- After missing last season, Mt. Timothy gears up to reopen under new ownership.
- Tariffs on imported Canadian and Mexican steel and aluminum are history as of last weekend.
- The “Balsams Bill” becomes law in New Hampshire.
- Creditors seek an involuntary Chapter 7 bankruptcy of the Hermitage Club.
- Jackson Hole wants to increase clearance under the aerial tramway for big snow years.
- The first indoor chairlift in America should finally open this fall in New Jersey.
- Utah crushes its previous skier visit record, hosting more than five million skiers for the first time in history.
- Jay Peak and Burke Mountain’s former owner and ex-CEO are indicted by a federal grand jury on 14 counts.
- As of April 30th, 26 potential Jay Peak buyers had signed non-disclosure agreements. The resort says revenue was up 4 percent this season, skier visits increased 3.5 percent and room nights shot up 11 percent.
- Burke Mountain is still losing money but revenue increased by 26 percent this season, skier visits were up 20 percent and room nights 47 percent.
- With the Forest Service’s blessing, Ski Cooper embarks on adding 71 acres and a Leitner-Poma T-Bar for next season.
- The Poma-built urban cable car in the Dominican Republic capital transported over four million passengers in its first year.
- Mexico City’s transportation authority rejects all three Cablebus bids from Leitner, Bartholet and Doppelmayr.
- A Loveland, Colorado developer still wants to build a gondola as part of an amusement complex.
- The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority selects Elon Musk’s Boring Company to build a new people mover over Doppelmayr.
- Still no opening date for the Disney Skyliner but gondola merchandise has arrived.
- In a few years, you may be able to ride twin tramways between Russia and China with immigration and customs facilities at each end.
Hermitage Club
News Roundup: Master Plans
- Sunrise Park Resort will develop a master plan to address infrastructure challenges and might build a chondola.
- Leitner submits the lowest bid for Mexico City’s upcoming Cablebus gondola system.
- Three months since it was rope evacuated, SeaWorld San Diego’s Bayside Skyride remains closed.
- The Indy Pass is up to 24 resorts.
- Leitner supplied 43 ropeway systems last year, 77 percent of which were detachable and 80 percent of which carry more than four passengers per carrier.
- Doppelmayr has a new WIR issue and the 2019 yearbook is out.
- Timberline’s bankruptcy filing will prevent a scheduled receivership hearing from taking place.
- The new Oakland A’s ballpark, which includes a gondola component, receives one key approval.
- Poma’s 2018 Reference Book is also out along with a new Pomalink highlighting Copper’s new combination lift.
- The largest Hermitage Club creditor is seeking an August auction.
- One of the biggest lost ski areas in Colorado, Cuchara, is now publicly owned with a master plan for two new chairlifts.
- Omega V may not yet be in the United States but miniature versions are already available.
- Ski resort employees are among the most likely to be injured on the job in the United States, behind only nursing home workers and motor home manufacturing employees.
- Cascade Mountain’s North Wall lift is for sale.
- White Pass’ old platter is still up for grabs.
- The Forest Service releases its environmental assessment of Whitefish Mountain Resort’s Hellroaring Basin project.
News Roundup: New Gondolas
- It looks like Snowbird has joined the Powdr family of adventure lifestyle brands.
- A batch of green gondolas arrives at Bretton Woods as towers go vertical.
- Another group of new Omega cabins is uncovered in Florida.
- Little Switzerland and The Rock Snowpark are upgrading chairs on multiple lifts and selling the old ones.
- The Lake Placid gondola cabins will be white and black.
- Top leadership positions at Doppelmayr will be filled by two longtime executives this fall.
- With no operations planned for this summer, Hermitage Club receiver Alan Tantleff updates the government on the status of the ski resort’s properties.
- Crested Butte receives approval for the Teocalli replacement project and plans to remove Twister as well.
- Killington says it’s considering upgrades for Superstar Express, Ramshead Express and Outpost at Pico next.
- Despite being partly flooded, the Grafton, Illinois gondola is on track to open later this spring.
- Tanzania might build a gondola on 19,341-foot Mt. Kilimanjaro.
- Peak Resorts reports double digit growth of season pass sales.
- West Mountain’s Thiokol is for sale along with some Poma lifts that were once planned to replace it.
News Roundup: More Towers
- MND Group subsidiary LST will build its third US ropeway this summer, a T-Bar replacing this Hall one in McCall, Idaho.
- Copper confirms the new American Flyer will get more towers to “support and optimize” the lift.
- This incredible timelapse of the longest lift in the world gets a lot of attention on Reddit.
