- Gunstock teases a multi-lift expansion with details to come in December.
- Magic Mountain won’t have summit access until at least December 18th due to ongoing lift projects.
- A CBS primetime reality show features an hour of ski area maintenance!
- Kirsten Lynch takes over as CEO of Vail Resorts.
- Sierra-at-Tahoe eyes an early 2022 reopening.
- A Mayflower construction update.
- Doppelmayr releases a new Wir magazine.
- The Cascade Skyline Gondola proposal gains a key endorsement.
- The final logging take place for the Eagle Peak expansion at Lookout Pass.
- Whistler Blackcomb highlights this summer’s big ticket lift maintenance projects.
- Sundance names two new quads Outlaw Express and Stairway.
- MND reports improved results with lift and snowmaking sales up 32 percent.
- Alberta Parks says it will open Hidden Valley this season in the absence of a private operator.
- Hickory, NY looks likely to reopen after six seasons.
- Big Sky’s new map is out showing Swift Current 6.
Mayflower
News Roundup: Valleys
- Bear Valley lists the Kuma triple for sale.
- Deer Valley plans to move the bottom terminals of Carpenter Express, Silver Lake Express and Snowflake downhill as part of Snow Park redevelopment. Space will also be saved for a possible Park City gondola link.
- Mayflower developers want to build build a signature lift linking to the Sultan pod at Deer Valley.
- Squaw Valley solicits the public’s help to rename the Squaw Creek triple. Squaw One Express is expected to be renamed separately in partnership with the Washoe Tribe.
- Hickory Ski Center, closed since 2005, says there’s a “strong possibility” of reopening this winter.
- Both Leitner-Poma of America and Doppelmayr Cable Car bid to build an automated people move in Kuala Lampur, though Bombardier is said to be the frontrunner.
- The Leitner portion of Cablebús Mexico City launches Sunday.
- A Grand Targhee expansion proposal faces more opposition in Teton Valley, Idaho, though the project would be located on federal land in Wyoming.
- Baldy Mountain Resort throws in the towel on summer due to British Columbia wildfires.
- Timberline Lodge will end ski season three weeks early due to snowmelt.
- Leitner opens a new production facility in Slovakia focused on tower and steel fabrication.
- Toggenburg’s lifts are indeed for sale.
- Victoria, Australia resorts shut down again due to coronavirus.
News Roundup: Live Rescue
- Big White, Grouse Mountain, Revelstoke Mountain Resort, Hell’s Gate Airtram and the Sea to Sky Gondola each receive up to CA$1 million in government assistance.
- Aspen Mountain’s Lift One project inches toward groundbreaking. The Pandora’s expansion and chairlift faces an August 25th review.
- Icy Strait Point welcomes its first ship since 2019 with a new gondola system.
- Tampa Bay’s regional transit authority postpones a gondola feasibility study.
- Mayflower Mountain Resort still has no set timeline for lift construction.
- Morocco commits to building its first urban gondola.
- The Government of Dubai and MND sign a memorandum of understanding for a prototype self-propelled ropeway system.
- Just days before launch, Mexico City delays the opening of Cablebús Line 2.
- In its first two weeks, Cablebús Line 1 averaged 56,000 riders a day.
- Also in Mexico, a dramatic rescue operation follows a tension system failure on the Mueller-built Monte-Taxco Cable Car.
- Vail Resorts is not happy with a YouTuber who climbed a Peak 2 Peak Gondola tower to make a video.
- Poma, Compagnie des Alpes and the French Government will partner to build a 3.3 mile, 3 station 2S gondola linking a valley transit hub to a mountain community.
News Roundup: Full Steam Ahead
- Steamboat shares a timeline for the Wild Blue Gondola project, relocation of the Christie Peak Express base terminal, Pioneer Ridge construction and Greenhorn Ranch.
- Utah breaks its all time visit record despite the pandemic and a drought.
- Marshall Mountain is now set to sell to a group intending to maintain public access.
- The former owner of Jay Peak and current operator of six Quebec ski resorts agrees to pay the Vermont ski area $100,000 without admitting any wrongdoing.
- Mayflower Mountain Resort breaks ground, sort of.
- We now know where Kelly Canyon’s new Skytrac triple will go.
- The Indy Pass will announce its 67th and 68th resort partners next week.
- Purgatory permits mountain bikers to shuttle themselves in private vehicles while Lift 1 undergoes repairs in June and July.
- Aspen invests over a million dollars to replace the haul rope on the Silver Queen Gondola.
