- Vail Resorts reports annual skier visits down 9.5 percent, net income down 14 percent, EBITDA down 1 percent and season pass sales down 3 percent in units but up 3 percent in dollars. The company announced no new 2025 lift projects and will lay off 14 percent of corporate staff along with limited operational staff.
- Hatley Pointe, North Carolina retires the Laurel double, plans to build a new chairlift eventually.
- County planners unanimously reject the Shadow Mountain Bike Park proposal in Colorado.
- Sleeping Giant, Wyoming will hibernate again this winter.
- Huff Hills, North Dakota reaches a one year agreement to operate this winter.
- Aspen’s proposal to replace Lift 1A remains alive.
- Whitetail, Pennsylvania to sell Hall chairs from Jib Junction.
- Leitner to build a seven station urban gondola in Morella, Mexico for $100 million.
- Mexico’s President and President-elect inaugurate a six station urban gondola line by Doppelmayr in Mexico City.
- A Hezbollah rocket strikes a chairlift in Israel held territory.
- Snowbird turns an old tram cabin into a bar.
- Sandia Peak proposes replacing Chair 1.
- Tamarack scales down expansion plans to seven new chairlifts and an extension of the Wildwood Express with no new gondola.
- The under construction One&Only resort with a two station gondola connecting to Big Sky Resort catches fire.
- Ever optimistic Les Otten still aims to re-open The Balsams with three new chairlifts in phase one.
Leitner
News Roundup: Megaprojects
- Alterra details its 2024 capital plan, totaling $300+ million with six new chairlifts.
- Following yesterday’s announcement of three new lifts this year, Deer Valley also outlines the seven detachable lifts opening in 2025 for a total of 10 in two years (counting the two section gondola as two.)
- A presentation details massive construction underway at Deer Valley.
- Deer Valley will hold an open house to update the community on construction and future plans next Thursday.
- Park City continues to explore a gondola connection from Main Street to Deer Valley.
- Speaking of megaprojects, here are some unofficial photos of the two D-Line gondolas with six total stations under construction at Big Sky.
- The world’s largest indoor ski area opens near Shanghai with a detachable chairlift and gondola from Poma.
- Parks Canada approves the Banff Gondola owner’s purchase of the Jasper SkyTram.
- A Swiss newspaper reports Alterra may be as interested as Vail in acquiring Swiss resorts.
- Vail Resorts to report earning September 26th, traditionally when lift projects are announced for the following year.
- Vail to sell Wildcat Express gondola cabins, run only chairs in the future.
- Solitude will auction 29 chairs from the Moonbeam quad, which operated only four years.
- Wachusett orders a Doppelmayr UNI-G six pack to replace the Polar Express.
- A rider is injured and airlifted after falling while boarding Schweitzer’s Great Escape Quad.
- Five years since the Sea to Sky Gondola‘s haul rope was first cut and four years since it was cut again, police are still looking for the perpetrator(s).
- Maintenance workers on London’s IFS Cloud Cable Car plan a strike.
News Roundup: 750
- Leitner plans to offer the ConnX multi-model gondola system from 2025 after passing tests in Hungary.
- A progress report on the first Doppelmayr TRI-Line in Switzerland.
- Also on the first MND Orizon detachable in France.
- MND inaugurates a new production facility to support the Orizon line.
Skytrac celebrates its new facility in Tooele, Utah.
Bartholet releases its 2024 reference book. - Alta clarifies it supports a Little Cottonwood gondola.
- White Pass adds chairs to boost capacity on the Great White Express.
- A viral video shows a lift being jostled by a small tornado.
- Homewood now plans to build its already-delivered D-Line gondola in 2025 and upgrade Ellis in 2030.
- Burke Mountain delays summer opening to mid-July due to a mechanical issue with the Sherburne Express.
- Marmot Basin to sell chairs from the Knob double.
- Jackson Hole to auction Sublette chairs.
- Beartooth Basin is for sale.