- US skiers and snowboarders came out 59.1 million times this season, a nearly 11 percent increase over 2017-18 and the fourth best participation ever.
- The National Ski Areas Association launches a charitable foundation to grant money to resort employees to attend conferences such as LMS and RMLA.
- West Virginia’s closed Timberline Four Seasons Resort files for bankruptcy.
- A Vermont sheriff can no longer find Hermitage Club founder Jim Barnes to serve him with legal papers related to the ski resort’s closure.
- In Serbia, Poma will realize the longest gondola in the world at 5.6 miles in two sections.
- The year round, high speed quad-served bike park experiment in New Zealand gets a $3.3 million government bailout to keep operating.
- If you want a retired Steamboat Gondola cabin, Sunshine Polishing is acquiring 105 of them.
- Bogus Basin’s old Riblet chairs are selling for an average price of $1,775 apiece.
News Roundup: Passcape
- LST Ropeways’ prototype detachable chairlift in France is once again open.
- Despite a wild winter in Colorado, the shiny new Glenwood Gondola is tracking towards a March 16th launch.
- Mt. Spokane’s first new lift in four-plus decades has been spinning since December but the mountain’s nonprofit operator is still seeking donations to help pay for it.
- Epic Passes go on sale and a new Epic Day Pass offers Vail Resorts skiers the option to pre-buy a flexible number of days at a big discount.
- The Mountain Collective Pass is back for 2019-20 and, as expected, no longer includes Sun Valley or Snowbasin.
- Following the collective model, an Indy Pass is brewing with eleven regional resorts already signed on.
- Court documents suggest the Hermitage Club may file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
- The highly anticipated Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge opens at Walt Disney World Resort August 29th, which would be a great date for the Skyliner to start carrying guests to it.
- Aspen voters approve the Lift 1 corridor project by 26 votes, but it may be a few years before a Telemix joins the Ajax lift fleet.
- Two years after a fatal ride accident blamed on corrosion, the Ohio State Fair is spending $116,000 to replace all the carriers on a different attraction – its chairlift.
- Doppelmayr is looking for workers to help build lifts across the country this summer.
- Vail Resorts season-to-date lift revenue is up 9.6 percent from a year ago, with skier visits increasing 7.9 percent.
- Attitash won’t open Summit this weekend but not for lack of trying.
- In California, the City of Long Beach is in the very early stages of considering a multistop gondola.
- For the first time in years, Black Mountain is opening its 1935 vintage J-Bar this weekend.
News Roundup: Four Too Many
- Attitash’s Summit triple is down indefinitely again, this time with a gearbox issue. Peak Resorts executives say even if they wanted to replace the lift with a detachable, there is about a two year wait with both lift companies.
- Northstar California partially evacuates the Promised Land Express by rope on a busy Sunday.
- The new master plan for Timberline Lodge prescribes replacing Pucci with a detachable quad and Bruno’s with a series of carpets.
- At Pajarito, Townsight will end up missing the entire season due to unspecified mechanical issues.
- Alyeska retires its last of seven Riblet double chairlifts, Tanaka.
- A six year old falls 29 feet from an Eldora chairlift after failing to load properly and a petition is asking for policy changes.
- The founder of The Hermitage Club is contesting a no trespass order.
- A child falls from Park City’s Silverlode Express.
- Architectural Digest profiles leading resort design firm SE Group.
- Leitner will build what is sure to become an iconic 3S gondola between Switzerland and Italy from 2021.
- 2019/20 Ikon Passes go on sale March 5th and are virtually unchanged from this season’s versions.
- Tuesday is also the day you should vote if you live in Aspen.
- Timberline, West Virginia throws in the towel and the local paper has an update on the the circumstances.
- A night evacuation takes place at Ski Vorlage.
- James Coleman’s brand new bike park is already a hit.
- Five teenagers perform a flawless catch of a Screaming Eagle lift dangler and earn free Grouse Mountain season passes.
- Somehow a sit skier and lift operator both fall 17 feet from Snowmass’ Elk Camp quad on Tuesday.
- Following a brutal 16 day road closure, Snow Valley eyes a Saturday reopening.
- Bloomberg Businessweek visits the Vail/Alterra HQs and catches up with partners like Boyne Resorts and Telluride.
News Roundup: More Epic
- Arapahoe Basin ends its Epic Pass partnership with Vail Resorts due to concerns about parking and crowding.
- A year into Ikon, Alterra Chief Marketing Officer Erik Forsell talks about the new season pass landscape.
- Vail takes stock at Crested Butte and may or may not build the Teo II lifts proposed by Triple Peaks.
- As rumored, Vail is acquiring Falls Creek and Mt. Hotham in Australia for $124 million.
