- Owing $3.8 million to creditors, Deer Mountain, SD to be sold to the highest bidder in a sheriff’s sale today. The mountain has two Riblet chairlifts.
- Curbed counts down 11 gondolas changing the way people move through cities.
- Steamboat sells off triple chairs from Four Points in 28 minutes (the lift got new Doppelmayr ones in 2012.)
- Taos offloads 200 chairs from lifts 5 and 6 for $200 each with proceeds going to hurricane relief. As of this writing, 37 remain.
- Leitner Ropeways’ new gondola at the world’s largest hotel transported 3.5 million passengers in its first eight months.
- Aspen Mountain installs Bluetooth speakers in Silver Queen Gondola cabins.
- China Peak completes its first quad chair, the old Elkhead from Steamboat.
- The Burnaby Mountain Gondola is back on the table.
- Leitner-Poma of America inks contract to build a US$7.1 million high-speed quad at Falls Creek in Australia.
- Vail Resorts launches interactive website with lift downtime and wait time data for last season at Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Keystone and Park City.
- Belleayre’s gondola cabins arrive from across the pond. Unfortunately, the name of the lift is spelled wrong on all of them.
- Ski Magazine predicts the KSL-Aspen duo will benefit skiers with a second Epic-style season pass and major resort upgrades.
- Skytrac and Timberline Helicopters fly towers for the new East Rim lift at Whitefish. Thanks Buzz D. for these cool photos.
Aspen Mountain
News Roundup: Playing Field
- 14-cabin 3S proposed to cross Lake Zurich in Switzerland.
- The second tallest building west of the Mississippi will include an aerial tram-like system built by Leitner-Poma.
- BMF will build its first gondola in France and seventh gondola overall this summer near Alp d’Huez.
- Mi Teleférico breaks ground today for its 13th and 14th gondolas. The four station, 159 cabin Sky Blue line will join the Red, Yellow, Green and Blue lines already operating and the Orange, White and Purple lines under construction.
- North Korea is building a second ski resort.
- Liberty Mountain delays J-Bar replacement project, saying in a statement, “We had hoped to put the triple chair in this summer but unfortunately it will not be happening…We are still planning on making this change in the future.” Liberty acquired one of Ascutney’s CTEC triples in 2013.
- Aspen Mountain turns back toward a longer and lower 1A detachable.
- As state-owned Belleayre becomes the smallest North American ski resort ever to build a gondola, New York Ski Blog calls for low-interest infrastructure financing for 45 privately-owned mountains in the Empire State.
- The Jay Peak Tram is back with many upgraded components after a spring full of hard work. Interestingly, new controls are from Doppelmayr rather than Frey.
- Black Hawk flies old Montezuma towers off Dercum Mountain at Keystone.
- Marshall Mountain, MT can be yours for $2.95 million, including a 1972 Thiokol triple and an uninstalled 1969 Hall double from Grand Targhee.
- Snow King gondola plan advances.
- No visible work at Saddleback yet.
- Nonprofit contracts SE Group to study the feasibility of reopening an alpine ski area on the site of the former Colby College ski area in Maine. Here’s how it looked in 2012:
News Roundup: Turnover
- Squaw seeks extension for permit to replace Red Dog lift.
- MND Group turnover increases 15.1 percent year-over-year. The company aims to double sales by 2020 partially through LST Ropeways subsidiary. Referencing the new Cannon Mountain T-Bar in the latest magazine, MND notes “success has enabled LST to penetrate the US market, paving the way for other promising opportunities.”
- Doppelmayr will begin building its next tri-cable gondola in December. Who would have guessed Kenya would get a 3S before the United States!
- Forest Service gives final green light for Breckenridge and Keystone six-place upgrades.
- A slow landslide continues to move tower 6 of the Barrows lift at Howelsen Hill.
- SE Group will study placement of Aspen Mountain’s future Lift 1A.
- Denver Post publishes two part interview with Larry Smith of the CPTSB re: Granby Ranch.
- The LiftDigital safety bar display system with integrated Wi-Fi will launch in Colorado for 2017-18.
- New PomaLink newsletter features the Grand Canyon Express and a six-station gondola at a zoo in China.
- Poma’s 2016 Reference Book includes LPOA installations but not Skytrac ones.
- Mountain Creek files for bankruptcy protection with debts totaling $40+ million including $500,000 balance on 2012 Partek chairlift loan.
- One of Heavenly’s original 1962 tram cars is for sale. Email me if you’re interested.
- Artur Doppelmayr died Friday at age 95. May he rest in peace.
News Roundup: $4.6 Billion
- Global ropeway market will grow to $4.6 billion by 2024, research firm says.
- Doppelmayr’s latest Wir Magazine features Big Sky, D-Line and the new Doppelmayr Connect control system.
- New Northwoods at Vail won’t have a loading carpet.
- Snowbasin traces Wilcat history from single to six-pack.
- Village removal is already underway at Sugarbush.
- Three years after commissioning, Rampart at Snoqualmie finally gets electric power.
- Hunter Mountain’s F Lift (1984 Poma) is apparently down for the season.
- FIS says Aspen likely won’t get another World Cup race until Lift 1A is replaced.