- I visited my 750th ski area this week, marking the completion the Canada Lift Database.
News Roundup: Metrics
- 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.
News Roundup: Mountain Planet 2024
- MND posts a replay of its Orizon product launch at Mountain Planet.
- Doppelmayr and Poma release their annual yearbooks.
- Poma launches an open air gondola concept where passengers will stand harnessed.
- Doppelmayr wins a $115 million contract to build a 3S and 10 passenger gondola in Chamonix.
- Okanagan Gondola receives final approval for construction near Kelowna, BC.
- The Highlands, Michigan will auction chairs for charity.
- Turkey arrests multiple people over last week’s fatal gondola incident.
- Jackson Hole says goodbye to Sublette.
- Opposition emerges to Deer Valley’s proposed Lift 7.
- Quebec Mountain Resorts Company, owner of Mont Grand-Fonds and Mont Lac-Vert, offers to buy Mont-Sainte-Anne and Stoneham from Resorts of the Canadian Rockies, says it would invest tens of millions in new lifts and snowmaking.
- Vail Resorts reports skier visits were down 7.8 percent this season but revenue was up. Same story for 24-25 season pass sales with units pacing down but revenue up.
- Bluewood, Washington looks to replace Skyline with a detachable quad.
News Roundup: Above & Beyond
- A new park map shows where Legoland New York’s gondola will go.
- A skiing preview of Deer Valley Expanded Excellence.
- The Colorado Sun embeds with departments who work all night to make Winter Park run.
- Afton Alps removes Chair 18 to make way for a tube park.
- Vail Resorts reports season-to-date skier visits are down 9.7 percent and lowers earnings guidance.
- From the classifieds: a 1987 Poma Quad for sale.
- Doppelmayr assumes patents needed for Autonomous Ropeway Operation (AURO) installations in the USA.
- Kimberley, BC files a new master plan.
- MND to make an announcement on April 16th.
- 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.
- Red Lodge Mountain closes the Cole Creek quad due to a component failure within the lift terminal structure.
- A high speed quad is rope evacuated at Burke Mountain.
- Flat Top Flyer at Powderhorn remains closed awaiting delivery of parts.
- Sugarloaf closes King Pine for whatever this “mechanical problem” is.
- Guests were stuck on Blackcomb’s new gondola for hours yesterday.
- The OITAF World Congress for Ropeways is coming to Vancouver June 17-21.
- Leitner has reportedly paid more than $16 million in settlements to families of victims of the 2021 Stresa-Mottarone tram disaster.
- A D-Line gondola in Austria will run entirely on solar energy produced on site this summer.
- Grouse Mountain provides a gondola construction update.
- A raccoon rides Sugarbush’s Village quad.
- Costs double for the proposed gondola-served transit center at Steamboat.
- Also at Steamboat, Leitner-Poma appears to have won the contract to replace Sunshine Express.
- Leitner-Poma also appears to have upcoming projects at Big Bear Mountain Resort, Snowbasin and Wasatch Peaks Ranch.
- Chapman Hill will replace its main rope tow with a Leitner-Poma platter.
- Wachusett nears a decision to replace Polar Express with a six pack.
- The Town of Alta passes a resolution opposing the Little Cottonwood Canyon gondola.
- Red River shares renderings of its upcoming Copper Chair, will sell retiring Riblet chairs.
News Roundup: Rough Week
- A ski patroller dies at Titus Mountain, New York in an accident involving a chairlift.
- Bittersweet, Michigan says last week’s lift incident was caused by high winds.
- A 15 year old dies after falling from a lift at Sommet Morin Heights, Quebec.
- Hickory, New York to open this weekend for the first time in years.
- Sandia Peak works toward doing the same.
- Sleeping Giant, Wyoming won’t open this season.
- Neither will Misty Ridge, Alberta.
- A viral video shows chairs stacking up on a de-roped lift in France.
- Nordic Valley reopens after a lodge fire shuttered the resort.
