- At Mont Sutton, an empty chair falls from one lift while the mountain’s lone detachable quad remains out of service due to a technical issue.
- A Victoria, BC suburb considers building a transport gondola.
- Purgatory loses its workhorse six pack over the busy holiday (now back open).
- Ontario ski resorts, many of which are family businesses, try to stay optimistic during the provincial shutdown.
- Royal Mountain, New York changes hands.
- Italy postpones reopening ski resorts until January 18th.
- Jay Peak and Burke Mountain are set to receive $5.2 million under a settlement between a law firm and investors.
- Kimberley continues to spin two upper mountain lifts for hikers and skinners while repair work continues on the Northstar Express.
- Wolf Creek has a new James Niehues trail map.
- Open only one day before the pandemic, the SkyView gondola at Hard Rock Stadium gets set to reopen March 22nd.
- The new T-Bar at Sugarbush is named KBRA (Kelly Brush Race Arena).
- A fall and catch are caught on camera at Bristol Mountain.
- A newspaper profiles how lift maintenance and operations teams work together at Snowmass.
- Winter Park safely evacuates 143 people from the Pioneer Express. Public records show a component in the return terminal failed due to fatigue.
- Testing finds further work is needed to make the Mont-Sainte-Anne gondola safe. It may not open for four to eight weeks and season passholders are being offered refunds.
- Porkies, Michigan shuts down to complete a required chairlift inspection.
- Bousquet Mountain will open tomorrow under new ownership with a new lift.
- Hunter Mountain reopens today after a three day Covid-related closure.
Mont-Sainte-Anne
News Roundup: Merry Christmas
- Sunrise Park Resort considers building a combination lift.
- Mont-Sainte-Anne works diligently toward reopening its gondola with a reduced capacity of 30 cabins at first.
- A Vancouver developer scraps a gondola from its plans.
- Ontario’s more than 40 ski areas are ordered to close as part of a multi-week lockdown beginning tomorrow.
- The City of Sioux Falls orders a Skytrac quad for Great Bear Ski Valley.
- Fashion designer Rachel Zoe shares the story of her son falling from a Buttermilk quad chair on social media.
- Another fall at Sundance gets featured on Reddit.
- An 8 year old raises $10,000 to support a struggling nonprofit ski area in North Dakota.
- Snow King Mountain previews its gondola cabins which are being fabricated in France.
- Michigan’s Blackjack and Indianhead are both for sale with a listing price of $3.49 million.
- Blizzard Beach, chairlift and all, will reopen March 7th after a year-long closure.
- A group proposes connecting West Seattle to the regional transit network with a four station gondola.
- Steamboat creates a virtual gondola line powered by text message.
- With Europe’s ski industry struggling particularly hard, MND Group focuses on international markets including North America.
- The reimagined Bousquet Mountain opens with a new triple chair January 1st.
- Mission Ridge’s new summit lift opening later this winter will be called the Wenatchee Express.
- Lake Louise updates its trail map to show the West Bowl expansion, Summit lift and two future lift alignments.
- The New York Times checks in with ski resorts across the country about business during the pandemic.
News Roundup: Next Up
- Robert Redford sells Sundance Resort to two private equity firms.
- 49 Degrees North completes the same retrofit as Chair 1 received on Chair 4, which will reopen today.
- Kamiscotia, Ontario rebrands as Mt. Jamieson.
- Kennywood Park removes rides to cut costs including its 1996 CTEC quad (sister park Lake Compounce did the same three years ago.)
- Saddleback is open! The trail map shows replacement Cupsuptic and Sandy lifts coming soon.
- A Utah entrepreneur wants to bring back a tram to Bridal Veil Falls.
- Vail Resorts looks to raise another $500 million from investors.
- Kelly Canyon seeks to replace Stony Mountain and Summit with one triple or quad.
- Sun Valley’s old Dollar double hits the market.
- Ditto for Ragged Mountain’s former Speak Mountain triple.
- Local officials approve Utah Olympic Park’s West Peak expansion and a 17 tower double or triple.
- Magic Mountain expects to have the Black Line Quad operational by MLK weekend.
- Leitner-Poma of America is hiring a Field Service Technician.
- The Burlington Free Press begins a three part series on the Jay Peak fraud case.
- Still no gondola as Mont-Sainte-Anne reopens.
- Two injured guests are airlifted following a chairlift fall at Park City.
- A formal feasibility study is the next step toward a gondola in Long Beach.
- Fatzer ships a new rope to the Sea to Sky Gondola.
News Roundup: Black Friday
- The Town of Jackson keeps on fighting against recently-approved Snow King Mountain improvements.
- A new round of engagement asks the public to choose between three routes for the Burnaby Mountain 3S.
- The State of Maine prevails in a lawsuit against Big Squaw owner James Confalone, who is ordered to pay a fine and restore the mountain.
- Snowhaven, Idaho will sit this winter out due to Covid.
