- Aspen Mountain’s Lift One project inches closer to reality.
- Aspen Skiing Company reports skier visits declined 2.3 percent last season.
- Colorado as a whole reports its second best season ever, down five percent from last year’s record.
- New Hampshire was down four percent.
- Vail Resorts reports a 5 percent increase in lift revenue but a 7.7 percent decline in visits with season pass unit sales down 5 percent for next season.
- Colorado’s Estes Park Tram reopens after an extended closure.
- Nordic Valley works to reactivate Apollo, which missed last season.
- Legoland New York’s new 10 passenger gondola to open June 24th.
- A Park City resident files an appeal of Deer Valley’s Lift 7 approval.
- Sun Peaks flies towers for the new West Bowl Express.
- Leitner’s 2023 annual report is out highlighting global projects.
Estes Park Aerial Tramway
News Roundup: New Double Chair
- The private equity firm working to build a gondola in Idaho Springs, Colorado will reopen the Estes Park Tramway.
- A surveyor is spotted for that Idaho Springs gondola.
- Utah environmental groups seek to consolidate three lawsuits against the Little Cottonwood Gondola.
- Extell says three new lifts will open at Deer Valley next winter.
- Chicopee, Ontario looks toward lift upgrades.
- Hogadon, Wyoming closes the season early due to lift issues.
- Grizzly at Bear Valley, California suffers multiple breakdowns and closes for the season early.
- Long waits have Snowmass leaders asking for a Sky Cab “Skittles” pulse gondola replacement.
- ORDA commits $1.1 million for new grips on Gore Mountain’s Northwoods Gondola and $5 million to replace Little Whiteface with a new double chair in 2025.
- Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, South Carolina plans a detachable gondola across the Saluda River.
News Roundup: Busy Busy
- Ski Wentworth in Nova Scotia names its new Quad Cobequid after the local mountain range.
- The Seattle Times profiles this year’s turnaround at Stevens Pass.
- 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.)
- A child is hospitalized after falling from a lift at Ski Sundown.
- Storm damage forces more comm line replacements at Sierra at Tahoe.
- Tenney Mountain to open next weekend for the first time since 2020.
- Big Squaw goes back up for sale.
- The oldest lift in Colorado will cease operations unless a new owner comes along.
- The Forest Service approves Waterville Valley’s World Cup/Exhibition T-Bar, though no construction timeline has been set.
- Former Big Sky/Crystal Mountain General Manager and prolific lift builder John Kircher dies at 64.
- Whitewater returns Silver King to service after a bullwheel bearing replacement.
- Crystal Mountain and Leitner-Poma work to reopen the Crystal Clipper this weekend.
- Deer Valley to launch Burns Express this afternoon.
- Doppelmayr pulls the haul rope for the new quad at Belle Neige (note: this lift was contracted with a February completion date.)
- Doppelmayr and Telluride still aren’t sure when Plunge Express will open.
- A misload causes a chair to get tangled in a terminal at Wolf Creek.
- A deropement leads to a rope evacuation at Crested Butte.
- Similar story at Brimacombe, Ontario.
- Whitefish rope evacuates the brand new Snow Ghost Express, says it had safety concerns that Leitner-Poma engineers are working to address.
- Palisades re-splices and reopens the new Red Dog Express.
- I’m told Bridger at Nordic Valley will miss the entire season due to a planned haul rope replacement.
- Aspen’s Silver Queen Gondola goes down due to a gearbox issue.
A Throwback to 1955 at the Estes Park Tramway
A National Park away from Colorado’s flashy chondolas, six-packs and cabriolets lies one of the world’s oldest operating tramways that is also one of the coolest. A ride on the Estes Park Aerial Tramway takes you back to August 1955 when Robert Heron opened America’s first scenic tramway on the edge of Rocky Mountain National Park. The Heron Family still owns the operation which stands much the same as it did 61 years ago. The tram whisks eight tourists at a time up Prospect Mountain from Memorial Day through Labor Day for $12 apiece and shows no signs of modernizing any time soon. General Manager Steve Barker leads a team of dedicated mechanics, operators, attendants and support staff who return to the tram year after year.
The Estes Park Tramway ascends Prospect Mountain’s 1,060 feet in one free span, reaching 200 feet in the air at times. Two cherry red cars manufactured at a shipyard in 1955 were designed for 12 passengers but now hold up to eight modern Americans. A brisk trip at 1,400 feet per minute lasts two minutes and twenty seconds yielding a capacity of 280 passengers per hour in each direction. At the top, guests are treated to panoramic views of Estes Park Village, Rocky Mountain National Park and the surrounding mountain peaks.
Robert Heron got his start in 1937 with Kennicott Copper designing material tramways after graduating from the Colorado School of Mines. Stearns Roger Manufacturing later hired him to design portable tramways for use by the 10th Mountain Division during World War II. After testing at Fort Hale, Mr. Heron’s design debuted in Italy at the Battle of Riva Ridge carrying food, ammunition and water up and American casualties down a 1,500 foot mountainside. In 1945, Robert and his brother Webb founded Heron Engineering which built its first lift – a single chair – at Aspen Mountain. The Heron brothers went on to build the world’s first double, triple and quad chairs at Berthoud Pass and Boyne Mountain. Heron merged with Poma in 1970 and the rest is history. Robert Heron was inducted into the Colorado Ski Hall of Fame in 1985 and passed away in 1999 but his legacy lives on at Estes Park and the 33 other sites that still operate his lifts.
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