- Blue Hills reopens following inspections and a meeting of the Massachusetts Recreational Tramway Board.
- A Swiss study finds the risk of catching the coronavirus on a 12 minute gondola ride with windows open is a thousand times less than at an indoor meal with eight people.
- Saddleback teases another new lift coming next winter.
- This will be cool: a gondola which loads over water.
- Idaho’s Soldier Mountain and Pomerelle both join the Indy Pass.
- A hotel management company takes over operation of King Pine Ski Area.
- Japan’s first urban gondola opens April 22nd.
- Atlantic Canada’s only gondola remains on track to launch in July.
- Doppelmayr USA is hiring construction team members for multiple roles.
- Doppelmayr is also looking for an Electrical Panel Production and Install Technician.
- Sugarbush shows from the air how lift lines this season are shorter than they appear.
- Take a drone flight over a deserted Blue Mountain, Ontario.
- This month’s Smithsonian Magazine features the story of James Curran, the non-skier who invented the chairlift.
- With Black Line under construction and the Red Chair out of service, Magic Mountain is left without summit access for at least a few days.
- Attorneys for families of two skiers killed on Colorado lifts want the state’s Supreme Court to overturn a recent lower court ruling limiting resort liability.
- With minimal skier compaction, some French lifts are getting hit by avalanches.
Indy Pass
News Roundup: Reports
- Now open: Nordic Valley’s flagship six pack, dubbed the Nordic Express.
- The Yellowstone Club trail map is updated to show two new additions for a total of 23 lifts.
- Still without access to the summit, Mission Ridge provides expanded updates on the Wenatchee Express project including another video.
- Grand Targhee modifies its proposed expansion, pushing potential approval out to March 2022.
- A local newspaper obtains inspection reports from 49 Degrees North showing no red flags prior to last month’s accident.
- Doppelmayr showcases AURO, an autonomous lift which can be run by one person in a ropeway operations center.
- A storm packing 150 mph winds shutters Dodge Ridge for eight days. Eight towers de-roped on Chair 8 with 1,000 feet of comm line needing to be replaced.
- A child is seriously injured in a fall from the lone chairlift at Blue Hills, Massachusetts. The ski area said no mechanical issues caused or contributed to the unfortunate event.
- Three days later, the very same lift strands riders for hours.
- Gearing up for a busy summer, Skytrac is hiring lift construction project managers.
- ORDA will spend $2.2 million for electrical upgrades to Whiteface’s Cloudsplitter Gondola and Face Lift.
- Two more resorts are set to join the Indy Pass on February 2nd.
- Re: Indianhead, an incident report notes the chair hit a halo on tower 4, causing its clip to be ejected from the haul rope. A follow up inspection found no mechanical or structural deficiencies with the lift.
- Steamboat plans to move the bottom terminal of the new Steamboat Gondola outdoors and 300 feet east this summer to make room for the future Wild Blue Gondola.
News Roundup: Construction, Construction, Construction
- Sun Peaks’ seventh quad chair is complete.
- Lake Louise previews Canada’s only expansion for 2020.
- Camelback announces the new Sunbowl Quad will extend higher than the lifts it replaces.
- Mission Ridge forges its own path erecting a used high speed quad in house with local contractors.
- Alterra’s Rusty Gregory talks about winter demand.
- Cannon Mountain’s tramway will likely start the season on indefinite hold due to public health concerns.
- Australian regulators conclude hand carrying bikes on chairlifts is not safe.
- After six months closed, the Palm Springs Tramway reopens at less than 25 percent capacity.
- Soldier Mountain reveals comm lines, chairs and haul ropes were all damaged in this summer’s fire.
- Another new resort will join the Indy Pass, to be announced Monday.
News Roundup: Going Virtual
- Beaver Creek’s website is updated to show the McCoy Park expansion coming for the 2021-22 ski season.
- Doppelmayr will build a $9.3 million temporary gondola for a horticulture show in Germany.
- A developer in St. George, Utah looks to build a lift-served bike park.
- An unnamed ski area in New York hits the market with an asking price of $1.6 million.
- The pandemic may have actually helped Timberline Mountain rebuild faster this summer.
- Searchmont, located near the Ontario-Michigan border with two new lifts under construction, remains uncertain what this winter will look like.
- Jamie Storrs, Senior Manager of Communications for Vail Resorts in the east, answers questions about reservations and more on the Out of Bounds Podcast.
- Spirit Mountain receives a $300,000 cash infusion allowing it to open this winter.
- Solitude profiles a major maintenance project on the Eagle Express.