- The Spanish ski resort that closed when a chair fell from its Yan detachable quad reopens with uploading via snowcat.
- The San Diego Fire Department performs a successful over water night evacuation of the Bayside Skyride at SeaWorld San Diego.
- Timberline Four Seasons Resort, which has struggled with lift breakdowns and other issues of late, is closed this weekend and could be placed in receivership.
- Snow Valley missed all of President’s weekend will remain closed indefinitely due to road damage. Mountain High is kindly honoring their season passes during the shutdown.
- In France, a six year old is seriously injured after her head gets stuck between a chair armrest and safety bar.
- As a new lawsuit against The Hermitage Club alleges fraud, club founder Jim Barnes tells members a revised reorganization plan is coming soon.
- The New York Times visits the new Taos and its four new lifts.
- Not everyone is happy about changes at Powder Mountain.
- LST Ropeways is still working to repair the company’s first detachable chairlift, which missed its entire first winter, some of last winter and all of this one thus far.
- 49 Degrees North had a challenging weekend with one lift rope evacuated/down for the season and another losing a chair with people on it.
News Roundup: Back to Work
- The Forest Service tentatively approves two new chairlifts as part of the Atoma expansion at Mt. Rose.
- There are gondolas flying above Walt Disney World as of late.
- The Garibaldi at Squamish resort proposal is still alive in BC.
- Sitzmark, Washington and its 1961 Riblet double won’t open this season.
- Tamarack’s new Wildwood Express will likely reuse foundations from the repossessed UNI-GS version.
- Medellín inaugurates its fifth urban gondola by Poma, Line M.
- A nine year old boy is okay after falling 31 feet from the Thunderbowl lift at Aspen Highlands.
- Sun Valley postpones the Cold Springs Express project to 2020.
- Sunshine Polishing has a bunch of vintage gondola cabins for sale including many from Killington’s K-1 Express.
- Skytrac marks ten years in business with 37 complete lifts, eight new terminals and five relocations to date with more to come!
- Waterville Valley and LST Ropeways are trying to open the new High Country lift this week.
- A Hermitage reopening this winter is unlikely but the lifts are being taken care of by a skeleton crew of employees.
- The popular Portland Aerial Tram opens up a logo shop.
- Another Skyliner job is posted: Technical Manager.
- The Forest Service plans to green light Cooper’s Way Back expansion and construction of a 2,450′ surface lift.
- Ditto for Crested Butte’s two chairlift Teocalli II expansion and realignment of North Face.
- Mexico City announces its first Cablebús line will be the longest urban gondola in the world at nearly 31,000 feet. A full ride would take 46 minutes with 374 ten passenger cabins transporting up to 4,000 passengers per hour each way.
https://twitter.com/CablebusCDMX/status/1093187940321132544
News Roundup: Dedication
- Stowe rope evacuates 160 people from the Lookout double.
- The New Hampshire Union Leader runs a well-researched story on lift evacuations.
- Doppelmayr Cable Car is the contracted maintenance provider for the Disney Skyliner and is now hiring for multiple positions.
- Two years after the death of Kelly Huber at Granby Ranch, changes are still being considered.
- The new lift to Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park will have a new name when it opens in March: Glenwood Gondola.
- Magic gains approval to build the Black Line quad lift.
- A proposed settlement could see the Hermitage Club parent company give control of the Barnstormer chairlift to the investors who bought it.
- Pajarito reopens one of two chairlifts which became inoperable over a month ago.
- A gondola window falls hundreds of feet and nearly injures a farmer working below in Taiwan.
- The one year old T-Bar at Burke Mountain is now the D-Bar, named in honor of longtime supporter Don Graham. Mr. Graham once saved the mountain from closure, covered years of operating losses and personally financed half of the Mid Burke Express.
News Roundup: Next Season
- Revelstoke drops more details and a map of Cupcake, coming next winter.
- Waterville Valley says the federal government shutdown is to blame for High Country and Sunnyside not opening yet this season.
- As the shutdown drags on, there are at least 13 resorts waiting on federal analysis of new lift projects by my count.
- A group of homeowners who invested to build the bubble six pack at the Hermitage Club worry Berkshire Bank could foreclose on the chairlift.
- Whistler Blackcomb loses its claim to the world’s longest unsupported lift span but now features the longest continuous gondola system and the highest capacity gondola in North America.
- Jay is officially available.
- Despite a completed new chairlift, Frost Fire won’t open this season as it continues to fundraise.
- The Telluride community considers what to do in 2027 when public funding for the gondola sunsets.
- Mountain Capital Partners still plans to reopen Elk Ridge but not this season.
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