- Submit your name for Eldora’s new six-pack to liftname@eldora.com by April 9th.
- Big Sky experiments with season passes that exclude select lifts with prices ranging from $149 to $6,000.
- Austrian company Salzmann Formblechtechnik produces enclosures for up to five Doppelmayr Uni-G stations every week.
- Gatlinburg Sky Lift steel is up and boy is it orange.
- Utah Valley University students float gondola link over I-15 to the Orem FrontRunner station.
- Workers dig and dig some more to keep the Jackson Hole Aerial Tram above record snowpack.
- Forest Service sends a letter of noncompliance to Ski Apache resulting in the closure of a lift.
- Beloved lift maintenance team lead Mark McFadden dies in workplace incident at Kicking Horse. A Gofundme page has been setup to support his family.
New Roundup: French
- First LST Ropeways detachable set to finally open in March.
- Silver Mountain’s new owner hints at future new lifts.
- Steamboat paper does a two part story on lift and gondola evacuations.
- Pandora’s lift still in the cards for Aspen Mountain but 1A might come first.
- In France, Poma finalizes contracts to build $121 million urban 3S gondola in Toulouse, $15.6 million jigback in Orléans.
- Arlington says no to Georgetown-Rosslyn Gondola.
- Innsbruck to build $12.7 million D-Line gondola.
- Saddleback effort moves forward, but lifts will not spin this season.
- Al Henceroth of A-Basin explains why he chose a fixed-grip quad for The Beavers.
- Town of Gatlinburg to review Boyne’s design for new Sky Lift tomorrow.
- Leitner-Poma presents gondola technology as a potential solution to downtown traffic in Breckenridge.
- Wildfire tears through $24 million Christchurch Adventure Park in New Zealand, where a Doppelmayr high speed quad opened less than two months ago.
- The Skytrac blog has a cool post about the newest Rainforest Adventures park in St. Maarten and its two hurricane-proof fixed-grip quads.
- South Korea prepares for a Doppelmayr Olympics, Poma signs new contract for a 2022 venue in China.
- Whitewater’s Summit double goes up for sale.
- Poma begins hanging 160 Diamond cabins on Santo Domingo’s two new urban gondolas.
Instagram Tuesday: Stacked
Every Tuesday, we pick our favorite Instagram photos from around the lift world.
News Roundup: Commonwealth
- Highland Mountain Bike Park is closed this week as crews reinforce a 1987 Borvig triple top terminal foundation, surely as a result of the Sunday River Spruce Peak incident. The bike park, which is no longer a ski resort in the winter, hopes to re-open tomorrow.
- At Sunday River, Spruce Peak’s haul rope has reportedly been cut. Its sister lift, the 1984 Borvig Locke Mountain triple had its rope removed from the top bullwheel.
- Cardrona Alpine Resort in New Zealand will build a Doppelmayr 6/8 chondola for next season.
- Splicer Bill Alsup died last Tuesday in a crane accident at the age of 78. He started working for Poma in 1959, ran the Poma distributorship in Vermont for more than 25 years and was also an Indy Car driver.
- Steamboat inches towards two new gondolas.
- Leitner-Poma of America is designing the huge gondola from Queenstown to The Remarkables that would have three stations, 80 towers and cost approximately $36 million.
- Italy’s first heated-seat chairlift will be an 8-pack.
- Ski Magic, LLC signs purchase agreement for Magic Mountain and will immediately begin work required by the Vermont Passenger Tramway Board to make lifts operational. First priority is the Pohlig triple chair that’s sat idle the past two seasons. Geoff Hathaway, President of the new ownership group commented, “it was either Magic or Whistler Blackcomb. I think we got the better deal.”
- Aspenites continue to argue over the placement of 1A’s new lower terminal.
News Roundup: Villages
- Designer Jared Ficklin talks about his dream for urban cable in Austin.
- More details surface regarding Aspen Mountain’s replacement 1A lift.
- The Yellowstone Club unveils plans for The Village, anchored by a new Eglise Gondola and high speed quad.
- Vail Resorts’ Canyons Village Master Plan includes a strategic new Sunrise lift providing access to the Quicksilver Gondola.
- Peak Resorts lost $3.2 million last year and will not make any major capital investments at its 14 mountains in 2017.
- Another Yan detachable has found its way to Iran.
- Doppelmayr may build another urban gondola project in The Philippines, this one in the southern city of Davao.
- Caberfae Peaks is nearly finished building its new chairlift.
- Sunday River’s insurance company indicates a failure of the grout that secured the top terminal to bedrock caused last week’s failure.
News Roundup: New in New Zealand
- Whistler Blackcomb Foundation raises $221,000 at 5-course charity dinner aboard the Peak 2 Peak Gondola complete with in-cabin chandeliers.
- Mt. Baldy, BC gets a new owner and plans to re-open next season.
- Powderhorn says its big new lift boosted visits.
- Poma will build a 3-stage urban gondola in the Moroccan port city of Tangier.
- The latest plan for Aspen Mountain’s 1A envisions a bubble quad chair and possibly a platter lift.
- Whaleback, NH buys the old Hall T-Bar from Plattekill, NY for its West Side Project.
- Poma leads a group of French companies on a trip to Iran promoting mountain development.
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