Marble Mountain

Mudflow Shutters Marble Mountain, Newfoundland

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The largest ski resort in Atlantic Canada shut down Sunday and will remain closed through Thursday following a severe storm with heavy rainfall. Marble Mountain’s main base-to-summit high speed quad, the Lightning Express, was buried in multiple feet of mud and debris, rendering it inoperable.

Thankfully, the Leitner-Poma detachable was not damaged and cleanup work is progressing well. Approximately 550 tons of mud has been removed so far and work will continue over the next two days. “We’re incredibly proud of the progress we’ve made thanks to the dedication of our operations team and the invaluable support from JCL Construction, who have been instrumental in the removal process,” the mountain said on Facebook.

The Lightning Express has a bit of a wild history with natural disasters. In August 2014, lightning struck the top terminal, setting it ablaze to the point that the lift’s haul rope snapped. Leitner-Poma spent all fall and the following winter rebuilding the lift with new terminals, chairs, grips and haul rope. The old lift was refurbished and now operates as the Flat Top Flyer at Powderhorn, Colorado.

Marble Mountain plans to reopen with top to bottom skiing on Friday.

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  • Vail Resorts has sold 850,000 season passes as of September 18th, an 18 percent increase compared to last year at this time.
  • CEO Rob Katz assures skiers reservations should be widely available for most resorts on most days.
  • Vail lost $153.6 million in the quarter ended July 31st compared with an $89.5 million loss in the same period last year.
  • For the full fiscal year 2020, Vail reported a net income of $98.8 million, a decrease of 67.2 percent.
  • The company also recently cut 410 jobs.
  • Regarding capital projects and the seven lift projects Vail postponed this year, Katz said on the conference call:

“We are of course going to be monitoring the season closely before we come out with any plan for calendar year 2021. We’ll make sure we’re incorporating what happened this year. We will likely still be in a conservative approach though hopefully not as conservative as last year because the environment around Covid and travel has all improved. We will definitely be prioritizing projects that we think will have a significant impact on the guest experience and certainly some of the projects that we deferred from last year will be top of the list.”

News Roundup: Across Canada

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News Roundup: Wyoming

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  • The Province that owns Atlantic Canada’s largest ski resort grows tired of losing money and looks for a private operator for Marble Mountain.
  • Doppelmayr will build the largest vertical six-pack in the world this year at Ischgl, Austria with over 3,000 feet of elevation gain in a single section.
  • Boyne Resorts President and CEO Stephen Kircher says a recent bond sale and tax cuts should yield increased capital investment at his resorts over the next five years.  Boyne doesn’t plan to buy new mountains any time soon, however.
  • Fire update: Purgatory reopens summer operations, Arizona Snowbowl is still closed while Taos, Red River, Sipapu, Ski Santa Fe and Sandia Peak are under partial closures due to extreme fire danger.
  • Antelope Butte, Wyoming has raised the $360,000 it needs to complete lift work and reopen next winter.
  • Beartooth Basin ends its summer season early due to problems with the upper platter lift.
  • Alterra CEO Rusty Gregory says of committing $555 million to mountain improvements: “We went to each resort and said, ‘Tell us, as resort operators, what will make the biggest positive impact on the guest experience.’ They had long lists.”
  • Leitner is pulling ropes at 12,740′ for the highest-ever 3S gondola.
  • Big Sky posts sweet photos from the Austrian factory where America’s first eight passenger chairlift and D-Line stations are being prepared for shipment. Chairs will have some unique designs on the back too.
  • The Portland Aerial Tram returns to service 5:30 am Monday, three weeks early, thanks to crews slipping track ropes much faster than expected.

News Roundup: Study

Peter Landsman4 Comments

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I’m in Colorado for a few days checking out this year’s new lifts. There are six!