- Doppelmayr and Mantis Ropeway Technologies secure regulatory approval for unmanned chairlift unloading stations in Austria and Switzerland.
- The Mantis system is also undergoing testing in Canada.
- Leitner Ropeways provides significant compensation to the families of 14 people who died in a 2021 Italian tram incident.
- Vail Resorts reports North American early season skier visits declined 16.2 percent but lift and ski school revenue were up.
- Hundreds sign a petition urging Powder Mountain to maintain public access to two existing and one future chairlift planned to go private.
- PowMow asks the public to weigh in where the outgoing Paradise Quad should be reinstalled.
- Double Diamond/Southern Cross at Stevens Pass closes for repair.
News Roundup: Happy Holidays
- Berkshire East names its new high speed quad T-Bar Express.
- Sugarloaf explains how it rebuilt a high speed quad from Big Sky to be as wind resistant as possible.
- Belleayre and Mt. Hood Meadows introduce all new trail maps showing new lifts.
- China Peak’s latest map shows the new Canyon quad and upcoming Firebowl quad.
- Sunday River’s new map shows Barker 6 and Merrill Hill but not Merrill Hill II.
- Mount St. Louis Moonstone celebrates completion of its groundbreaking CA$14 million chairlift.
- Homewood’s new gondola is spotted in a vacant lot in downtown Reno.
- Leitner to build a ropeway for apples in Italy capable of carrying 150 tons per hour.
- Closed Brodie Mountain, Massachusetts is sold to Florida investors.
News Roundup: Public Dollars
- California Mountain Resort Company (owner of China Peak/Dodge Ridge/Mountain High) buys Taos’ outgoing Lift 4 for reinstallation next summer.
- One of New Zealand’s largest ski resorts faces liquidation right before ski season.
- Solitude’s next three lift replacement priorities, in order, are Link, Sunrise and Powderhorn II.
- Buck Hill holds a chair sale. Middlebury Snowbowl too.
- Gatlinburg SkyLift Park simplifies its name to SkyPark.
- A New York public broadcaster highlights the Olympic Regional Development Authority’s $700 million in recent spending subsidized by taxpayers.
- A one year delay over sewer issues increases the cost of Gore Mountain’s new Ski Bowl detachable quad by $681,000, will now be built next year.
- New Hampshire commits $18 million to a major overhaul of the Cannon Mountain tramway.
- The Forest Service approves the replacement of Wilbere at Snowbird with a fixed grip quad.
- Leitner releases its 2022 annual report showcasing installations across Europe.
- Loon Mountain shares a South Peak construction update.
- Big Sky’s new tram cabins are complete and ready for shipping.
News Roundup: Birds of Prey
- A pair of osprey nest atop a tower on Beaver Creek’s Riverfront Express, preventing maintenance work for now.
- New York’s Olympic Regional Development Authority plans to spend $80 million on lifts and snowmaking each of the next four years.
- The first 29 cabins will debut on Park City’s Red Pine Gondola June 30th with 26 more to follow next winter.
- SilverStar adds 21 new cabins to the Schumann Summit Express gondola.
- The first urban gondola in Canada could go out to bid in 2025.
- Leitner-Poma secures a tax credit for its upcoming facility in Utah.
- White Pass retires the Pigtail II double, the second oldest chairlift in the country dating back to 1958.
- The asking price for closed Toggenburg Mountain drops to $1.995 million.
- Leitner and Poma partner with a solar energy company to offer photovoltaic panels on detachable lift terminals.
- Lake Louise formally announces the Upper Juniper Express, to be built by Doppelmayr over the next two summers.
- A worker dies in a fall from an Italian aerial tramway while performing maintenance work.
- Chair 2 at Snow Valley is being shortened to become a beginner lift.
- Mt. Holly’s second detachable quad will be called Lightning Express.
- Snowmass seeks Forest Service approval to replace Coney Glade and Cirque.
- Cannon Mountain looks to announce a new tram on July 7th, the 85th anniversary of the original tram.
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