- Wolf Creek opens tomorrow, Arapahoe Basin Sunday.
- Carrabassett Valley Academy looks to build a T-Bar at Sugarloaf next summer for race training.
- Powdr plans to operate Fast Tracks express lanes at 31 Copper Mountain, Killington, Mt. Bachelor and Snowbird lifts.
- Bogus Basin eyes an expansion to meet rising demand.
- A map shows Sunday River’s Merrill Hill may eventually include a second lift.
- Lots of new trail maps are out: Big White, Crested Butte, Devil’s Head, Keystone, Snow King front and back.
- Under construction Wasatch Peaks Ranch faces a legal challenge.
- The latest Mayflower schedule has the first lift in 2023 with more to follow in ’24.
- Bromley spends over a million dollars upgrading the Sun Mountain Express.
- After four months of work, the Jackson Hole Aerial Tram is back in action.
- Whitefish Mountain Resort previews next summer’s big six pack project.
- A sobering fire update from Sierra at Tahoe acknowledges big challenges and uncertainty surrounding this season.
- Massanutten will build its first detachable quad in 2023, replacing Lift 6.
- The Chamonix Grand Montets cable car, destroyed by fire in 2018, will be replaced with a €110 million 3S gondola featuring stations designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano.
- MMG Equity Partners takes full ownership of Tamarack Resort, buying out two other shareholders.
- Incoming Vail Resorts CEO Kirsten Lynch says lift capacity and speed are key to managing crowding.
Bromley
News Roundup: Season Pass Season
- The man who died on a Vail chairlift two weeks ago did not fall through a flipped up seat as initially believed.
- A key parcel between Deer Valley’s Snow Park and Silver Lake villages won’t include a gondola.
- The multi-stage gondola taking shape near Puerto Vallarta will feature angle stations and very tall towers in a tropical paradise.
- A ski area on Prince Edward Island closes due to lift problems.
- The Ascutney Outdoors model proves promising where a for-profit, high speed quad model failed.
- Arizona Snowbowl inches closer to reopening its summit lift.
- Alaska’s new ski area trying to get off the ground needs more money.
- The chairlift at Great Bear derails and gets rope evacuated.
- There was an evac at Swiss Valley the same day.
- Here are details on the upcoming Hermitage auction including removal deadlines, the proposed asset purchase agreement with Boyne and the original lift quote.
- Sugarloaf’s General Manager and VP of Mountain Operations join WSKI TV to break down Sugarloaf 2030 and plans for a D-Line lift.
- The Payette Lakes Ski Club begins fundraising to replace a 50 year old T-Bar.
- Woodward Park City visitation has been about as expected during the inaugural season.
- A child is injured in a fall from Northstar’s Vista Express.
- The City of Steamboat plans to sign with Doppelmayr for the new Barrows quad at Howelsen Hill.
- Wisconsin’s Christie Mountain is for sale.
- Inc. profiles two entrepreneurial owners pressing on independently at Wyoming’s two largest ski resorts.
- The Forest Service releases its Draft Environmental Assessment for Mission Ridge’s proposed expansion, which would include two two new quad chairs and two pulse gondolas.
- Jägerndorfer’s 2020 collection features the largest number of lift models ever.
- A man is critically injured in a fall from the Purgatory Village Express.
- Testing and analysis continues at Mont-Sainte-Anne. One of those injured last week tells his story.
- Two new products join the Ikon Pass lineup for 20/21. Stratton and Sugarbush will go unlimited while Aspen and Jackson Hole will be more restricted.
News Roundup: Outage
- Aspen Mountain 1A stakeholders narrow replacement options to a few alignments with a two-stage lift or pulse gondola still in the mix.
- Crystal Mountain, WA retires its hand-painted trail map for a computer-rendered VistaMap.
- Antelope Butte, Wyoming inches closer to reopening with its two existing Riblet chairlifts.
- Local paper tells the story of how Borvig’s owner came to own Berthoud Pass.
- Breckenridge and Vail debut new Leitner-Poma six-place lifts.
- A power outage closes Sugarloaf on the always-busy day after Christmas.
- Two different New Hampshire ski areas remain closed due to problems with lifts.
- LST detachable lift number one is still undergoing testing in France with opening now planned for January.
- Bromley’s Sun Mountain Express is back in action today following Monday’s incident. Ironically, it’s currently on wind hold.
Wind Damages Lift, Leads to Christmas Evacuation at Bromley
None of the 115 skiers and snowboarders riding the Sun Mountain Express at Bromley Mountain, Vermont were injured yesterday despite a serious wind-related incident. The Burlington Free Press reports a gust caused at least one empty chair to contact a communications line while the lift was moving. “The cable snagged a grip on an empty chair, derailing it and causing the lift to stop,” the paper wrote. It’s not clear from the article whether the snagged grip and chair remained on the haul rope. Bromley’s Assistant General Manager Michael van Eyck commented to the media, “a super high 20 or 25 second burst of wind” led to the accident. “The winds were not predicted to be that high,” he noted. A rope evacuation was initiated following the deropement, which took two and a third hours to complete.
The Sun Mountain Express is a mile-long detachable quad featuring torsion grips built in 1997. The Doppelmayr lift services the vast majority of Bromley’s terrain and remained closed the rest of Christmas Day and this morning. The mountain’s snow report currently reads: “the Sun Mountain Express will be on a delayed opening schedule today, while it undergoes some maintenance. Stay tuned for updates on its projected opening time, but our lift crew is working hard and should have it up and running by this afternoon.” Poor Bromley also lost its primary snowmaking pump house to fire just ten days ago. The family-focused ski area is owned by the Fairbank Group, which also operates Jiminy Peak, Massachusetts and Cranmore, New Hampshire.
Lift Blog 
