Aspen

News Roundup: Up, Up and Away

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Photo credit: Christopher Strunk

News Roundup: Resort Happenings

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  • Hidden Valley, New Jersey will reopen as the National Winter Activity Center this month with two new Partek lifts.
  • The Balsams crosses another hurdle which could mean new lifts in the New Hampshire high country as early as this summer.
  • Sunshine Village hopes to have the Goat’s Eye Express running by today.

  • Construction at Laurel Mountain is 30% complete and ahead of schedule.  The state-owned mountain will open next winter for the first time since 2005 with a brand new SkyTrac quad.
  • Magic Mountain only managed to open one lift last winter and may not spin any this season.  The Vermont area had five aerial lifts in its heyday.
  • CNL Lifestyle Properties, the real estate investment trust that was slated to wind down by Dec. 31st, only sold one of its 16 mountain resorts by that date.  Okemo, Northstar, Big Sky and a dozen others will remain for sale into 2016.
  • Aspen Skiing Company will submit the Pandora terrain expansion and chairlift to the Forest Service for review in 2016.
  • Girl uninjured after mis-loading, dangling by her helmet and falling 20 feet from a chair in Saskatchewan.
  • Thanks to some much-needed snow, Vermont now has a third six-pack with bubble chairs and heated seats.  This one’s not open to the public, unfortunately.

News Roundup: Washout

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  • 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.
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Sugarloaf and Doppelmayr load test King Pine on Dec. 19, 2015.
  • 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: New Owners

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  • See how Sigma Composite builds gondola cabins in the French Alps.  The company also just delivered the first of two trains for Leitner-Poma’s automated people mover at Miami International Airport.
  • Aspen Skiing Co. submits a formal proposal with the Forest Service to replace Lift 1A on Aspen Mountain with a high speed quad, gondola or combination lift as early as next summer.  Meanwhile, this summer’s lift upgrade at Snowmass nears completion.
  • Another Doppelmayr Eco-drive quad going up.
  • Scott Shanaman, who founded Aerial NDT, becomes the proud new owner of Lost Valley near Lewiston, Maine.  The resort (if you can call it that) has two classic Hall double chairs and a T-Bar that hasn’t run in quite some time.  Congratulations, Scott and family!
  • Powdr Corp.’s Las Vegas Ski & Snowboard Resort changes its name (back) to Lee Canyon.
  • Pacific Group Resorts, Inc. buys Mt. Washington Alpine Resort on Vancouver Island, becoming the company’s fourth (and largest) mountain resort.  The Utah-based group bought Ragged Mountain in 2007, Wisp Resort in 2012, and Wintergreen earlier this year.  How’s that for some geographic diversity?
  • Some pics of a sharp-looking bubble six-pack being built by Leitner Ropeways in the Czech Republic.

News Roundup: Modifications

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  • Apparently Cannon Mountain in New Hampshire will get the first LST Ropeways lift in North America.  Manufactured in Germany, it will be a T-Bar for the Mittersill racing area which has an existing Doppelmayr CTEC double chair.  SkyTrac will be doing the installation.  LST Ropeways is owned by the MND Group which also owns Gazex (avalanche release systems) and Sufag (snowmaking systems) with a North American facility in Eagle, CO.
  • Leitner-Poma will re-engineer and modify towers on the Grey Mountain lift at Red Mountain, BC this fall.  The quad chair was built in 1992 at Alyeska and moved to Red in 2013.  The re-installation was done by Summit Lift Co. of Fernie, BC and the lift has 18 towers in its current configuration.  No word on the exact reason for the re-design.
  • The Camelot chair at Boyne Highlands is losing its vault drive terminal that is literally part of the ski area’s base lodge.  In its place will be a used CTEC drive terminal.  Does anyone know where it came from?
  • The Aspen Daily News reports on the all new High Alpine detachable quad at Snowmass.
  • Snow King debuted Doppelmayr’s new ‘Alpinstar’ terminal this summer and now Caberfae Peaks, MI will debut the ‘Ministar’ in 2016.  The new triple chair will replace the Clubhouse double which is a 1967 Hall.
  •  Developers are still trying to figure out how to get a new Lift 1A back into downtown Aspen like the original single chair.