- Skier visits at Vail Resorts are down 7.8 percent for the season through January 5th, attributed to slow starts at Whistler Blackcomb and Stevens Pass.
- Agassiz at Arizona Snowbowl was evacuated over MLK weekend and remains down.
- Visits and revenue continue to decline at the publicly-owned mountain in Newfoundland called Marble Mountain.
- It takes a ton of work to reopen lifts, particularly detachable ones, at Mt. Snow after an ice storm.
- By building a T-Bar instead of a chairlift, Ski Cooper was able to implement a major expansion this season for around $2 million.
- Mont St. Mathieu opens another $2 million T-Bar expansion, noting a chairlift would have cost more and moved skiers less quickly.
- The Snowpark expansion at Montana Snowbowl is a hit and LaValle is back open.
- Software problems lead to the closure of the new Morning Star Express at Bogus Basin (now back open.)
- BC’s Jumbo Glacier becomes an indigenous protected area, ending plans for a new ski resort there.
- Vail Resorts will pay out $200 bonuses to employees who refer new applicants to become lift operators at 14 resorts.
- The State of Illinois shuts down a ski resort, alleging required inspections weren’t completed prior to opening. In a statement, Snowstar apologizes to season passholders and says an inspector failed to show up. At least one lift will reopen today.
- Parks Canada axes plans for a Mt. Norquay gondola.
- Josh Elliott, the teen who jumped after becoming stranded on a Sugar Mountain chairlift in 2016, tells his harrowing story on the Outside podcast.
- Mt. Jefferson, Maine won’t open this season.
- New York State plans to spend $147 million to improve its ski areas.
- Bromont ropes down more than 200 people from the Express du Village, some after being stuck four and a half hours.
- Edmonton releases the preliminary economic and technical assessment for the Prairie Sky urban gondola.
- Siemens highlights a design software partnership with Doppelmayr.
Bogus Basin
News Roundup: Alterra
- Neighbors aren’t happy about light and noise from Woodward Park City, though the new area was able to turn down the start alarm on the Hot Laps chairlift.
- Mt. Baldy in Thunder Bay, Ontario plans to buy a new quad chair for next season.
- The City of Durango considers whether building a new chairlift at Chapman Hill makes sense at an increasingly marginal elevation for natural snow.
- Spout Springs will remain closed this season and is still for sale.
- Mexico City begins work on Cablebús Line 2, a Leitner system with 7 stations, 308 cabins and 59 towers. (Line 1 is Doppelmayr and already under construction.)
- Seven people are injured and a gas station destroyed when a gondola haul rope being installed in Medellín, Colombia lets loose.
- Alterra closes on Sugarbush and Win Smith transitions from owner to employee.
- A French paraglider is lucky to survive being caught in a platter lift‘s haul rope.
- To address crowding concerns, Crystal Mountain eliminates walk up lift ticket sales on weekends and holidays, effective immediately. The resort will also no longer offer group discounts, gift card ticket redemptions or rental/ticket packages on weekends and holidays.
- New York State opens its newest gondola in Lake Placid, called the SkyRide.
- Geyser Holdings offers $4 million for the Hermitage Club and Boyne Resorts separately bids $3.6 million for the Barnstormer lift. An auction could be held next month.
- Skytrac’s Hilltrac people movers now feature Sigma cabins.
- Montana Snowbowl opens its Snow Park expansion for the first time.
- The owners of Perfect North Slopes plan to build at least one new top-to-bottom lift at newly-acquired Timberline, West Virginia this summer.
- The State of Maine postpones a decision on a loan guarantee related to the sale of Saddleback Mountain.
- A creditor claiming to be owed $62 million files to foreclose on Granby Ranch.
- Edmonton urban gondola backers release robust ridership projections.
- A gondola from Boise to Bogus Basin would be too long and cost too much to be practical.
News Roundup: Everybody’s Doing It
- Cockaigne, New York intends to reopen this winter after eight closed seasons.
- Red Mountain has a new lift, new trails and now a new trail map.
- A New Zealand bike park heads to court, accused of spreading flames by running its chairlift empty during a wildfire.
- Nearly a month after disaster struck, the Sea to Sky Gondola reopens its Basecamp Cafe, retail store and select hiking trails.
- A Peak Resorts investor sues to stop the sale of the company to Vail.
- Wisconsin lost ski area Deepwood may reopen as WoodWind Park.
