- After several high-profile incidents, a good reminder from the NSAA that 86 percent of falls from chairlifts can be attributed to rider error.
- Lots of questions surround last week’s skier-pushes-snowboarder-off-lift story from Aspen Highlands. Police say even without an arrest made, the public is not in any danger.
- Bravo to Bristol Mountain for actually pressing charges against a freeloading teen for theft of services.
- Only at a tiny mountain in Maine would volunteer ski patrollers derail a double chair they are also responsible for inspecting.
- An Austrian man is in a coma after the harness he was wearing around his neck became entangled with a platter lift carrier. At least one lift operator may not have been at his or her assigned post.
- Mt. Rose Ski Tahoe is for sale.
- Fun Spot America near Orlando looks to add a gondola ride (thanks Jay T. for the tip.)
- Dignitaries break ground at Laurel Mountain in preparation for a November re-opening.
- A mix of public and private groups including Georgetown University are about to spend $250k to study a gondola linking Rosslyn, Virginia with Georgetown (one of Washington, D.C.’s highest-profile neighborhoods without a metro station.)
- The Balsams Wilderness won’t re-open in 2016 after all. A revised timeline has three new and two existing lifts spinning in late 2017.
- This is our 200th post!
Aspen Highlands
News Roundup: Ice Heist
- Luckily Manning Park Resort was in on letting pro mountain bikers pretend to break into and operate one of their lifts.
- When chairs can’t spin because there’s no one to staff them.
- BMF opens its sightseeing aerial tramway in Puebla. Its 35-passenger cabins were manufactured in Austria by Carvatech.
- 12 year-old boy falls out of a chair at Wachusett, avoids serious injury.
- Snowboarder accuses skier of shoving him off Aspen Highlands’ Loge Peak lift mid-ride in a story that goes viral. Just one day later, the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office thinks they’ve identified a suspect.
- Doppelmayr is building an 8-passenger gondola this spring at the Oakland Zoo to serve a $62 million expansion called California Trail. The lift will have 7 towers, 15 cabins and open in late 2017. The zoo will continue to operate its Safari Sky Ride triple chair that was built by SkyTrans.
- DCC (Doppelmayr Cable Car) wins a $24 million contract to build its 10th cable-propelled automated people mover in underground tunnels at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport.
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