Both destination and day skiers will gain a new option to access Deer Valley Resort next winter with the addition of a Doppelmayr bubble chairlift. The yet-to-be-named six pack will connect the Grand Hyatt Deer Valley in the new East Village to a knob above the existing Sultan Express and Mayflower lifts. The 5,800 foot long bubble lift will service both the slopeside hotel and 500 new day skier parking spaces at opening. After riding 1,240 vertical feet on the D-Line bubble chair, guests can access the rest of Deer Valley via Sultan without needing to park at Snow Park Village.
Known for now as Lift 3, the Doppelmayr six place will be the first of nine lifts to open as part of Expanded Excellence phase one. This bubble chair is distinct from Lift 7, another bubble six place under consideration by the Park City Planning Commission tomorrow evening. Lift 3 and perhaps a couple small access lifts will be completed by December 2024 with Lift 7 with the rest of the 2,900 acre phase one expansion opening for the 2025-26 season.
The Park City Planning Commission is set to consider one of the first lift projects in Deer Valley’s Expanded Excellence expansion next week. The new Lift 7 would become not only become Deer Valley’s first six pack but also its first bubble chair and first D-Line lift. Though relatively short, Lift 7 will form a key link between existing terrain on Bald and Flagstaff mountains and Park Peak, the summit of Expanded Excellence terrain. In the below map, Lift 7 is the uppermost red alignment surrounded by green runs. It will be accessed from existing Ontario and Trump ski runs and carry 3,000 skiers per hour. Guests will unload near the top of the future East Village gondola and Lift 6 six pack on Park Peak.
The project currently under review includes 4.62 miles of beginner ski runs that will be among the highest elevation trails at Deer Valley, topping out at 9,285 feet. Lift 7 will include 58 bubble chairs both for guest comfort and wind protection. The top drive, bottom tension machine will ascend 624 vertical feet in just 3.5 minutes at 1,000 feet per minute. Half the chairs can be parked in the bottom terminal with the rest in an adjacent 8,500 square foot storage facility. Deer Valley proposes to install 10 lift towers ranging in height from 19 to 53 feet.
Lift 7 is one of ten lifts set to be built over the next two summers as part of Expanded Excellence, set to open in winter 2025/26. If approved, Lift 7 and perhaps other lifts could open as early as next winter. Alterra typically announces specific capital plans for all its resorts in March but has not yet done so for 2024 (the only reason we know these details about Lift 7 is because it falls within the purview of the Park City municipal Planning Commission. The rest of the expansion is outside Park City boundaries in Wasatch County.) The Grand Hyatt Deer Valley is slated to open next season and in order to be ski in, ski out, the out-of-base Lift 3 would need to be constructed this summer to connect to Sultan Express. That project would likely also be a Doppelmayr bubble six place. Other real estate access chairlifts may be constructed this summer as well. I have reached out to Deer Valley for more information on 2024 lift plans and will update if I hear back.
Construction is ramping up on a new six passenger gondola in West Virginia. The State announced this week the Doppelmayr pulse system is expected to be complete this fall. The lift replaces a four passenger Mueller gondola which operated from 1970 until 2023. The new lift will be fully ADA accessible and carry riders 1,100 vertical feet down into the Bluestone River Gorge. The lift will serve a wide variety of visitors from sightseers to overnight lodging guests, anglers and boaters. To accomplish this, the gondola will feature four pulses of three cabins each along with a freight carrier for bicycles and kayaks.
“Pipestem Resort has always been one of the most popular state parks in West Virginia and this new tramway is going to help us accommodate visitors and continue to offer a world-class experience,” said West Virginia Division of Natural Resources Director Brett McMillion. “As a former superintendent at Pipestem, I want to thank Governor Justice for his continued support of our state parks over these last seven years and guaranteeing that they will be enjoyed by West Virginians and visitors alike for years to come.”
Crews will soon fly out nine old Mueller lattice towers and set new tubular towers for the system. Each station will also require new loading platforms to be constructed.
Doppelmayr has a longstanding construction base in West Virginia and is also scheduled to construct a new gondola at Hawks Nest State Park in 2024-25.
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.
The Highlands at Harbor Springs will forge ahead with another lift replacement project this summer, retiring the Interconnect Riblet triple for a faster Doppelmayr version. The new fixed grip triple will feature a height adjustable loading conveyor, RFID gates and safety bars, all of which the current triple lacks. The Alpenstar machine will move 33 percent faster and improve access to North Peak terrain. The move comes hot on the heels of this season’s debut of Camelot 6, the first bubble detachable in the Midwest and fastest chairlift in Michigan.
When the new Interconnect lift is complete, The Highlands will have replaced four aging Riblet chairlifts with new technology over just two seasons. “We are eager to upgrade our Interconnect lift with a new Doppelmayr fixed-grip design to enhance the experience for guests next winter season,” said Mike Chumbler, president and general manager of The Highlands. “With improved speed, efficiency, modern conveniences, and safety features, we are confident that this addition will help build on the overall skiing and riding adventures at The Highlands.”
