- A new park map shows where Legoland New York’s gondola will go.
- A skiing preview of Deer Valley Expanded Excellence.
- The Colorado Sun embeds with departments who work all night to make Winter Park run.
- Afton Alps removes Chair 18 to make way for a tube park.
- Vail Resorts reports season-to-date skier visits are down 9.7 percent and lowers earnings guidance.
- From the classifieds: a 1987 Poma Quad for sale.
- Doppelmayr assumes patents needed for Autonomous Ropeway Operation (AURO) installations in the USA.
- Kimberley, BC files a new master plan.
- MND to make an announcement on April 16th.
- Upon learning of a young guest named Reid with a phobia of chairlifts, Stevens Pass staff spring into action, giving him a full day tour of mountain operations and making him an honorary lift operator.
- Red Lodge Mountain closes the Cole Creek quad due to a component failure within the lift terminal structure.
- A high speed quad is rope evacuated at Burke Mountain.
- Flat Top Flyer at Powderhorn remains closed awaiting delivery of parts.
- Sugarloaf closes King Pine for whatever this “mechanical problem” is.
- Guests were stuck on Blackcomb’s new gondola for hours yesterday.
- The OITAF World Congress for Ropeways is coming to Vancouver June 17-21.
- Leitner has reportedly paid more than $16 million in settlements to families of victims of the 2021 Stresa-Mottarone tram disaster.
- A D-Line gondola in Austria will run entirely on solar energy produced on site this summer.
- Grouse Mountain provides a gondola construction update.
- A raccoon rides Sugarbush’s Village quad.
- Costs double for the proposed gondola-served transit center at Steamboat.
- Also at Steamboat, Leitner-Poma appears to have won the contract to replace Sunshine Express.
- Leitner-Poma also appears to have upcoming projects at Big Bear Mountain Resort, Snowbasin and Wasatch Peaks Ranch.
- Chapman Hill will replace its main rope tow with a Leitner-Poma platter.
- Wachusett nears a decision to replace Polar Express with a six pack.
- The Town of Alta passes a resolution opposing the Little Cottonwood Canyon gondola.
- Red River shares renderings of its upcoming Copper Chair, will sell retiring Riblet chairs.
Burke Mountain
News Roundup: Changing Hands
- Vancouver’s transit authority begins the station design process for the Burnaby Mountain Gondola.
- Three Park City residents who own Pacific Group Resorts expect to close on Jay Peak next month.
- Burke Mountain may also soon be sold.
- Arapahoe Basin creates a podcast episode all about Lenawee Express construction.
- A Basin also explains why a big drop in skier visits is a good thing.
- Energy prices where many of the world’s lifts are operated and manufactured could spike eight fold this winter.
- Eaglecrest’s new gondola arrives in Alaska.
- Sugar Bowl joins the Mountain Collective.
- Hunter Mountain will sell chairs from the Z Lift next week.
- A thousand page report outlines negligence and poor management leading to deaths of 14 people on an Italian tramway last year.
- Dry Hill, New York gets new owners.
- The top station building for a 125 passenger aerial tramway partially burns in Switzerland.
- The Forest Service seeks public comments on Copper Mountain’s proposed Timberline six pack.
- The General Manager of Whitecap Mountains, Wisconsin assumes full ownership.
- A new neighborhood adjacent to Mayflower Mountain Resort will feature its own chairlift.
- Mt. Bachelor’s new Skyliner six pack will be D-Line.
- Loveland and Lookout Pass fly lift towers into place.
- British Columbia determines a volunteer ski patroller injured in a chairlift de-ropement is eligible for worker’s compensation.
- Leitner wins a four station urban gondola contract in Colombia.
- Here are some official and unofficial updates on the Palisades Tahoe Base-to-Base Gondola.
- Also an update on Thunder from Jackson Hole:
News Roundup: Hurdles
- Four people file appeals seeking to halt construction of Park City’s new lifts.
- Doppelmayr, Poma and Leitner all release annual brochures featuring lifts built last year.
- The former owner of Jay Peak and Burke Mountain is sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay $8.3 million in restitution.
- The Tenney Mountain property is sold.
- Grouse Mountain formally applies for a development permit to build a new gondola.
- West Mountain looks to break ground in 2023 on a $140 million real estate project which includes a high speed quad.
- Whistler’s chair and gondola sale is live now.
- Heavenly to sell North Bowl triple chairs beginning today (update: the sale has been postponed for unspecified reasons.)
- With multiple projects in planning, Canada may beat the United States to the urban gondola party.
- Maine’s Quoggy Jo loses key funding.
- A preliminary timeline for the Timberline Lodge gondola construction: 2028.
- Juneau will spend $845,000 to transport the used 15 passenger gondola it purchased for Eaglecrest, more than double an initial estimate.
- Mount Roberts Tramway operator Goldbelt downplays its involvement in the Eaglecrest gondola project.
