- Snoqualmie’s Alpental and Summit West maps show new chairlifts in new alignments.
- Bear Valley’s 24-25 map shows the new Koala quad and Kuma shortened to become Cub.
- The new Pipestone Express hits Lake Louise’s map.
- Lost Valley shows off its first new lift since 1971.
- New legislation in Alberta I mentioned last week could revive Fortress Mountain.
- Doppelmayr publishes a fresh magazine issue.
- A nearby town is interested purchasing Eldora from Powdr.
- Alterra officially owns Arapahoe Basin.
- Snowhaven, Idaho may not open this season.
- Local leaders aren’t thrilled about the Forest Service’s proposal to only allow ticketed guests on the future Taos gondola.
- Human error is eyed in a French aerial tram crash that injured eight workers.
- A hearing is scheduled for next month re: Homewood’s revised master plan.
Bear Valley
Lift Upgrades Coming to Bear Valley
California Mountain Resort Company has revealed its first major capital projects at newly-acquired Bear Valley. In an email to passholders, Bear Valley explained the plan includes changes to four different lifts in the main base area, improving the experience for beginner and intermediate skiers. “We’ve got some major lift improvement projects lined up for this summer, and they’re going to completely transform the Bear Valley base area,” the mountain wrote.
First, the Koala double will be removed and replaced with a used fixed grip quad. Koala dates back to 1968 and the new machine is a 1992 Poma fixed grip quad recently removed from Taos, New Mexico. For the second project, the Kuma triple will be shortened from its original length to become a beginner lift with the top station moving downhill. Kuma hasn’t been needed in its current base-to-summit configuration since the parallel Mokelumne Express opened in 2017. As part of the Kuma project, the existing Cub double will be retired. That lift dates back to 1967 and will be made redundant by the shortened Kuma chair. Finally, the Super Cub double will receive new chairs that will be easier for beginners to load. This entire lift shuffle is expected to be completed this summer and will reduce the mountain’s fleet of of aging Riblet lifts from four to two. In addition to base area projects, Bear Valley also expects to complete significant summer grooming and lift repairs in Grizzly Bowl.
News Roundup: New Double Chair
- The private equity firm working to build a gondola in Idaho Springs, Colorado will reopen the Estes Park Tramway.
- A surveyor is spotted for that Idaho Springs gondola.
- Utah environmental groups seek to consolidate three lawsuits against the Little Cottonwood Gondola.
- Extell says three new lifts will open at Deer Valley next winter.
- Chicopee, Ontario looks toward lift upgrades.
- Hogadon, Wyoming closes the season early due to lift issues.
- Grizzly at Bear Valley, California suffers multiple breakdowns and closes for the season early.
- Long waits have Snowmass leaders asking for a Sky Cab “Skittles” pulse gondola replacement.
- ORDA commits $1.1 million for new grips on Gore Mountain’s Northwoods Gondola and $5 million to replace Little Whiteface with a new double chair in 2025.
- Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, South Carolina plans a detachable gondola across the Saluda River.
California Mountain Resorts Company Acquires Bear Valley
Canadian-Israeli investment firm Skyline has sold Bear Valley, its last remaining ski resort holding. The buyer is Invision Capital-backed California Mountain Resorts Company, the group behind Mountain High, Dodge Ridge and China Peak. CMRC CEO Karl Kapuscinski and President Tim Cohee have been pursuing Bear Valley for some time because it adds to a compelling group of California resorts up and down the Sierra Nevada range. Bear Valley will immediately join the multi-mountain Cali Pass but not the Indy Pass, which other CMRC mountains participate in. Tim Schimke, whose grandfather helped develop Bear Valley, will remain General Manager.
Located in the central Sierra, Bear Valley spans 1,680 acres with a 1,900 foot vertical drop. The mountain’s seven chairlifts range in age and capacity from 1967 Riblet doubles to the Mokelumne Express, a 2017 Leitner-Poma six pack. California Mountain Resorts Company has been actively consolidating and upgrading lifts at Dodge Ridge and China Peak and will likely undertake similar efforts at Bear Valley. Perhaps the biggest capital opportunity lies on the backside of the mountain, where a long-envisioned detachable lift could connect Bear Valley Village with the mountain’s summit. This area is currently skiable but with no return lift service. A shuttle bus runs skiers back up the mountain but costs extra on top of a lift ticket.
