- The state of Utah hosted 4.5 million skier visits last season, a new record credited in part to the “Vail effect” and six new lifts.
- The Boston Globe autopsies New England’s nightmare season.
- Bloomberg Businessweek talks urban ropeway growth with Doppelmayr and Poma, so does The Wall Street Journal.
- Snowbird’s tram track cable replacement project is finished a week early.
- Disneyland will demolish historic VonRoll Skyway terminal to make way for Star Wars Land.
- Fatzer finishes six 27,000 foot ropes for the world’s longest 3S, set to open in 2017 in the Gulf of Thailand.
- Powdr buys Eldora.
- Jay Peak works on a plan to get its grounded tram running sometime this summer.
Doppelmayr
Sweetwater Gondola June Update
Construction on Jackson Hole’s second gondola is ramping up as the last of the snow melts. The new Sweetwater Gondola will run from the base of the Teewinot high speed quad to the Casper Restaurant with a mid-station unload, boosting out-of-base capacity and providing an improved experience for beginner skiers. As the photos below show, the project is off to a solid start with awesome weather in the last few weeks after a very wet spring.
News Roundup: Into the Mountain
- Doppelmayr’s latest Wir Magazine has lots on D-Line.
- Vail Resorts looks far and wide for its next acquisition with eyes towards Canada and Japan.
- Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows enters strategic alliance with Genting Secret Garden, one of China’s newest ski resorts with a 6/8 chondola and two bubble high speed quads.
- Great Divide, Montana is buying a new drive terminal for its Good Luck double.
- Jay Peak receiver calls the resort’s financial situation “dire” as he reveals the resort lost $6.2 million last winter and looks for cost savings.
- Queenstown’s Skyline Gondola will be replaced with a $60 million 10-passemger version in 2018. The current 4-place Doppelmayr gondola debuted in 1987.
- The game-changing Leitner 3S gondola to the Stubai Glacier will open July 9th.
News Roundup: Dramatic
- Leitner Ropeways publishes its Annual Report for 2015.
- Peak Resorts discontinues dividend for shareholders in continuing effort to save cash with $118 million in liabilities.
- Whaleback nonprofit decides a surface lift is key to the New Hampshire mountain’s future.
- Val Neigette, Quebec seized by creditors.
- Big SNOW America inches closer to opening.
- The Roosevelt Island Tramway turned 40 yesterday.
- The Hermitage Club at Haystack Mountain is up to 875 members and $114 million in assets. American Skiing Company sold the property in 2005 for a mere $5 million.
- Wynn Resorts’ $4.1 billion casino in Macau will have a Doppelmayr gondola that runs in a rectangle.
News Roundup: Skyline
- Two men want to build an iconic gondola called Skyline along the Chicago Riverfront.
- Sandia Peak unveils new tram cabins for its 50th anniversary.
- Sugarloaf updates the public on its summer lift maintenance projects.
- BMF wins contract for its first 10-passenger gondola to be built next year in Switzerland.
- The owner of Gletscherjet 3+4 built last summer in Austria say it has already carried 3 million passengers, believed to be a record for a winter lift. The system is an 8/10 combination lift interlining with a 10-passenger gondola.
- Poma’s 2015 Reference Book is now online highlighting last year’s projects from around the world.
- Are Vail Resorts and Powdr Corp. bidding on Eldora?
- A New Zealand developer will test whether a Whistler-style bike park with its own high speed quad can stand alone without skiing.
- Doppelmayr and its contractors take responsibility for a construction accident at one of the terminals under construction in La Paz that injured ten people on Saturday.
Out with the Old at Grand Targhee & Jackson Hole
New lifts are coming to both sides of the Tetons this summer and that means three old lifts are coming down. At Grand Targhee, the Blackfoot double is being replaced with a Doppelmayr fixed-grip quad. All 20 towers have been removed along with the top terminal. Blackfoot had wooden ramps at both ends that will be burned down once all the steel is out of the way.
News Roundup: Vermont
- In the wake of fraud allegations and a federal takeover, Q Burke Mountain Resort will lose the Q and likely be sold within a year.