- Preliminary lift work begins begins at Mayflower.
- In case you missed Doppelmayr Insights, here’s a replay.
- Bartholet prepares to build Flem Xpress, the first Ropetaxi with autonomous gondolas and multi-station selection.
- Big Snow is on track to reopen May 27th.
- County officials approve Mt. Shasta’s Gray Butte expansion and construction begins.
News Roundup: Formal Proposal
- Sierra at Tahoe reports more fire damage than initially thought with a large amount of vegetation burned, six lifts damaged and a vehicle maintenance shop lost.
- A GoFundMe has been established to support Sierra at Tahoe employees who lost personal property in the Caldor Fire.
- Jay Peak is “actively engaged” with multiple potential buyers and reports improving finances, though both Jay and Burke Mountain both still operate in the red.
- Sunday River will spin the new Merrill Hill triple select days this season with a full opening pushed to winter 2022-23.
- With a new lift on the way, Kelly Canyon begins disassembling the Stony Mountain double.
- A vaccine requirement for indoor entertainment venues in British Columbia won’t apply to gondolas.
- Also in BC, the Zincton formal proposal is out and includes five chairlifts plus a gondola.
- The New York Times does a feature story on green urban transportation including gondolas.
- James Niehues announces his retirement from trail maps though he will continue painting.
- Catamount continues construction on two new quad chairs, one of which will start out as a triple.
- Skytrac flies towers at Howelsen Hill.
- Snow King Mountain enters the home stretch on a $20 million summer and looks for public help to name new lifts.
- Speaking of Snow King, towers went up last weekend for both lifts.
News Roundup: Last Chance
- Massanutten takes down its Borvig J-Bar.
- Breckenridge posts a Freedom SuperChair progress report along with a new trail map.
- The Atlantic Gondola carries its first passengers in Nova Scotia.
- Kicking Horse shows how it feeds a captive grizzly bear by throwing food from the Golden Eagle Express.
- Heavenly ends summer operations early due to smoke and fire danger.
- The Caldor Fire threatens both Sierra at Tahoe and Kirkwood.
- Alta Sierra narrowly escapes being burned by a different fire.
- Environmentalists use balloons to demonstrate their opposition to gondola cabins and towers in Little Cottonwood Canyon. The last chance to comment on the gondola proposal is September 3rd.
- All remaining resorts in Australia and New Zealand close due to Covid and operators are devastated.
- Highlander Lift Services & Construction is hiring team members to help build the first two lifts at Utah’s Wasatch Peaks Ranch.
- Michigan’s Alpine Valley is under new ownership, widely rumored to be Wisconsin Resorts Inc., though I have been unable to independently confirm that.
- Holiday Valley makes progress on its self-installation of a new Doppelmayr detachable.
- A new lawsuit alleges the State of Vermont knew about and failed to protect investors from the fraud at Burke Mountain.
- County planners recommend rejection of the Pandora’s expansion proposal on Aspen Mountain.
- Parks Canada again says no to a Banff-Norquay gondola.
- The Forest Service seeks public comments on Whitefish Mountain Resort’s Chair 4 replacement project.
News Roundup: Full Steam Ahead
- Steamboat shares a timeline for the Wild Blue Gondola project, relocation of the Christie Peak Express base terminal, Pioneer Ridge construction and Greenhorn Ranch.
- Utah breaks its all time visit record despite the pandemic and a drought.
- Marshall Mountain is now set to sell to a group intending to maintain public access.
- The former owner of Jay Peak and current operator of six Quebec ski resorts agrees to pay the Vermont ski area $100,000 without admitting any wrongdoing.
- Mayflower Mountain Resort breaks ground, sort of.
- We now know where Kelly Canyon’s new Skytrac triple will go.
- The Indy Pass will announce its 67th and 68th resort partners next week.
- Purgatory permits mountain bikers to shuttle themselves in private vehicles while Lift 1 undergoes repairs in June and July.
- Aspen invests over a million dollars to replace the haul rope on the Silver Queen Gondola.
- The Stresa-Mottarone tram disaster was captured by two surveillance cameras. Caution, the footage is very disturbing to watch.
- Progress continues on the Squaw-Alpine Base to Base Gondola.
News Roundup: Chairless
- Wildcat plans to replace the chairs on the Wildcat Express.
- Jay Peak and Burke Mountain could receive more than $9 million under a proposed settlement with the law firm of former owner Ariel Quiros.
- Here’s another chance to own a classic double chair.
- Mayflower Mountain Resort secures up to $260 million in bond financing.
- Catamount’s second new lift this year will replace the last SLI in the Northeast.
- The United States tallies 59 million skier visits in 2020-21, 5th most in history.
- Aspen Snowmass had a tough season with traffic 20 percent below average.
- Digging into the unsolved Sea to Sky Gondola crimes.
- Two Disney Skyliner cars bump into each other, causing some down time.