- Ski Magazine ranks the top lift systems in the country.
- Europe is divided on whether ski resorts should open.
- Park advocates oppose a Dodger Stadium gondola.
- Interalpin, the biennial mountain technology trade show, is canceled for 2021.
- Here’s a Mont-Sainte-Anne gondola update.
News Roundup: October Turns
- Skiing is open this weekend in Alberta, Colorado, Minnesota, New Jersey Ontario and Wisconsin!
- Garibaldi at Squamish releases new renderings of what could be a $3.5 billion project.
- Searchmont holds off on making snow, offering lodging or selling passes and will only install one of the two Skytrac lifts it ordered due to Coronavirus.
- In a rare interview, John Cumming tells the story of Powdr.
- Big Snow and American Dream post promising attendance numbers after reopening.
- The latest capacity management video from SAM and Snow Operating focuses on lift capacity math in the Covid era.
- With two operating and five more under construction, Mexico’s capital region considers building even more urban gondolas.
- The gondola network in Puerto Vallarta appears complete but surrounding theme parks and hotels have a long way to go.
- Skeetawk has a trail map and will open for the very first time December 5th.
- Only one of Shanty Creek Resorts’ two Michigan ski areas will open this winter.
- Following the death of its owner, Granite Gorge does not plan to operate this year.
- Frustrated at lack of investment, local business owners look into buying Mont-Sainte-Anne from Resorts of the Canadian Rockies.
- A three gondola system connecting various points in Park City would cost an estimated $64 million to build with $3.5 million in annual operating costs.
- The Freedom Pass comes back but with fewer participating resorts than in years past.
- With revenue down eight figures, the Palm Springs Tramway takes out a $15 million loan.
- French President Emmanuel Macron orders the country’s ski resorts closed until at least December 1st due to rising coronavirus cases.
- Of 6,521 comments the Utah Department of Transportation received on Little Cottonwood Canyon options, 78 percent were pro-gondola.
- Granby Ranch will reopen under new management December 11th with more than $1 million invested in lift maintenance and snowmaking.
- Soldier Mountain gives another fire recovery update.
- Technical Safety BC releases an incident report and technical analysis from the latest Sea to Sky Gondola incident (both are heavily redacted so as not to impede the ongoing criminal investigation.)
- Camelback’s new Sunbowl Quad nears completion.
News Roundup: Cold Front
- Sunday River releases maps of the upcoming Merrill Hill project.
- Updated stats from NSAA show how many ski areas operated in each state last winter.
- Las Vegas’ decision to go with Teslas in a tunnel rather than a Doppelmayr automated people mover may have been short sighted.
- Jay Peak President Steve Wright discusses joining the Indy Pass, limited winter tram operations and potential future lift upgrades.
- Mission Ridge begins erecting terminals for the new Liberator Express, which load and unload inside buildings.
- Whiteface’s new beginner quad will be called Owl Express.
- A new lift at Sun Valley will also get a fresh name, to be announced soon.
- Gunstock burns down an old T-Bar station for firefighter training.
- An Ontario ski area worries about lift safety following a rash of vandalism.
- With the launch of a gondola up Hoonah Mountain next year, an Alaska Native corporation sees new opportunities for development.
- Despite a 30 percent drop in business last winter, at least two New Zealand resorts plan to build new lifts this offseason.
- As Smartwool moves headquarters from Steamboat to Denver, the company gifts $1.5 million to Howelsen Hill for a new Barrows chairlift, to be built by Skytrac.
- A Michigan ski area with 12 lifts won’t make snow and will operate weekends only due to Coronavirus.
- Mont-Sainte-Anne is no longer certain its base-to-summit gondola will be functional by December.
- Big Sky wraps up a busy season of preparation for the Swift Current 6 top terminal and carrier storage facility.
News Roundup: Vail Numbers
- 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.”
- Government-owned Marble Mountain remains on the hunt for a private operating partner.
- Towers are up for the largest new lift of the year.
- A fire comes uncomfortably close to Mt. Waterman, California.
- More than 6,500 people commented on Little Cottonwood Canyon transportation alternatives including a possible 3S.
- Mont-Sainte-Anne’s gondola remains inoperable following last winter’s mishaps but the ski area expects it to reopen in December.
- Disney won’t open chairlift-accessed Blizzard Beach until at least March of 2021.
- The Sea to Sky Gondola reopens its base facilities.
- Defunct Vermont ski area Snow Valley is for sale.
- The Town of Mountain Village acquires 20 used gondola cabins for social distancing at the base of Telluride.
- The last chance to comment on Burnaby Mountain Gondola routes is Wednesday.
- The Forest Service signs off on two new lifts and removal of three old ones at Waterville Valley.
- Snow King’s gondola is approved by the Town of Jackson.
- Whiteface will auction off retired cabins from the Cloudsplitter Gondola.
- Indy Pass adds Swain Resort in New York.
