- The last North American ski area still operating, Lookout Pass, closes for the season.
- Leitner-Poma is hiring installers for projects at Arapahoe Basin, Arizona Snowbowl, Aspen Snowmass, Breckenridge, Keystone and Okemo.
- A group of 150 former members buys the Hermitage Club and its five chairlifts for the bargain price of $8.06 million.
- Arapahoe Basin lays off 430 seasonal employees and cuts the hours of year round staff.
- Children of the man who died on a Vail chairlift earlier this season retain a Denver law firm for possible litigation.
- In addition to virtually all ski resorts worldwide, coronavirus shuts down urban gondolas including La Paz’s Mi Teleférico, Medellín’s Metrocable, Santo Domingo’s Teleférico and London’s Emirates Air Line.
- New owners take over Great Divide and will reevaluate proposed lift additions through a master planning process.
- The newest gondola operation in Australia becomes insolvent and enters administration, partly a result of COVID-19.
- SAM gathers leaders from Alterra, Boyne, Vail and more to talk about the crisis. A common theme: capital budgets being reexamined.
- A Vancouver developer thinks about a gondola as part of a hillside housing development near Cypress Mountain.
- Lift construction grinds to a halt in New Zealand but carries on in Alaska.
- Ski Inc. and Ski Inc. 2020 author Chris Diamond shares an optimistic view of the crisis under the assumption it won’t last into next winter.
Lookout Pass
News Roundup: SkyDream
- Backpacker previews Copper’s long-awaited Tucker Mountain lift.
- Vail’s updated trail map shows where the new Golden Peak T-Bar #16 goes.
- Belleayre’s new beginner quad will be named Lightning.
- A guest took a now viral video of Snowdon Six bubble chairs dancing at Killington Saturday. The lift was closed to the public at the time and reopened later that day.
- The new Steamboat Gondola became one of the fastest 8 passenger gondolas in North America Saturday. Sunday evening, a drive line problem was discovered and the lift will remain closed until it’s fixed. Daily updates are being posted on Steamboat.com
- Frost Fire names its new Skytrac quad Lyle’s Lift.
- The new boss at Whistler Blackcomb says the Blackcomb Gondola should be more reliable now after a tough first season.
- Big Snow American Dream names its lifts The BIG Express Quad and Poma (both lifts were built by Doppelmayr.)
- Steamboat town officials earmark some money for the replacement of Barrows at Howelsen Hill.
- Another spectacular 3S gondola joins the global ranks tomorrow.
- The Forest Service approves Whitefish Mountain Resort’s two lift Hellroaring Basin Improvements Project, subject to an objection period.
- After a decade without lift service, Wildwood is officially back on the Tamarack trail map.
- Canadian police continue to investigate the Sea to Sky Gondola downing.
- The new Skyway gondola is the cornerstone of an elevated ski experience at Bretton Woods.
- Lookout Pass names its new quad Peak One to differentiate it from the upcoming Eagle Peak expansion.
- The new Ski Santa Fe trail map artwork is released.
- Doppelmayr books a massive order for a five station, four mile D-Line gondola system at Vidanta Nuevo Vallarta in Mexico.
News Roundup: That Was Fast
- After just three weeks being open, the Disney Skyliner flies its one millionth guest.
- The new Park City trail map shows exactly where Over and Out goes.
- Poma inaugurates a lift full of superlatives in South Korea: the longest span between towers (4,000 feet) and tallest concrete tower (492 feet) for a monocable gondola.
- The Boston Seaport Gondola project is officially dead.
- Timberline Four Seasons Resort is scheduled to be auctioned November 19th.
- Aspen Skiing Company will try again for approval of the Ajax Pandora expansion.
- With an expansion coming, a dispute arises between Idaho and Montana over how much of Lookout Pass Ski Area each can lay claim to.
- The Forest Service approves Timberline Lodge’s request to replace Pucci with a high speed quad.
- In what could be a preview of an eventual lift sale, Alterra, Vail Resorts and Seven Springs all bid to buy the Hermitage Club’s snowmaking guns (Vail won.)
- The latest Pomalink newsletter previews Téléo, the first 3S urban gondola in France.
- Tampa Bay will study gondola transportation.
- Park City elected leaders discuss the same topic.
- Grafton SkyTour is now open.
- Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers visits Granite Peak to see how lifts are inspected and learn about a proposed expansion.
- The Sea to Sky Gondola replacement haul rope is spliced.
- A guy BASE jumps off a tram tower in Germany.
- The urban gondola promoter in Edmonton unveils its first proposed station location.
- The new Gould Academy T-Bar at Sunday River will be open to the public whenever four or more major chairlifts go on hold.
- The name of Manning Park Resort’s new Doppelmayr quad is Bear.
- Steamboat’s new gondola completes acceptance tests.
- The Swiss gondola which lost a cabin on October 20th reopens.
News Roundup: Win-Win
- A bill introduced in Congress would allow National Forests to use some of the fees collected from ski resorts to be used to expedite permitting for improvement projects.
- Poma will break ground on its first urban 3S in July.
- Lookout Pass intends to buy a second Skytrac quad for the Eagle Peak Expansion and relocate Chair 1.
- In addition to its Lake replacement project, Owl’s Head decides to also remove the Panorama double without a direct replacement.
- Breckenridge proposes building an infill chairlift on Peak 7 to improve skier circulation.
- Local electeds vote in support of an urban gondola to Simon Fraser University’s Burnaby Mountain campus.
- Retired Riblet double chairs bring in $146,000 for nonprofit organizations surrounding Schweitzer Mountain Resort.
