow Iron
Every Tuesday, we pick our favorite Instagram photos from around the lift world.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BJSuuzhAzAo/?tagged=liftmaintenance
Arizona Snowbowl & Purgatory Announce New Lifts
Fresh on the heels of adding three lifts at his collective of Southwestern resorts last summer, James Coleman revealed today he will invest another $10 million to build new lifts and more at Arizona Snowbowl and Purgatory in 2016.
The Leitner-Poma-built Grand Canyon Express will serve 85 percent of Arizona Snowbowl’s terrain with a 5.8 minute lift ride. It will run approximately 5,500′ (1,530 vertical feet) in a new alignment starting near the Hart Prarie Lodge and topping out at 10,900′ in elevation near the Agassiz mid-station. This is the second new chairlift at Arizona Snowbowl following last summer’s Humphreys Peak addition that expanded the mountain’s intermediate terrain with a SkyTrac quad. The Sunset triple (a 1983 CTEC) will likely be removed and may be used to replace the Aspen double in the future. Arizona Snowbowl’s master plan also calls for a second detachable lift to replace the Hart Prarie double. Exciting times at a mountain whose very survival was questionable a few years ago!
In Colorado, Purgatory Resort will get a new two-way surface lift called T-3 to link the bottom terminals of backside lifts 5 and 8. The latter is a 1980 Riblet double, the former a 2015 Leitner-Poma high speed quad. Purgatory plans to add a similar connection between lifts 3 and 5 and replace more of the resort’s aging fixed-grip chairlifts (namely #2, 4 and 5) in upcoming years.
Mr. Coleman is the Durango-based businessman who’s owned Sipapu since 2000 and took over operations at Pajarito, Purgatory and Arizona Snowbowl in 2014. When the Durango Herald asked last year whether he was done buying ski areas, Coleman replied “no.” That’s great news considering his willingness to invest in capital improvements to the tune of $20 million thus far.
News Roundup: Washout
- Teams from Mt. Hood Meadows have repaired and re-opened the Shooting Star Express that was damaged by falling trees over Thanksgiving. Now the storm recovery turns to the Mt. Hood Express, which received ten feet of snow in one week.
- White Pass has more snow than it did at anytime last winter but no one can get there. Crews have been working around the clock to repair washouts that cut off the resort from both sides of the Cascades Dec. 9th. The ski area will re-open Wednesday.
- The Berry family says it’s close to a deal to sell Saddleback to a new owner that hopes to open by late January. Passholders can get a refund or gift card now.
- Aspen’s 1971 SLI double on Shadow Mountain will be replaced with a detachable quad or gondola in 2016 or ’17. The top terminal will move 200 feet to the southwest resulting in a slope length of 3,600′ with 1,390′ vertical and a capacity of 1,200 skiers per hour.
- Park City and Canyons are now one thanks to the Quicksilver Gondola but judging by snow conditions it’s going to be awhile before you can ski between the two.
- James Coleman opens new quad chairs at Purgatory (Leitner-Poma) and Arizona Snowbowl (SkyTrac) with more new lifts on the way.
- Doppelmayr secures $27 million European government loan for research and development in Austria.
- Cherry Peak Resort opens today! It’s the first all-new ski facility in North America since Tamarack debuted back in 2004.
News Roundup: D-Line
- Red River Ski Area hires Doppelmayr to replace its Green lift – a 1977 Riblet double – with a new, longer quad called Emerald for 2016/17.
- Arizona Snowbowl’s new SkyTrac quad opens Dec. 18th.
- Sugarloaf is installing rebuilt gearboxes on two major lifts this December.
- Louisiana called its last gondola experiment MART. The next one could be BRAF?
- BMF’s unique aerial tramway strung between two towers in Puebla, Mexico opens December 20th.
- 100+ photos of Doppelmayr’s all-new detachable product, dubbed D-Line.
- Mt. Hood Meadows’ Shooting Star Express will remain closed until Christmas after being rocked by falling trees.