For the second year in a row, Boyne Resorts has announced more new lifts at more mountains than any other North American operator. Boyne plans at least six lift projects this summer at its resorts in Maine, Michigan, Montana and Washington.
For the first time in its 86 year history, Maine’s Pleasant Mountain will feature a high speed lift next season. The new Summit Express will run 1,220 vertical feet from the base of the mountain to the top in just 4.5 minutes. The detachable quad will contain some new parts from Doppelmayr along with many refurbished components from the former Jordan Bowl Express at Sunday River. Like with the new Bucksaw Express at Sugarloaf, Pleasant Mountain is working with Doppelmayr to make the lift look and feel like a completely new machine. The existing Summit Triple, which was down for a period this season with mechanical issues, will be removed.
“We’re taking our guest experience to new heights with a faster, more efficient detachable quad from Doppelmayr,” the resort said, noting the new lift will carry 2,400 skiers per hour at 1,000 feet per minute. “We can’t wait to introduce Pleasant Mountain guests to the new lift experience.”
The Summit Express is the fifth new lift project announced by Boyne Resorts for the 24-25 season. Big Sky and The Summit at Snoqualmie also plan to debut new lifts for next winter.
Skiers and snowboarders had to be roped down from the Giant Steps Express at Brian Head yesterday following a tower deropement. The incident occurred on the heavy side of tower 1, immediately adjacent to the bottom station. Witnesses reported the lift was nearly full and the rope evacuation lasted a number of hours. “At approximately 12:05 pm the Giant Steps Express chairlift experienced a mechanical issue that resulted in a lift evacuation,” the resort said in a statement. “Mountain operations teams quickly responded and safely evacuated all guests without incident or injury in less than 2 hours.”
Photo credit: Zack S.
Giant Steps is a Doppelmayr CTEC high speed quad manufactured in 2005. The UNI-GS series detachable originally operated at Tamarack Resort in Idaho before being installed at Brian Head in 2014. The incident is the third deropement leading to a rope evacuation in the last four days. On Thursday, the Aurora Quad at Sunday River de-roped near the bottom terminal and 200 plus riders were roped off. Then on Saturday, a deropement caused chairs to fall from the North Chair at Snow Ridge, New York, leading to another evacuation. All three lifts remain closed today.
Instead of building two new chairlifts at Alpental this summer, The Summit at Snoqualmie will instead build one lift at Alpental and another at Summit West in partnership with Doppelmayr. The Summit encompasses four distinct ski areas and is in the midst of a multi-year investment push called Summit 2030 that will now see at least five new lifts installed over four years. Alpental is a major focus of the plan with two lift replacements and one completely new expansion lift. Phase one was a replacement Sessel lift, which debuted this season. A brand new International triple will follow above Sessel this summer. Snoqualmie previously announced Chair 2/Edelweiss would also be replaced in 2024, but that has now been postponed one year to 2025.
Crews have already completed many of the foundations for both International and Chair 2, which ascend extremely steep terrain and have limited to no road access outside of snow season. In fact, crews this week transported the new haul rope for International up the mountain over snow in advance of this summer’s construction. “Shifting the Edelweiss timeline will allow the construction team at Alpental to focus all their efforts on completing International prior to the 24/25 season,” the resort noted. “We’ve mentioned it before but work on International is extremely challenging and time-consuming due to the lack of road access and gnarly terrain.”
Simultaneously with the International project, crews will now replace the Wildside triple with a new fixed grip quad at Summit West for next season. Wildside dates back to 1974 and had broken down occasionally in recent seasons. Summit West has traditional service roads and work can more easily be completed there at the same time as International. “[Wildside] is a much simpler installation with easier access for the construction team and is a great opportunity to get another aging lift replaced,” said Snoqualmie. Unlike the current lift, the realigned Wildside will feature a loading conveyor and restraint bars.
New Chair 2 at Alpental will now debut in winter 2025-26, the fourth season in a row with a new lift on Snoqualmie Pass. In the meantime, skiers can enjoy one more season on the classic Riblet to the top.
A building boom will continue this summer in Gatlinburg, the lift capital of the Southeast. Ober Mountain plans to construct two new Doppelmayr quad chairs replacing aging lifts. The first fixed grip quad will replace the 1981 Borvig Black quad, which services ski runs in the winter and mountain biking trails in the summer. The second new quad will replace the 1962 Carlevaro-Savio Scenic double, which accesses a mountaintop overlook. The two Alpenstar quads will be the first new lifts built at Ober in 43 years.
The news comes on the heels of recent lift projects at Anakeesta, Gatlinburg SkyPark, Harper Brothers Mountain and SkyLand Ranch, all of which operate within a ten mile radius in the Great Smoky Mountains. Ober Mountain operates nearly the entire year with multiple lifts serving skiing, tubing mountain biking, scenic rides and an alpine slide in various seasons. The mountain is in the midst of a multi-year rebirth under a new, local ownership group that has also invested in new snowmaking and downhill bike trails. Doppelmayr expects to begin building the new chairlifts in March with completion scheduled for October.
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