- Towers supporting the world’s first eight passenger monocable gondola are history.
- This video shows how the Disney Skyliner’s innovative loading works. Every 9th gondola goes to a second turnaround, stopping about 50 seconds for unloading and another 1:10 for loading before rejoining the moving line. Pretty slick!
- The Hermitage Club files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, listing more than 200 creditors. A company called Restructured Opportunity Investors could lend the club up to $1.75 million for restructuring if approved by a bankruptcy court.
- Berkshire Bank wants the Hermitage receiver to stay on the job while a different bankruptcy court considers whether to initiate a Chapter 7 liquidation, which at least 187 club members now support.
- At Smugglers’ Notch, hundreds of trout take a spin up Sterling to their new home in Vermont’s highest pond.
- A Dutch-American joint venture proposes building an indoor snow park on a Northern Virginia landfill serviced by a two stage gondola.
- It sure looks like the Skyline Express is moving as part of the Brooks/Daisy replacement project at Stevens Pass.
- The haul rope is up on the Bretton Woods Skyway.
- Construction is well underway on Jackson Hole’s 10th chairlift.
Lookout Pass Announces Quad Project
Before building lifts on Eagle Peak, growing Inland Northwest ski area Lookout Pass will replace core out-of-base Chair 1 with a Skytrac quad, its first brand new lift in 37 years. The fixed-grip quad will double uphill capacity on the Interstate 90 side of the mountain and better position Lookout for planned future expansion. The ski area, which sits at 5,600 feet along the Idaho-Montana border, added three Riblet chairlifts in the early 2000s but all came used via other mountains.
The new Chair 1 will follow the existing alignment and utilize some of the current Riblet towers with a slope length of approximately 2,900 feet and vertical rise surpassing 800 feet. Lookout’s project is the fourth announced new lift for the State of Idaho in 2019 following commitments by Tamarack Resort and Schweitzer. Sun Valley recently pushed back its Cold Springs quad project to 2020.
News Roundup: Stories
- Group eyes gondolas for Miami.
- Alaska’s upcoming new ski resort gets a name: Skeetawk.
- Doppelmayr joins Facebook.
- Italian snowmaking powerhouse Technoalpin enters the ski lift fray with a T-Bar in Turkey.
- Lookout Pass says 14 new runs will be cut this summer but new lifts will wait until 2019.
- Durango, Colorado advances plan to replace rope tows on Chapman Hill with a carpet and triple chair.
- Two of Hunter Mountain’s three summit lifts are down for the third day in a row.
- This week’s rope evacuation stories come from Blue Mountain (2000 Poma six-pack) and Giants Ridge (2017 Skytrac quad.)
https://www.facebook.com/BlueMtnResort/posts/10156115158282603
Forest Service Green Lights Big Lookout Pass Expansion
Lookout Pass is the only ski resort in America spanning two states, two National Forests and two time zones. While markedly low-key, this local favorite on the Idaho-Montana border has grown rapidly from one lift to four since 2002. A Record of Decision published today by the Idaho Panhandle and Lolo National Forests gives Lookout approval to build two new lifts on Eagle Peak, upgrade Chair 1 and add 15 new trails spanning 654 acres. Vertical rise will increase more than 40 percent to 1,650′ as the lift-served summit moves from Runt Mountain to Eagle Peak. Taken alone, the expansion will be larger than all but four ski areas in the Eastern United States. When combined with current terrain, once little Lookout will provide more than 1,000 acres of terrain for a growing number of skiers in the Inland Northwest.
Lift 1, a 1982 Riblet double, will be upgraded to a fixed- or detachable-grip quad in the existing alignment. A new fixed-grip double, triple or quad chair on Eagle Peak dubbed Lift 5 will be 5,200′ long by 1,300′ vertical with around 24 towers. A smaller 2,800 x 800′ Lift 6 was approved as a double chair ending on the same summit. A 12,000′ power line will need to be trenched to both relatively remote new bottom drive terminals. “The new lifts will incorporate components recycled from the Lift 1 upgrade as well as used components purchased from other ski areas to promote resource conservation and to reduce costs,” the ROD notes. Lookout Pass already operates four Riblet fixed-grips, three of which were relocated from other resorts. Fittingly, one of the new lifts will be located in Idaho and Pacific Time, the other in Montana on Mountain Time.
Not wasting a moment, Lookout Pass said in a statement, “Phase One projects will be initiated starting this summer. Specific projects are subject to logging bids and contracts plus additional ski lift and building plan review. We will announce the proposed projects timeline as soon as possible.” You can learn more and follow the progress here.
News Roundup: Layoffs at Burke
- It’s never good when a ski resort sends out a press release assuring guests it will open next season. Q Burke Mountain Resort, with five lifts including two Leitner-Poma high speed quads, is laying off all but 20 of its employees and “looking carefully at cost-cutting and cost-containment measures.”
- Lookout Pass moves toward 91 acres of new terrain, two more fixed-grip lifts and a high-speed-quad replacement for its oldest lift.
- The father of 9-year old who fell from a chair after seven minutes of dangling sues Liberty Mountain Resort claiming inadequate staffing.
- The man who pushed another man off an Aspen Highlands chairlift in January will plead not guilty by reason of insanity.
- Mont Bellevue in Quebec will build a $1.5 million Doppelmayr quad chair this summer.
- Construction season is here and Caberfae Peaks already has its first delivery.
- Props to Alyeska lift maintenance for getting the Glacier Bowl Express back in action after last week’s fire.
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