- Vail Resorts reports strong earnings, continues to look at strategic acquisition opportunities and will be aggressive at reinvesting across its resorts post-pandemic.
- Arizona Snowbowl converts the Arizona Gondola combination lift into a pure gondola for the summer.
- The bike park at Purgatory will open many weeks late due to an unspecified problem with the Purgatory Village Express.
- Doppelmayr releases a 30 page urban brochure.
- France may provide the financing for a six station, 180 cabin urban gondola in the Filipino capital of Manila.
News Roundup: 2020 and Beyond
- A dozen years after closing, North Carolina’s Hawksnest lists two Hall doubles for sale.
- As it attempts to lower its tax bill, Jay Peak reveals it received several non-binding offers ranging from $38 million to $70 million.
- Burke Mountain argues it’s worth only $11.2 million, citing seven figure losses each of the last three years.
- Wachusett will sell four different sessions this winter rather than day and night tickets.
- Garibaldi at Squamish now plans to break ground in 2023 and spin lifts circa 2027.
- For the second time in a year, the tram in Juneau, Alaska has a new name: Goldbelt Tram.
- An American visitor caught riding the Banff Gondola faces a CA$750,000 fine.
- Not good: a paraglider gets tangled up in a chair.
- Sugarloaf reiterates its commitment to West Mountain, which will include a lengthy detachable lift.
- Holimont plans to eventually move Chipmunk, replace Sunset and build a new lift on WestMont Ridge.
- Maine’s closed Eaton Mountain becomes a non-profit and will aggressively seek funding for a new chairlift.
- Park City won’t be seeing gondola transit any time soon.
- Nitehawk’s only chairlift will remain out of service for the entire 2020-21 season following last spring’s landslide.
- Elk Mountain has not been sold.
- North America’s 2019-20 ski season will come to an end August 30th.
- Sunday River plans to build the Merrill Hill lift in 2022.
- Quebec-based Samson Industries, which built more than 100 ski lifts, calls it quits after 160 years.
- What was supposed to be New Zealand’s first 10 passenger Doppelmayr gondola will sit in shipping containers until tourism recovers.
- Big Sky and Doppelmayr get to work on Swift Current 6 (shown below.)
News Roundup: Skier Days
- After missing last season, Mt. Timothy gears up to reopen under new ownership.
- Tariffs on imported Canadian and Mexican steel and aluminum are history as of last weekend.
- The “Balsams Bill” becomes law in New Hampshire.
- Creditors seek an involuntary Chapter 7 bankruptcy of the Hermitage Club.
- Jackson Hole wants to increase clearance under the aerial tramway for big snow years.
- The first indoor chairlift in America should finally open this fall in New Jersey.
- Utah crushes its previous skier visit record, hosting more than five million skiers for the first time in history.
- Jay Peak and Burke Mountain’s former owner and ex-CEO are indicted by a federal grand jury on 14 counts.
- As of April 30th, 26 potential Jay Peak buyers had signed non-disclosure agreements. The resort says revenue was up 4 percent this season, skier visits increased 3.5 percent and room nights shot up 11 percent.
- Burke Mountain is still losing money but revenue increased by 26 percent this season, skier visits were up 20 percent and room nights 47 percent.
- With the Forest Service’s blessing, Ski Cooper embarks on adding 71 acres and a Leitner-Poma T-Bar for next season.
- The Poma-built urban cable car in the Dominican Republic capital transported over four million passengers in its first year.
- Mexico City’s transportation authority rejects all three Cablebus bids from Leitner, Bartholet and Doppelmayr.
- A Loveland, Colorado developer still wants to build a gondola as part of an amusement complex.
- The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority selects Elon Musk’s Boring Company to build a new people mover over Doppelmayr.
- Still no opening date for the Disney Skyliner but gondola merchandise has arrived.
- In a few years, you may be able to ride twin tramways between Russia and China with immigration and customs facilities at each end.
News Roundup: Dedication
- Stowe rope evacuates 160 people from the Lookout double.
- The New Hampshire Union Leader runs a well-researched story on lift evacuations.
- Doppelmayr Cable Car is the contracted maintenance provider for the Disney Skyliner and is now hiring for multiple positions.
- Two years after the death of Kelly Huber at Granby Ranch, changes are still being considered.
- The new lift to Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park will have a new name when it opens in March: Glenwood Gondola.
- Magic gains approval to build the Black Line quad lift.
- A proposed settlement could see the Hermitage Club parent company give control of the Barnstormer chairlift to the investors who bought it.
- Pajarito reopens one of two chairlifts which became inoperable over a month ago.
- A gondola window falls hundreds of feet and nearly injures a farmer working below in Taiwan.
- The one year old T-Bar at Burke Mountain is now the D-Bar, named in honor of longtime supporter Don Graham. Mr. Graham once saved the mountain from closure, covered years of operating losses and personally financed half of the Mid Burke Express.
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