- The chairlift at the Nebraska State Fair breaks down and gets evacuated.
- Steamboat’s new gondola will have Wi-Fi.
- Aspen Snowmass offers numbers on Ikon Pass lift line impacts.
- Highlander Lift Services & Construction partners with Timberline Helicopters to fly towers for two new Idaho lifts in two days.
- Alterra, Oz Real Estate, Pacific Group and Snow Operating have all reportedly been interested in Jay Peak.
- Jay celebrates the successful replacement of over 20,000 pieces of tram hardware.
- Treeline Cirque at Alpine Meadows is shaping up to be one cool lift but I don’t think it will have the first double grooved bullwheel angle station in the U.S.
- Green Mountain Valley School looks to replace its platter lift at Sugarbush with a $1.4 million T-Bar in an extended alignment.
News Roundup: Italian American
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- The Edmonton Ski Club and its Mueller T-Bar will reopen this winter following a one year hiatus.
- The developer of Big Snow America is so confident in the American Dream project that it offered the Mall of America and West Edmonton Mall as collateral to secure a $2.8 billion construction loan.
- Investors and Berkshire Bank battle over whose claim to the Hermitage six pack should take precedent.
- The White River National Forest extends public commenting for the Breck Peak 7 Infill chairlift project to September 1st.
- The Forest Service approved Aspen Mountain’s Pandora expansion awhile ago but the county still needs to approve necessary zoning.
- SilverStar adds 24 hour security, surveillance cameras and enhanced line checks in the wake of the Sea to Sky Gondola downing.
- TransLink’s CEO says the proposed Burnaby Mountain tricable gondola would be less susceptible to such an attack.
- Grouse Mountain gives all Sea to Sky Gondola passholders free lift access through November 30th.
- S2S cleanup will take awhile and trails remain closed for public safety.
- Swiss manufacturer Bartholet shows it’s possible to build a new fixed quad in just three weeks.
- Jaegerndorfer now exports Omega V cabins in miniature form to the United States.
- Aspen Snowmass will add chairs to lifts at Highlands and Snowmass to address Ikon Pass crowding concerns.
- Skytrac will manufacture towers for and install the new Leitner T-Bar at Ski Cooper.
- This profile demonstrates why the Kaiser S2 excavator is so popular for ski lift construction.
- MND Group, owner of LST Ropeways, says it has resolved “financial difficulties” by reorganizing its debt.
- Doppelmayr names Jürgen Pichler its new global marketing chief.
- It looks like Sunday River’s Locke Mountain triple will gain a tower or two thanks to the new T-Bar that crosses under it.
- Arctaris Impact Fund hosts a community meeting and announces its intention to close on the purchase of Saddleback come early November.
- Big Sky and Loon Mountain will launch the world’s first dual frequency RFID lift access system in partnership with Axess.
- With a new detachable quad under construction, Bogus Basin caps a five year turnaround.
- Alpine Media display screens will go live on more chairs this winter.
- Big Burn at Snowmass may be replaced with a bubble lift.
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News Roundup: More Towers
- MND Group subsidiary LST will build its third US ropeway this summer, a T-Bar replacing this Hall one in McCall, Idaho.
- Copper confirms the new American Flyer will get more towers to “support and optimize” the lift.
- This incredible timelapse of the longest lift in the world gets a lot of attention on Reddit.
- US skiers and snowboarders came out 59.1 million times this season, a nearly 11 percent increase over 2017-18 and the fourth best participation ever.
- The National Ski Areas Association launches a charitable foundation to grant money to resort employees to attend conferences such as LMS and RMLA.
- West Virginia’s closed Timberline Four Seasons Resort files for bankruptcy.
- A Vermont sheriff can no longer find Hermitage Club founder Jim Barnes to serve him with legal papers related to the ski resort’s closure.
- In Serbia, Poma will realize the longest gondola in the world at 5.6 miles in two sections.
- The year round, high speed quad-served bike park experiment in New Zealand gets a $3.3 million government bailout to keep operating.
- If you want a retired Steamboat Gondola cabin, Sunshine Polishing is acquiring 105 of them.
- Bogus Basin’s old Riblet chairs are selling for an average price of $1,775 apiece.
News Roundup: 3S
- An affiliate of Silver Mountain buys 49 Degrees North.
