Construction has already begun on Sun Peaks Resort’s third new chairlift in six years, the West Bowl Express. The CA$12 million Doppelmayr detachable quad will replace the retired West Bowl T-Bar in a much longer alignment and open in late 2024. West Bowl Express will service approximately 1,000 vertical feet with nearly a mile of slope length in the high alpine. “Sun Peaks continues to evolve and this significant new lift infrastructure will diversify the experience in an important pod of terrain in the resort,” noted Darcy Alexander, Sun Peaks Resort Vice President and General Manager. “Guests will have additional trails and vertical to explore with the convenience and efficiency of detachable lift technology.”
We are pleased to announce that a brand-new, high speed detachable quad chairlift will open in the West Bowl for the 2024-25 winter season! Read the full announcement: https://t.co/cgusCWljtXpic.twitter.com/z4LKDJ9m5I
Preliminary site work is already finalized and foundations will follow this summer with steel installation commencing in 2024. When the project is complete next November, Sun Peaks will operate a 100 percent Doppelmayr fleet with eight quad chairlifts and two surface platters.
Doppelmayr will build the first D-Line lift in Utah this summer, a six pack replacing the aging Crest Express at Brighton Resort. In typical Boyne Resorts fashion, the replacement lift will feature 90 degree loading with a conveyor and video screen. Riders will enjoy a 5.3 minute ride time with an hourly capacity of 2,400 skiers per hour. In the summer, Crest will serve mountain bikers with three Bike Clips on each chair. The lift won’t have bubbles or heated seats.
Brighton also announced construction of a new mid-mountain restaurant and implementation of a parking reservation system for next season.
Crest 6 is the 9th new lift project announced by Brighton owner Boyne Resorts for the 2023/24 ski season. Construction is expected to begin in May.
As part of its quarterly earnings report, Vail Resorts today announced one of its big ticket capital projects will be delayed due to lift manufacturer installation capacity. While work will begin this month on the planned Fitzsimmons 8 project, the Jersey Cream six passenger lift installation has been postponed to 2024. Both new lifts were slated to replace aging high speed quads. “Doppelmayr Canada has informed Vail Resorts that they cannot install both lifts this summer due to their labor and resource constraints,” said Vail in a statement. While equipment for both Fitzsimmons and Jersey Cream is coming largely from two postponed projects in Park City, the biggest constraint manufacturers face right now is installation capacity. Capital saved from the Jersey Cream postponement will instead be allocated toward accelerating Vail Resorts’ investment in its gear rental business.
The Fitzsimmons 8 project proceeding this summer will become the first eight seat chairlift in Canada along with the recently announced Adventure 8 at Mount St. Louis Moonstone, Ontario. “We are committed to working closely with Doppelmayr to ensure that the construction, installation, and testing of Fitz moves ahead safely as planned,” said Whistler Blackcomb, noting that preliminary work for Jersey Cream would also proceed this year. Vail is also adding new lifts at Attitash, Breckenridge, Keystone and Stevens Pass this offseason.
A new quad chair is coming to Mt. Seymour, British Columbia, replacing the mountain’s 1985 Mueller double. Doppelmayr Canada will build the Lodge Chair 2.0, a 160 horsepower fixed grip quad with seven towers and 44 chairs. The new lift will transport 1,600 skiers per hour, a 70 percent increase over the current double.
A loading conveyor with automatic gates should allow the lift to run 2.3 meters per second with a ride time of just 3.2 minutes. The lift will become the second modern Doppelmayr chair on the mountain and is expected to debut for the 2023/24 ski season.
Ontario’s Mount St. Louis Moonstone has ordered a first-of-its-kind chairlift to replace the aging Adventure Express. The groundbreaking Adventure 8 will feature a unique L-shaped Doppelmayr D-Line terminal with 90 degree loading and a massive 4,250 passenger per hour capacity. It will travel from the Moonstone base lodge to the Moonstone summit. The lift will also feature a direct drive, loading conveyor and heated seats. Together with Whistler Blackcomb’s Fitzsimmons 8 project, Doppelmayr will build Canada’s first two eight place chairlifts simultaneously in the East and West. This is also the first time in North America a six passenger chairlift will be upgraded to a larger lift.
Family-operated Mount St. Louis Moonstone is known for investing heavily in lift and snowmaking technology with a fleet of four six passenger chairlifts already on the mountain. “My family remains dedicated to providing the finest skiing and snowboarding experience in Ontario,” said General Manager Robert Huter. “This advancement helps guests spend more time on the slopes and less time waiting in a lift line.”