CMRC already unveiled a new logo for Bear Valley and indicated more improvements are coming. “The journey ahead is riddled with challenges, but I am optimistic, noted CMRC president Tim Cohee in a press release. “With the dedication of our team and Tim’s unparalleled leadership, we are poised to meet and surpass these challenges. Our goal remains steadfast: to revive and amplify the Bear Valley legacy for one and all.”
News Roundup: Busy Busy
- Ski Wentworth in Nova Scotia names its new Quad Cobequid after the local mountain range.
- The Seattle Times profiles this year’s turnaround at Stevens Pass.
- The Merrill Hill expansion opens at Sunday River after two years of construction.
- Bear Valley’s Grizzly chair is closed due to a deropement and four chairs being ejected from the haul rope (note: the description in the Instagram post is not accurate but the resort comments below the post.)
- A child is hospitalized after falling from a lift at Ski Sundown.
- Storm damage forces more comm line replacements at Sierra at Tahoe.
- Tenney Mountain to open next weekend for the first time since 2020.
- Big Squaw goes back up for sale.
- The oldest lift in Colorado will cease operations unless a new owner comes along.
- The Forest Service approves Waterville Valley’s World Cup/Exhibition T-Bar, though no construction timeline has been set.
- Former Big Sky/Crystal Mountain General Manager and prolific lift builder John Kircher dies at 64.
- Whitewater returns Silver King to service after a bullwheel bearing replacement.
- Crystal Mountain and Leitner-Poma work to reopen the Crystal Clipper this weekend.
- Deer Valley to launch Burns Express this afternoon.
- Doppelmayr pulls the haul rope for the new quad at Belle Neige (note: this lift was contracted with a February completion date.)
- Doppelmayr and Telluride still aren’t sure when Plunge Express will open.
- A misload causes a chair to get tangled in a terminal at Wolf Creek.
- A deropement leads to a rope evacuation at Crested Butte.
- Similar story at Brimacombe, Ontario.
- Whitefish rope evacuates the brand new Snow Ghost Express, says it had safety concerns that Leitner-Poma engineers are working to address.
- Palisades re-splices and reopens the new Red Dog Express.
- I’m told Bridger at Nordic Valley will miss the entire season due to a planned haul rope replacement.
- Aspen’s Silver Queen Gondola goes down due to a gearbox issue.
News Roundup: Valleys
- Bear Valley lists the Kuma triple for sale.
- Deer Valley plans to move the bottom terminals of Carpenter Express, Silver Lake Express and Snowflake downhill as part of Snow Park redevelopment. Space will also be saved for a possible Park City gondola link.
- Mayflower developers want to build build a signature lift linking to the Sultan pod at Deer Valley.
- Squaw Valley solicits the public’s help to rename the Squaw Creek triple. Squaw One Express is expected to be renamed separately in partnership with the Washoe Tribe.
- Hickory Ski Center, closed since 2005, says there’s a “strong possibility” of reopening this winter.
- Both Leitner-Poma of America and Doppelmayr Cable Car bid to build an automated people move in Kuala Lampur, though Bombardier is said to be the frontrunner.
- The Leitner portion of Cablebús Mexico City launches Sunday.
- A Grand Targhee expansion proposal faces more opposition in Teton Valley, Idaho, though the project would be located on federal land in Wyoming.
- Baldy Mountain Resort throws in the towel on summer due to British Columbia wildfires.
- Timberline Lodge will end ski season three weeks early due to snowmelt.
- Leitner opens a new production facility in Slovakia focused on tower and steel fabrication.
- Toggenburg’s lifts are indeed for sale.
- Victoria, Australia resorts shut down again due to coronavirus.
News Roundup: Firsts
- One of Doppelmayr’s largest customers will open its first Poma gondola on February 7th.
- Leitner lift with new Pininfarina terminal design launches in Austria.
- Woodward Park City faces not one but three appeals.