- A citizen group wants the Colorado Passenger Tramway Safety Board to regulate lift operations more broadly than the current mechanical focus.
- Bogus Basin will auction a bunch of Riblet triple chairs beginning Sunday.
- The Disney Skyliner is not a normal gondola and will be evacuated as such in an emergency.
- Steamboat already has a gondola construction update.
- So does Bretton Woods.
- A guy accused of ducking ropes around a chairlift terminal at Killington is charged with disorderly conduct.
- Whistler Blackcomb will open some of the same lifts for both skiers and mountain bikers for the first time this spring.
- The Forest Service gives its blessing to the Eldora Jolly Jug expansion and high speed lift.
- Doppelmayr USA is on Facebook.
- Vail Resorts reports a fantastic season with skier visits, lift ticket revenue, retail, ski school and dining all up between 6.2 and 9.3 percent through April 21st.
- The Los Angeles Dodger Stadium 3S is headed to environmental review.
- Poma’s 3S project in China is going to have an insane 5,775 people per hour capacity.
- CWA teases its soon-to-debut 3S cabin.
Bogus Basin to Add Fourth High Speed Quad
Make it an even six new lifts slated for construction across the great state of Idaho this year. Bogus Basin announced today it will replace the Morning Star triple with a 3,100 foot detachable quad chair from Doppelmayr USA in time for next winter. Capacity will increase and ride time will quicken dramatically to just over three minutes. The Morning Star Express will rise approximately 625 vertical feet and service a variety of tails from beginner to expert.
“We are really excited about an improvement that will have a tremendous impact on the flow of guests throughout the area in winter and summer,” said Kevin Settles, Bogus Basin board chairman in a press release. “The community has been incredibly supportive of the changes that have happened at Bogus Basin over the past three years, all of which are part of a comprehensive master plan.” Bogus is the largest 501(c)3 nonprofit ski area in the country and operates a fleet of seven chairlifts on 2,600 acres. Expect the $5 million lift to open some time in December.
News Roundup: Inaugural
- The Aspen Times dives deep into lifty life.
- President of Peru inaugurates long Poma gondola to an ancient fortress.
- Mi Teleférico’s $75 million Blue line moved 41,000 passengers on opening day Friday.
- Mt. Lemmon’s main chairlift has been closed all season following tree damage from an early-season storm.
- Galaxy at Heavenly and High Country at Waterville Valley also see extended downtime.
- Emirates Air Line to close for annual week of maintenance.
- The most powerful man in skiing isn’t sold on bubble chairs (plus many other insights from Vail Resorts.)
- Whistler Blackcomb, Jackson Hole and Big Sky make CNN’s most extreme lifts.
- New Zealand’s first chondola on track to open this year.
- Permit filed Monday shows another probable station for rumored five-stage Disney World gondola system (updated potential alignment here.)
- Doppelmayr gets underway building the new Gatlinburg Sky Lift; aggressive timeline shoots for late April opening. Leitner-Poma is building a chondola across the street.
- Two-stage gondola in one of the world’s oldest cities looking more likely.
- Two skiers injured in fall after tree hits their gondola cabin.
- 130 rope evacuated after Italian chairlift de-ropes in crazy winds.
- Snowbasin and Sugarbush join the Mountain Collective, former member Whistler-Blackcomb goes Epic with Stowe to follow.
- Bogus Basin plans to replace Morning Star…in 2020.
News Roundup: New Manufacturer?
- Brian Hepler wants to start a ski lift manufacturing business that builds exclusively double chairlifts for Midwestern mountains under the name Sno Technology.
- Skytrac built a custom Skyride in Sacramento this spring that proved extremely popular during the California State Fair.
- The Poma/Sigma-built British Airways i360 observation tower opens tomorrow.
- Whaleback completes a $100,000 capital campaign to install a West Side T-Bar this fall.
- Nicholas Clesceri, VP of Maintenance at the Palm Springs Tramway and owner of NJC Advisers talks tram maintenance, rime ice and urban ropeways.
- The initial section of the first detachable in the Caribbean will open in the first quarter of 2017.
- Check out photos and video of a four-section system with two haul ropes, glass-floor cabins and Leitner Ropeways’ first gondola aligned in the shape of a triangle, set to open this month at a nature park in Spain.
- Two mechanics were airlifted from Bogus Basin Monday after falling from the Showcase lift while performing line work. Please keep them in your thoughts.
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