- At Jay Peak, Doppelmayr says the 52-year old aerial tramway needs $4.15 million in repairs. In a press conference, the Florida lawyer put in charge of both properties said “we’re not even sure we have to fix the tram. The company that tells us we have to fix it is also the one that will get the contract.” At least he’s stopped calling it a gondola.
- A new lease for Ascutney Mountain will allow a nonprofit group to build up to three lifts at the ski area, which closed in 2008. Skytrac removed Ascutney’s four CTECs from 2012-2014 and sold them to Crotched Mountain, Pats Peak and Liberty Mountain. A 1970 Hall double remains standing on the property.
- Washington, DC taps the same company that conducted the feasibility study for the Portland Aerial Tram to study the proposed Georgetown Gondola.
- A D-Line gondola is coming to Innsbruck.
- The Mi Teleferico “My Cable Car” network in La Paz carried 43 million passengers in its first 22 months with 99.3% reliability.
News Roundup: Big Lifts
- The St. Louis Zoo maps a gondola connecting to a new hotel.
- Two 230-passenger tram cabins take flight.
- Poma’s building a 5-stage(!) gondola transit system in Algeria.
- Leitner announces the company’s sixth 3S gondola installation will replace a 53-year old jig-back at Voss Resort in Norway.
- California Trail is coming along.
- One of the world’s steepest tramways opens in China with a maximum rope angle of 42 degrees.
- Doppelmayr’s Worldwide 2016 yearbook is now available. Note how few fixed-grip lifts they built last year.
- Also the spring issue of Poma’s magazine is out. Check out the Poma Coaster!
Big Sky Moving Forward with Bubble Six-Pack & Challenger Replacement
Boyne Resorts has firmed up an approximately $10 million deal with Doppelmayr USA to build a flagship detachable lift in The Bowl at Big Sky Resort and replace the damaged Challenger double with an all-new fixed-grip triple chair this summer, according to multiple sources. The resort announced back in February that two new lifts were coming but has yet to officially say much else. These will be the first new lifts built in Big Sky since Moonlight Basin, Spanish Peaks and the Yellowstone Club went bankrupt in 2008-10 and a sure sign that the region has bounced back.
The big story here is the six-pack replacement of the Lone Peak triple which will be just the sixth lift in North America to feature chairs with bubbles and heated seats. The others are at Park City, Sunshine Village, Okemo and the private Hermitage Club in Vermont. The new six pack’s alignment will be altered from the current lift for better traffic flow and the bottom station will feature 90-degree loading. The lift will be just over 3,000 feet long with a vertical rise of approximately 800 feet and ride time of just three minutes.
The new Challenger lift will be a bottom drive/bottom tension fixed-grip triple with loading carpet, capable of spinning up to 500 feet a minute for a 9.5 minute ride. The Challenger double chair that broke in February only ran 396 fpm. Challenger will most likely feature Doppelmayr’s Tristar drive/tension terminal and an expanded unloading area next to the summit of the Headwaters double.
Mt. Bachelor Announces Expansion and Cloudchaser Detachable Quad
Mt. Bachelor will open the long-awaited east side expansion served by a new high speed quad called Cloudchaser in time for Christmas. Powdr Corp. has signed a nearly $6 million contract with Doppelmayr to install the lift this summer. The project will add 635 acres of skiable terrain to Mt. Bachelor, making it the 5th largest ski area in the United States. This will be the first new terrain serviced by a new lift since the Northwest Express was added in 1996. With the addition of Cloudchaser, Mt. Bachelor will have eight detachable quad chairs serving more than 4,300 acres. The new lift will rise 1,448 vertical feet with a slope length of 6,576 feet and 21 towers.
Mt. Bachelor will host a Cloudchaser launch party on May 7th with free skiing and entertainment. “This is an exciting milestone for the entire team here at Mt. Bachelor and for you, our loyal pass holders,” interim General Manager John McCleod wrote in an email to season pass holders. “Powdr’s investment in this lift underscores a commitment to Mt. Bachelor and provides us a new way to enjoy our favorite mountain.”
Lift Blog 