- The Park Record checks in on Mayflower Mountain Resort construction and The Wall Street Journal reports Extell would like to partner with an established ski operator like Vail or Alterra.
- Indy Pass sales are pacing six times higher than last year!
- New Alaska ski area Skeetawk plans a December 5th grand opening.
- Poma launches a fresh new website.
- Mt. Baldy, Ontario, which initially held off on construction of a new chairlift this summer, decides to proceed with a fall installation.
- A virtual open house is now open for Los Angeles Aerial Rapid Transit project scoping.
News Roundup: Suits
- Skeetawk secures a 40 year lease to operate on public land in Alaska.
- The Salt Lake Tribune features a pro-Little Cottonwood Gondola op-ed by Ski Utah CEO Nathan Rafferty.
- D-Line stations, cabins and chairs and are now available as HO scale models.
- A disabled skier sues Aspen Snowmass over a 2019 lift fall.
- The haul rope is on North America’s third D-Line lift system.
- A helicopter flies concrete for tower foundations at Saddleback.
- The ever-growing Indy Pass adds Snow King Mountain, White Pine and Winterplace.
- Closed Crystal Mountain, BC still faces lawsuits more than six years after a lift deropement.
- Arapahoe Basin presses ahead with new lift projects despite taking a big Covid hit.
- China Peak bids farewell to the mighty Chair 3.
- Gore Mountain formally announces construction of two new quads.
- Court documents reveal more details on the Liftopia-Mountain Collective dispute.
- All new Whiteface gondola cabins arrive stateside.
News Roundup: Workers
- Alterra, Aspen, Arapahoe Basin and Boyne file a petition to force Liftopia into bankruptcy, claiming the company owes them a combined $3 million.
- The only North American ski resort accessible exclusively by aerial tramway will reopen at 30 percent capacity.
- Leitner-Poma is seeking installation labor for a major project at Nordic Valley, Utah.
- The Mont-Sainte-Anne gondola, which suffered two separate incidents before the Covid shutdown last winter, won’t operate this summer.
- High Country News profiles one group of workers’ quest to unionize at a Vail resort.
- The first concrete is poured for Arizona Snowbowl’s big new Telemix.
- Granby Ranch goes dark.
- The developer of American Dream, home to Big Snow, may be in trouble.
- An old Yan heads from Idaho to Mt. Baldy, California.
- The Indy Pass generated close to 9,000 skier visits last year.
- As Florida theme park Busch Gardens reopens, its gondola won’t be spinning. No word yet on the Disney Skyliner.
- Newly-purchased Bousquet Mountain will add a used Poma triple to replace its Summit Double this summer.
- Poma wins the contract to build $75 million urban gondola system in Grenoble, France.
- Hermitage Club founder Jim Barnes is still trying to appeal the sale of club assets to a member group.
- Leitner Ropeways releases its 2019 Annual Report.
News Roundup: Switzerland to Italy
- In Massachusetts, Bousquet sells to a private investment firm which will be advised by Jon and Jim Schaefer.
- Magic Mountain resumes work on the Black Line Quad project.
- Bravo to many more ski areas offering up ski lifts for graduation ceremonies: Big Bear, Canyon, Copper Mountain, Deer Valley, Giants Ridge, Jackson Hole, Mountain High, Snow Valley and Treetops.
- Nub’s Nob says goodbye to the Blue Chair.
- There will be no summer skiing on Blackcomb Glacier this year.
- A Canadian government decision means no Alaska cruises will sail in 2020 and it will likely be 2021 until Icy Strait Point’s dual gondola system debuts.
- The creator of the Indy Pass argues shared revenue models are the future of ski passes.
- Poma’s 2019 Reference Book is here.
- Doppelmayr begins building Saddleback’s $7 million high speed quad.
- The Aspen Mountain Telemix may happen in 2022.
- Mountain Collective adds a fifth new resort for 2020/21: Sun Peaks, British Columbia.
- Set to become the world’s longest alpine 3S, Jungfrau’s Eiger Express will open early.
- Launching tomorrow: another spectacular 3S which travels 705 feet above the sea in Vietnam. Three more sections will eventually form a 12.1 mile gondola chain.
- Demaclenko creates a fully automated fogging/disinfection solution for moving gondola cabins.
- Construction gets underway on the first bubble chairlift in the Pacific Northwest, which will load and unload inside buildings.
- In Minnesota, both Welch Village and Spirit Mountain pull the plug on summer operations.
- Vail Resorts lost $40 million less than anticipated in March and April and reported a net income of $152.5 million for the quarter ended April 30th.