- Storms last week in the Cascades cut off all access to White Pass Ski Area with no estimated re-opening.
News Roundup: 115.4 mph
- Mt. Hood Meadows updates skiers on the windstorm that sent two hundred-foot hemlock trees onto the Shooting Star Express the night of November 17th.
- Vail Resorts announces $100 million in capital improvements across its mountains for 2016/17 including replacement of the last major fixed-grip lift on Vail Mountain. The new Sun Up Lift #17 will be a detachable quad, manufacturer unknown.
- SkyTrac splices the Humphrey’s Peak Quad at Arizona Snowbowl.
- The latest from Sugarloaf on the new King Pine. An apparent Doppelmayr delay will push opening until late-December. Luckily (or unluckily) there’s no snow anyways.
- Utah’s new ski resort, Cherry Peak, announces a December 21st debut with two lifts.
- Doppelmayr’s 10th 3S gondola, the Penkenbahn, is ready to go.
- A nonprofit ski area in Ontario that’s been unable to operate its quad chair since 2011 due to a 2006 Doppelmayr service bulletin hopes to crowdfund $80,000 for repairs.
- West Mountain celebrates their new lift with fireworks rather than skiing and already has the drive terminal up for another new-used lift next summer.
News Roundup: Flying Volkswagens
- Gunther Jochl, the Austrian-born owner of Sugar Mountain, got the CEOs of both Doppelmayr and CWA to come christen his new six-pack Saturday along with the governor of North Carolina. Apparently the lift may get gondola cabins in the future.
- A lawsuit from a homeowner could force the closure of Pennsylvania’s second largest ski resort. Seven Springs Mountain Resort operates two six-packs and eight fixed-grip lifts on 300 acres. Unfortunately, four of those lifts and 75 percent of the mountain’s ski runs cross a public road that the homeowner wants opened in winter. There are plenty of other ski resorts that have major highways passing through that close seasonally, including Deer Valley, Bridger Bowl and Mt. Baker.
- Cherry Peak, the new ski area in Utah, won’t be able to complete their Summit lift in time for this season. When I was there a few months ago, towers were laying on the ground along the line which will either have to be set or moved elsewhere. Two other triple chairs and a carpet are set to go.
- Arizona Snowbowl’s first new lift in 30 years is almost finished.
- An 8.5 mile gondola system coming to Missouri’s Las Vegas?
- Bartholet’s aerial tramway across the city of Puebla in Mexico will be finished December 15th, about a year behind schedule. Speaking of BMF, they have a new website.
- The Balsams clears some more hurdles but has still yet to break ground.
- Staying on the mega-resort topic, Hemlock Resort near Chilliwack, BC receives approval to spend $1.5 billion on 23 new lifts and 20,000 lodging beds among other improvements over the next 60 years. Hemlock currently has a 1977-vintage Doppelmayr triple and two even older Mueller doubles. Buried in the linked article is the fact that the ski area never opened last year due to lack of snow.
Hemlock Master Plan rendering from Brent Harley & Associates.
News Roundup: Finishing Up
- Take a photo tour of Doppelmayr’s new six pack and new-used double chair at Sugar Mountain, North Carolina. Looks like it will have 90-degree loading and unloading.
- Views from the air of Snowmass’ new High Alpine detachable quad and Arizona Snowbowl’s new SkyTrac.
- The Gondola Project has a new interactive map showing the world’s urban ropeway systems.
- Speaking of urban gondolas, Poma won a $70 million contract for a 10-passenger gondola in Santo Domingo, the capitol of the Dominican Republic. Looks like this one will be built in Europe even though it’s not that far from Miami (where coincidentally Leitner-Poma is currently building an airport people mover.)
- The last rides on Lutsen Mountains’ Hall Skycruiser gondola will be this Sunday, October 18th. The gondola is coming down this fall along with the Bull and Eagle double chairs.
Lift Blog 