- After more than a year of delays and false starts, LST’s first detachable opens again in France.
- The Balsams eyes April gondola groundbreaking.
- Telluride quits the Mountain Collective to join the Epic Pass, bringing together 14 Vail Resorts-owned mountains with two partner resorts.
- Sugar Mountain settles with the family of a boy seriously injured after jumping from a stopped chairlift two hours after it closed.
- Georgetown-Rosslyn Gondola project inches forward.
- Ascutney Outdoors raises most of the money needed to install a used T-Bar this summer.
News Roundup: Storied
- The Eglise expansion at the Yellowstone Club looks like something straight out of Europe! Thanks Everett K. for the photos.
- The Alameda County Fair will debut a Skytrac skyride next year, the fourth such lift in California.
- Disney teases more Skyliner renderings and the first tower footings going in the ground are massive.
- Gearbox problem turns into a rope evac at Windham Mountain.
- Power surge blamed for a three hour evacuation at Sasquatch Mountain.
- Belleayre’s gondola proves itself from day one in subzero temperatures.
- If it can raise enough money, Frost Fire, North Dakota plans to build a Skytrac fixed-grip chairlift next summer to replace two broken lifts.
- A clearance issue needs to be resolved before Bear Valley can launch the Mokelumne Express.
- A mechanic dies while working on a carpet lift at Loveland and a GoFundMe page has been set up to support his widow and three children.
- With a “full pipeline,” Skytrac is hiring for construction positions.
- North Korea’s second ski resort reportedly includes lifts manufactured locally, a result of UN sanctions prohibiting the import of luxury goods.
- Silver Mountain celebrates a storied 50 years with a look back to construction of the world’s longest gondola, uniquely funded by federal, state and local governments along with VonRoll Tramways.
- As we enter prime time for lift construction announcements, keep track of the 2018 roster here.
News Roundup: Economies of Scale
- Poma wins monster $47.1 million contract for five lifts from the company that operates Val d’Isère, Tignes, Meribel, La Plagne and Les Arcs in France. Last year’s three-lift, $29.4 million contract from the same group went to Doppelmayr.
- An Australian teenager is lucky to be alive after doing pull ups on a moving chairlift cable.
- The inaugural gondola featuring Sigma’s Symphony 10 cabins debuts in Italy.
- Canton, Ohio looks at gondolas, calling them “transportainment.”
- Props to Bear Valley for frequent Moke Express updates.
- A judge sides with Monarch in lift unloading injury lawsuit.
- Following a workplace death and news that a major lift is out of service, confusion surrounds Sunrise Park Resort’s season, though new management and lifts could be on the way.
- Record-shattering aerial tramway with 6,381 feet of vertical and a 10,541′ free span opens in Germany a week from today.
- Connecticut’s Woodbury Ski Area might be gone for good.
- George Kruger of Ski Lifts Unlimited, instrumental in rebuilding lifts at Magic Mountain and beyond, passes away.
- Leitner-Poma is completing final assembly of a cool 25-passenger tramway at the upcoming Salesforce Tower in San Francisco.
News Roundup: Resources
- Amid zip line dispute, Peak Resorts threatens to close Hidden Valley, remove five chairlifts and sell the land to a residential developer.
- “I’m very confident we’re going to have new resources we haven’t had in previous years,” Steamboat COO says of Crown/KSL ownership. Deer Valley President and COO Bob Wheaton makes similar comments in Park City.
- Saddleback sale to Australian firm still hasn’t closed.
- Bear Valley’s six-pack looks great in green and now has a name: Mokelumne Express.
- Who says detachable terminals must be symmetrical? Leitner experiments in Europe.
- T-Bar area in Edmonton, Alberta shuts down.
- At the end of a tough year, Granby Ranch goes up for sale.
- New Heavenly trail map confirms Galaxy won’t spin again this season, leaving a big hole in Nevada.
- Epic Passes account for 43 percent of Vail Resorts revenue.
- New lifts at the Yellowstone Club get names: Eglise, Great Bear and Little Dipper. A few hundred families now enjoy the 14th largest lift fleet in the country.
Lift Blog 