Just hours after announcing a new lift project on Merrill Hill, Sunday River Resort this afternoon unveiled plans for a much larger machine replacing the Barker Mountain Express. When it debuts next season, Barker 6 will be among the fastest lifts in North America, featuring D-Line technology, bubbles, heated seats and a direct drive. With Jordan 8 in Jordan Bowl and Barker 6 on Barker Mountain, Sunday River will become the only resort in Eastern North America with two flagship D-Line bubble lifts. Barker 6’s chairs and terminals will closely match Jordan 8 but in six passenger gauge.
Few skiers will miss the current Barker quad, a Yan-Poma frankenlift first constructed in 1987. Over the years that machine became known for extended breakdowns and was frequently lampooned on the internet. Barker 6 will be everything Barker 4 wasn’t with 63 ergonomically designed chairs and a 4.5 minute ride time at six meters per second. Each chair will weigh nearly a ton and come with a Sunday River red bubble. The lift will transport up to 3,250 skiers per hour up Barker Mountain with 13 towers.
Doppelmayr will construct the Merrill Hill II and Barker 6 lifts simultaneously this summer and both are expected to open for the 2023-24 ski season. “The recent opening of the Jordan 8, the announcement of Barker 6, coupled with dramatic snowmaking system investments and the addition of a second Merrill Hill lift, all represent big next steps in Sunday River’s 2030 Plan,” said Sunday River President Dana Bullen.
Today’s news continues an extraordinary streak of investment by Boyne Resorts that started in earnest with Ramcharger 8, the first eight place chairlift in the Americas at Big Sky in 2018. After a brief Covid pause, a similar project debuted at Loon Mountain in 2021 and this season Boyne debuted the first D-Line in the midwest and the first eight place lift in Maine with Jordan 8. The 2023 construction season will prove even bigger for Boyne and Doppelmayr with D-Line bubble lifts going in at Sunday River and The Highlands, a brand new tram at Big Sky and terrain expansions with new lifts at Sunday River, Loon Mountain and Sugarloaf. With additional projects at Boyne Mountain and others in the pipeline, the third largest North American resort operator will likely invest significantly more than larger rivals Alterra and Vail Resorts this offseason. Next winter Boyne will operate half of all the D-Line lifts at North American ski areas and 100 percent of eight place chairlifts in the United States.
Sunday River Resort will get another boost next winter with the addition of a second chairlift on Merrill Hill. The first Merrill lift debuted just weeks ago and connects the South Ridge base area to the hill’s summit, where a few ski-in, ski-out homesites remain for sale. The next new Doppelmayr fixed grip triple in this section of the resort will service steeper trails on the back side with a vertical rise of 495 feet over a 1,963 foot slope length. Sunday River says the four minute lift ride will not only service new real estate but also access newly cut runs with sweeping views. The move also sets the stage for future expansion into the Western Reserve beyond Jordan Bowl.
Merrill Hill 2 will be at least the fourth new lift in five years for Sunday River. In addition to the first Merrill Hill triple, Sunday River debuted a new competition T-Bar in 2019 and eight place bubble lift in Jordan Bowl this season. The resort and parent company Boyne Resorts plan to continue investing in lifts and other projects under the Sunday River 2030 plan with new installations planned on Barker Mountain, Aurora Peak and Tempest.
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.)
The high speed quad servicing Sugarloaf’s planned West Mountain expansion got a name today: Bucksaw Express. The moniker is a nod to the Bucksaw double, a Stadeli which served the northwest edge of the mountain from 1969 to 2015. Sugarloaf began construction on the 450 acre expansion today and it is expected to open to skiers in February 2024.
The Bucksaw Express quad will span 6,574 feet with a vertical rise of 1,433 feet. Some of the equipment for the 755 horsepower lift comes from Big Sky Resort, where it operated as the Swift Current quad. The Doppelmayr detachable will be completely overhauled with brand new UNI G enclosures and many other upgrades. With a 1,000 feet per minute line speed, the lift will move 2,400 skiers per hour up West Mountain with a ride time of just seven minutes. As part of the project, the West Mountain double will be shortened to its current mid-station. The West Mountain project will include a dozen new alpine trails covering roughly 120 acres, which will increase Sugarloaf’s total skiable acreage by nearly 10 percent.
“This is the most significant development project at Sugarloaf since the SuperQuad was built in the mid-1990s,” said Sugarloaf General Manager Karl Strand. “We’re very excited to get to work on what will be a transformative project for the resort and our guests.”
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