- The Stresa-Mottarone tram disaster was captured by two surveillance cameras. Caution, the footage is very disturbing to watch.
- Progress continues on the Squaw-Alpine Base to Base Gondola.
News Roundup: Chairless
- Wildcat plans to replace the chairs on the Wildcat Express.
- Jay Peak and Burke Mountain could receive more than $9 million under a proposed settlement with the law firm of former owner Ariel Quiros.
- Here’s another chance to own a classic double chair.
- Mayflower Mountain Resort secures up to $260 million in bond financing.
- Catamount’s second new lift this year will replace the last SLI in the Northeast.
- The United States tallies 59 million skier visits in 2020-21, 5th most in history.
- Aspen Snowmass had a tough season with traffic 20 percent below average.
- Digging into the unsolved Sea to Sky Gondola crimes.
- Two Disney Skyliner cars bump into each other, causing some down time.
- Vail Resorts reports strong earnings, continues to look at strategic acquisition opportunities and will be aggressive at reinvesting across its resorts post-pandemic.
- Arizona Snowbowl converts the Arizona Gondola combination lift into a pure gondola for the summer.
- The bike park at Purgatory will open many weeks late due to an unspecified problem with the Purgatory Village Express.
- Doppelmayr releases a 30 page urban brochure.
- France may provide the financing for a six station, 180 cabin urban gondola in the Filipino capital of Manila.
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: Perfect
- Squaw Valley President and COO Ron Cohen explains why the resort’s name is changing and gives an update on the Squaw-Alpine gondola.
- The other Squaw ski area will not be changing names.
- Whitefish cuts the line for its future Hellroaring lift.
- Icy Strait Point, home to two new Doppelmayr gondolas, is in the running for Global Cruise Port of the Year.
- Nitehawk commences fundraising to replace its destroyed chairlift, though the community ski area may only be able to afford a T-Bar.
- Jay Peak reopens its tram tomorrow with freshly-slipped track ropes.
- The public is asked to weigh in on three Burnaby Mountain Gondola alignments.
- Red Mountain becomes the eighth Ikon Pass destination in Canada.
- Big Snow’s reopening first chair goes up empty in honor of the more than 14,000 New Jerseyans who have died from Covid.
- The first lifts at Mayflower Mountain Resort are now set to open in 2023 instead of 2021. A new project video suggests it will be worth the wait.
- Mad River Glen will get a James Niehues trail map if fundraising efforts succeed.
- Granby Ranch gets a new owner and operator.
- The Perfect family has pumped more than $13 million into Timberline Mountain this offseason, including the two new chairlifts which are 75 percent complete.
News Roundup: Millions
- Crystal Mountain reopens after being closed nearly a week. Mudslides along its access road cost the resort more than $1 million in business.
- Dave McCoy, the visionary founder of Mammoth Mountain, dies at 104.
- Great job Elk Mountain staff for this rescue of a dangling young skier.
- You can also watch a heroic Mt. Hood Meadows employee remove seven inches of ice from Vista Express towers this week.
- The Sea to Sky Gondola finally reopens, six months after a crime which cost nearly $4 million dollars in damage and lost revenue.
- Chair 5 at Greek Peak breaks down and gets rope evacuated.
- Highland Mountain Bike Park will add 40 chairs to its chairlift, increasing uphill capacity by 50 percent.
- Vail Mountain COO Beth Howard explains the circumstances behind last weekend’s epic lift lines.
- The Balsams may be closed but Les Otten opens the doors for himself and four others to cast first in the nation presidential votes.
- Swiss manufacturer Bartholet launches a fresh website.
- The Little Mountain that Could is a short film by L.L.Bean exploring the rebirth of Whaleback as a nonprofit.
- Locals frustrated with Whistler Blackcomb operations and staffing petition Vail Resorts to do better.
- One of those involved in the Stoos chair accident succumbs to his injuries. Two others have been released from the hospital.
- Stevens Pass reopens Seventh Heaven 11 days after this incident.
- A man dies in a terrible accident involving the Skyline Express at Vail. A preliminary investigation suggests he slipped through a chair’s seat, was caught by his jacket and asphyxiated.
- Former Vail Resorts mountain division head Chris Jarnot becomes a consultant for the upcoming Mayflower Mountain Resort in Park City.
- Sunday River President Dana Bullen talks about the Merrill Hill expansion, future lift projects and which lifts are staying put.
- Al Henceroth confirms the Pallavicini double will be replaced by a Leitner-Poma double this summer.
- Utah Business magazine makes the case for One Wasatch.
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