- Purgatory proposes building a detachable quad chair and four low intermediate trails in an area known as Ice Creek.
- On Mt. Hood, Summit Ski Area seeks a boundary extension to the Timberline border, a first step towards a possible lift link.
- Leitner-Poma President Daren Cole pens a letter addressing challenges facing the ski industry in the age of coronavirus.
- Alterra extends the Ikon Pass deferral option to April 2021 and introduces a credit policy in the event of resort closures next season.
- A new English edition of International Ropeway Review profiles Treeline Cirque at Alpine Meadows and the Express du Village at Bromont.
- Utah’s Department of Transportation narrows its Little Cottonwood Canyon mobility study to gondolas and buses.
- The Snowbird tram will carry only 25 passengers when it reopens June 13th.
- The City of Idaho Springs, Colorado conditionally approves the Mighty Argo Cable Car, a 1.2 mile gondola on the site of a historic mine.
News Roundup: Working Capital
- Boyne Resorts raises an additional $120 million through the sale of bonds to cover general expenses during the downturn.
- An Australian ski resort burned in last summer’s bush fires will be rebuilt over the next year.
- On the latest SAM podcast, Mountain Capital Partners says it’s moving forward with two new lift projects this summer.
- Indy Pass adds some big names: Cannon Mountain, China Peak, Crystal Mountain (Michigan), Granite Peak, Lutsen Mountains, Sasquatch and Tamarack.
- Aspen Skiing Company raises $10,000 for charity through the sale of Big Burn chairs.
- A structure fire briefly stops service on an urban gondola in the Dominican Republic.
- In a letter to employees, CEO Rob Katz says he hopes to reopen all the company’s resorts by late June or early July.
- A very large natural avalanche crosses the alignments of two different Yellowstone Club lifts.
- Zincton Mountain Village submits an expression of interest to develop a hybrid lift/backcountry resort in British Columbia’s Goat Range.
News Roundup: In This Together
- Citing the pandemic, Hermitage Club founder Jim Barnes seeks to delay today’s auction of resort assets. A judge orders the auction to proceed at 10:00 am via telephone.
- A group intends to sue to stop the State of Alaska from awarding a new lease of public land to Arctic Valley Ski Area.
- For the first time since it opened, the Disney Skyliner gondola lines are completely devoid of cabins.
- Vail Resorts reveals Coronavirus will cost at least $180 million and the company is reviewing preciously announced capital expenditures including six planned lifts.
- The Indy Pass will include at least 47 resorts for 2020-21.
- Though the Alaska cruise ship season is delayed until at least July 1st, Icy Strait Point still plans to welcome passengers aboard its new gondola system.
- The website is live for Saddleback 2.0.
- Timberline Mountain now plans to unveil its reopening lift plans early next week.
- Construction continues on New Zealand’s first D-Line and a three station gondola at Thredbo, Australia.
- One of Colorado’s Senators asks the Forest Service to waive remaining 2020 rent payments for 122 ski areas located on National Forest lands.
- Skyline Investments, owner of two ski resorts and many other hospitality businesses, reports record revenue but warns Coronavirus will have significant impacts including the possible closure of resorts through summer.
- Skytrac is the low bidder for all three quads proposed for Gore and Whiteface Mountains.
News Roundup: Powerhouse
- The West Virginia Timberline may be sold out of bankruptcy to an LLC offering $2.5 million.
- A Quebec resort is ordered to pay out six figures after leaving a guest stranded on a lift.
- Steamboat’s new gondola haul rope is spliced.
- Doppelmayr becomes a billion dollar company by annual revenue, up 10.5 percent from last year.
- Manning Park narrows the names for its new quad down to four and wants your help choosing one.
- A very long stop and near evacuation makes the local newspaper in Sun Valley.
- Another first is brewing in Europe: a gondola with cabin doors on two sides.
- Indy Pass adds eight more resorts.
- Eastlink Park in Alberta is adding a used Mueller T-Bar for this winter.
- ‘Qualified and reputable’ investors have expressed interest in the Hermitage Club assets in recent weeks.
- There are now four alternatives for possible Snow King Mountain expansion.
- Wired looks into the failures of both urban gondolas in Rio de Janeiro.
- Attitash assures skiers its Summit Triple is finally fixed after last year’s extended closures.
- Revelstoke receives a shipment of 22 new gondola cabins.
- Cooper releases the trail map for its Tennessee Creek Basin expansion and Little Horse T-Bar.
- The Orlando Sentinel hosts a half hour podcast all about the Disney Skyliner.
- Mont St. Sauveur’s new heated seat chairlift will be named Sommet Express.
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