- The Central Wasatch Commission seeks feedback on potential 3S gondola transportation from Alta to Brighton and/or Brighton to Park City.
- Le Relais eliminates season passes entirely. Guests will buy blocks of skiing until they reach a certain total for the season, then all remaining blocks are free.
- A local investment banker will take over operations of nonprofit Sleeping Giant Ski Area.
- Bogus Basin’s Morning Star Express will miss the final two weekends of the season.
- A lot of Covid operating plans are coming out these days. This one from Mt. Hood Meadows stands out as excellent.
- Sugarloaf GM Karl Strand joins the Storm Skiing Podcast for a discussion on the West Mountain expansion and Sugarloaf 2030 lift plans.
- Former Aspen CMO Christian Knapp launches Lift Ticket, a new series about resorts navigating Covid.
- Doppelmayr unveils a new Wir magazine.
News Roundup: Preparing
- Mont-Sainte-Anne is ordered not to operate its gondola until the lift is deemed safe.
- A New Brunswick resort will pay a fine for a lift employee’s on the job injury.
- All three Disney Skyliner gondolas are set to reopen July 15th.
- Liftopia fights to stay out of bankruptcy as more ski areas say the company owes them money.
- Silver Mountain celebrates the anniversary of a historic agreement to bring the world’s longest gondola to Kellogg, Idaho.
- With its first chairlift complete, Skeetawk sets its sights on a much longer detachable quad.
- Construction of the planned Valemount Glacier resort is delayed.
- Cape Smokey begins building foundations for Atlantic Canada’s only gondola.
- White Pass will switch rotation direction of the Basin quad, requiring a tower to be moved.
- Snowy Range removes the Chute double’s drive terminal in preparation for a Skytrac Monarch upgrade.
- Big Sky Resort launches first in North America self load, self unload bike carriers on Ramcharger 8.
- The Forest Service approves expanding Summit Ski Area’s footprint to connect with Timberline Lodge & Ski Area.
- The California zoo which debuted a detachable gondola three years ago finds itself on the brink of permanent closure.
- As the Forest Service continues its review, the Town of Jackson once again takes up the issue of a Snow King Mountain gondola.
- Mission Ridge will auction off chairs from the former Liberator Express.
- A coalition including Alta, Snowbird, Ski Utah and Powdr launches a website and media campaign advocating for a Little Cottonwood Canyon gondola.
- Last year’s addition of the Peak 1 quad allows Lookout Pass to launch summer operations for the first time.
- Remains of a very old tramway in Utah may be removed.
- Green Mountain Valley School celebrates groundbreaking for a state-of-the-art T-Bar at Sugarbush.
- It took five long weeks to get a European specialist into New Zealand and able to splice the country’s first D-Line lift.
- Hunter Mountain abruptly cancels its summer skyride opening and will share more information in the coming weeks.
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: Viral
- The Mountain Collective adds four awesome resorts for 2020-21: Chamonix, Grand Targhee, Panorama and Sugarloaf.
- Kicking Horse celebrates 20 years of operation on the site of the former Whitetooth Ski Area.
- Sun Valley’s Cold Springs double is about to end a 50 year run but will live on at a resort in California.
- Arizona Snowbowl’s Agassiz reopens for one last hurrah after being down since January 18th with a gear issue.
- Hundreds of ski resorts in Austria, Italy and Switzerland are forced to close for the season due to coronavirus.
- Berkshire East, Catamount, Middlebury Snow Bowl and Mt. Abram become the first US ski resorts to shut down due to the virus.
- Belleayre, Gore, Whiteface and the Lake Placid Olympic Complex close gondolas for the season for the same reason. Snowbird’s tram is shut down until further notice. Aspen Snowmass will no longer load unrelated parties in the same gondola cabins.
- Indiana Beach, one of only four venues with an aerial lift in the Hoosier State, closes permanently.
- The two year old LST Ropeways detachable in France shuts down indefinitely again. Instead of the LST design, MND America will offer Bartholet detachables in the United States.
- Vail Resorts reports financial results: skier visits are down 5.3 percent percent this season through March 1st but lift revenue is up 0.8 percent. On a conference call, CEO Rob Katz addresses coronavirus, lift lines at Vail and possible future acquisitions.
- Timberline Mountain promises to make multiple big announcements at a media event Tuesday. All three existing lifts are in poor condition and being dismantled.
- Arctaris Impact Fund doesn’t expect to realize a profit on its Saddleback investment until it sells the resort in 7-10 years.
- An enterprising family is building the first Australian-designed and manufactured chairlift in 30 years for private use only.
- Alterra Mountain Company CEO Rusty Gregory will deliver a keynote address on Monday in Park City covering the rise of Alterra, industry consolidation and multi-resort pass products.
- For the second time in three weeks, a sudden stop on the Mont-Sainte-Anne gondola elicits an emergency response and the lift is once again closed indefinitely.
