Doppelmayr

The Summit at Snoqualmie Shuffles New Lift Plans

Peter Landsman21 Comments

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.

Tennessee’s Ober Mountain Plans Two New Lifts

Peter Landsman5 Comments

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.

Ski Santa Fe to Reopen Lift Tuesday Following Grip Slip Incident

Peter Landsman12 Comments

A full triple chair slid into another chair carrying three people at Ski Santa Fe, New Mexico Saturday, leading to a partial rope evacuation of the Tesuque Peak lift. No injuries were reported and the lift was taken out of service. “Ski Santa Fe experienced a mechanical issue on the Tesuque Peak triple chair, resulting in a prolonged stoppage of the lift,” the resort posted to social media. “Patrol crews responded quickly to evacuate the affected chairs and all other riders were unloaded from the lift.”

General Manager Ben Abruzzo told the Santa Fe New Mexican an investigation revealed the affected chair had been removed over the summer for nondestructive testing and incorrectly reinstalled. A subsequent pull test on the grip did not catch the mistake.

Tesuque Peak is a 1983 Doppelmayr fixed grip triple with 163 chairs. Over the past few days workers removed and re-checked the 20 percent of chairs that were removed last summer and completed a visual inspection on the rest of the lift, which is expected to reopen tomorrow at 11:00 am.

News Roundup: Rough Week

Peter Landsman5 Comments

Gondola Crash in Austria Injures Six

Peter Landsman5 Comments

Falling trees caused a gondola cabin to fall to the ground this morning in Austria, seriously injuring three people and critically injuring a fourth. Two others in an adjacent cabin suffered minor injuries. The accident happened in the town of Oetz on the Acherkogelbahn, an eight seat gondola built by Doppelmayr in 2000. The lift features 66 cabins with DT-108 grips. The carrier fell from a height of approximately 23 feet about half way up the line in a steep, wooded area. The injured were evacuated via helicopter and the rest of the lift was cleared of riders without incident.

This is at least the third lift accident in the past year caused by falling trees. Just before Christmas, trees fell on a detachable quad in Italy, causing chairs to stack up and injure riders. A year ago at Park City, Utah, a ski patroller was killed when falling trees violently shook a triple chairlift during a heavy snow cycle.

Big Sky to Build World’s Longest Eight Seat Chairlift

Peter Landsman75 Comments

Big Sky will become the first US ski area to replace a six place chairlift with a larger machine next summer on the north flank of Lone Peak. Replacing Six Shooter, the new North Side 8 will be the longest eight place in the world and crown Big Sky as the only North American resort with two eight places and three bubble D-Lines. The latest-generation Doppelmayr lift will run at six meters per second, reducing ride time out of Madison base by 30 percent.

Big Sky Resort parent company Boyne Resorts is partnering with local real estate developer Lone Mountain Land Company to realize this ambitious project, which will feature 80 chairs and 29 towers along an approximately 8,700 foot alignment. The outgoing Six Shooter is only 20 years old but was designed for a different era when Moonlight Basin operated separately from neighboring Big Sky. The two ski areas merged in 2013 and Six Shooter quickly became a bottleneck. The Garaventa CTEC lift can only move 1,800 skiers per hour and suffers periodic down time in part due to a line curve necessitated by previous property boundaries. Now that Big Sky owns Moonlight Basin ski terrain, the new lift can run in a straight alignment and carry nearly twice as many riders. “Replacing Six Shooter has long been an ask of our guests,” said Troy Nedved, Big Sky Resort’s General Manager. “The lift replacement doubles the uphill capacity at one of our last remaining pinch points, and will enhance what is one of the resort’s coldest lift rides with bubbles and heated seats.”

Up to 2,745 skiers per hour will load the new lift about 40 feet uphill of the current Six Shooter drive station to create more queuing space. In addition to now-standard Big Sky features of blue bubbles, a loading conveyor and a four ring direct drive, North Side 8 will also feature automatic lowering/locking lap bars and the United States’ first Fatzer Performa-DT haul rope for a smoother ride. Chairs will be parked inside both terminals at night rather than a separate parking building, another first for Big Sky. Construction is set to begin this spring with opening planned for late 2024.

The under construction Explorer Gondola is set to debut for the 2025-26 ski season at Big Sky.

News of North Side 8 comes at an exciting time in Big Sky just days after the new Lone Peak Tram debuted as the latest component of the Big Sky 2025 capital push. “Big Sky Resort is at the forefront of transforming the North American ski experience by adding the most advanced and comfortable lift system to our mountain,” noted Nedved. “This lift replacement, our seventh in as many years, supports our long-standing reputation for having some of the shortest lift lines in the Rockies.” Big Sky also recently commenced construction of a two stage D-Line gondola running from the Mountain Village to the new tram. A second two stage D-Line gondola is planned to link the new One&Only Moonlight Basin to the Madison base area and North Side 8.

Sun Valley Plans Next New Lift on Seattle Ridge

Peter Landsman11 Comments

Fresh off replacing both major lifts on the Warm Springs side of Bald Mountain, Sun Valley today announced its next lift project will enhance the guest experience on Seattle Ridge. Following the debut of new four and six place lifts just last week, Doppelmayr will return to Baldy in 2024 to replace the Seattle Ridge detachable quad with a detachable six pack, increasing capacity by 20 percent. Interestingly the lift will not be a D-Line like the just-opened Challenger but rather a UNI-G à la Flying Squirrel and Broadway. The project is currently under Forest Service review alongside a future Christmas replacement as Sun Valley works to retire its entire fleet of seven Yan detachables built in the 1980s and 1990s.

“Seattle Ridge is home to some of Sun Valley’s most beloved intermediate, family-friendly terrain and more recently with the Sunrise expansion, some of its best off-piste terrain,” said Pete Sonntag, Vice President and General Manager of Sun Valley Resort. “Over the last five years, we’ve been able to increase the skiable terrain serviced by Seattle Ridge chair by over 200 acres, and we believe the chairlift upgrade is coming at the perfect time as we continue our investment in the mountain experience at Sun Valley,” he noted. Construction is expected to begin in April with the new Seattle Ridge six place opening to skiers late next year.

News Roundup: Cost Overruns

Peter Landsman8 Comments

News Roundup: Utah Olympics

Peter Landsman7 Comments

News Roundup: The Stache

Peter Landsman12 Comments