- The 66th and final new lift of the season opens at Belle Neige, Quebec and is named for two Holocaust survivors who founded the ski area.
- Les Otten continues to pursue financing for The Balsams redevelopment.
- Wachusett will invest $1.3 million to overhaul the Minuteman Express this summer.
- A bill with $25 million for Cannon tram replacement advances in the New Hampshire Senate.
- Sun Peaks closes the Morrisey Express for three days and will close it again next week due to a power supply issue.
- Locals express frustration with Vail Resorts’ operation at Snow Creek.
- Mt. Abram’s Wayback Machine will be down all weekend due to an unspecified mechanical problem.
- Ditto for Snoqualmie’s Pacific Crest quad.
- Mt. Bachelor will operate a modified footprint in May due to construction of the new Skyliner six pack.
Mt. Bachelor
News Roundup: Changing Hands
- Vancouver’s transit authority begins the station design process for the Burnaby Mountain Gondola.
- Three Park City residents who own Pacific Group Resorts expect to close on Jay Peak next month.
- Burke Mountain may also soon be sold.
- Arapahoe Basin creates a podcast episode all about Lenawee Express construction.
- A Basin also explains why a big drop in skier visits is a good thing.
- Energy prices where many of the world’s lifts are operated and manufactured could spike eight fold this winter.
- Eaglecrest’s new gondola arrives in Alaska.
- Sugar Bowl joins the Mountain Collective.
- Hunter Mountain will sell chairs from the Z Lift next week.
- A thousand page report outlines negligence and poor management leading to deaths of 14 people on an Italian tramway last year.
- Dry Hill, New York gets new owners.
- The top station building for a 125 passenger aerial tramway partially burns in Switzerland.
- The Forest Service seeks public comments on Copper Mountain’s proposed Timberline six pack.
- The General Manager of Whitecap Mountains, Wisconsin assumes full ownership.
- A new neighborhood adjacent to Mayflower Mountain Resort will feature its own chairlift.
- Mt. Bachelor’s new Skyliner six pack will be D-Line.
- Loveland and Lookout Pass fly lift towers into place.
- British Columbia determines a volunteer ski patroller injured in a chairlift de-ropement is eligible for worker’s compensation.
- Leitner wins a four station urban gondola contract in Colombia.
- Here are some official and unofficial updates on the Palisades Tahoe Base-to-Base Gondola.
- Also an update on Thunder from Jackson Hole:
News Roundup: Teaser
- Copper Mountain proposes replacing the Timberline Express although a representative says there’s no timeline or model selected yet.
- An empty cabin falls from a gondola in South America.
- Palisades Tahoe tells the story of declining to purchase the White Wolf property for $400,000 and now paying the landowner rent where much of the Base to Base Gondola runs.
- A new book about prolific lift builder Hans Burkhart will be released this fall.
- The Highlands, Michigan teases something faster, quieter and warmer coming soon.
- Plattekill says the lightning-damaged Northface Express will be repaired before ski season.
- Someone allegedly gets left on the Icy Strait Point gondola system, is offloaded unharmed.
- Doppelmayr will build the new Skyliner Express at Mt. Bachelor.
- Big White offers the rare opportunity to own a gondola cabin as Lara’s Gondola transitions to all Sigma cabins.
- Idaho surpasses 2 million skier visits for the first time.
- Shawnee Peak, Maine reverts back to Pleasant Mountain.
- On the second anniversary of the second cable cut, Sea to Sky Gondola doubles the reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction of a suspect to CA$500,000. Police also release a video of the incident and photo of the saboteur.
- Sea to Sky also sues the company that installed a security system between the two vandalism incidents, alleging it did not work reliably and allowed the cable to be cut the second time.
- Maine conditionally approves redevelopment of the ski area on Big Moose Mountain.
- Mayflower reaches 300 acres of ski run cleared, still plans lift service in late 2024.
- Lift mechanics at Nordic Valley put out a fire which may have been intentionally set.
- The newest lift in Tennessee will be called the Horizon Skyride and open soon.
- Indy Pass sales are up 52 percent in units and 67 percent in dollars over 2021-22 with more resorts to be added in the coming weeks.
Mt. Bachelor to Replace Idled Skyliner Express
The second six place chairlift in Oregon will debut for the 2023-24 ski season, Mt. Bachelor and parent company Powdr announced today. The larger detachable will increase capacity by 50 percent from the current Skyliner Express, which debuted in 1989 and has remained out of service this season due to technical issues. Mt. Bachelor and Doppelmayr will repair the aging high speed quad for the coming 2022-23 season before replacement begins a year from now.
“Since Skyliner went out of service the team and I, together with Powdr have been working parallel paths, first to try to get the lift repaired for the current season and second to either replace or repair the Skyliner lift in time for next winter,” noted President and General Manager John McCleod in a blog post. “As it turns out, we are going to do both,” he continued. “If there had been any way that we could have replaced Skyliner with a six-pack over the coming summer we would have done it, however by the time we began talking to lift manufacturers in January their production and installation schedules were fully committed for 2022.” The Lift Blog 2022 project count stands at 56 with 35 of those being new detachable lifts across North America.
Exact specifications for the new Skyliner are yet to be determined but it will become the largest lift investment in Mt. Bachelor’s history. A manufacturer was not publicly announced and Mt. Bachelor did not immediately respond to a request for comment on that.
News Roundup: First Chair
- Park City Mountain Resort tells elected leaders that visitation and lift wait times are flat compared to previous seasons.
- Sugarbush borrows parts from the Slide Brook Express to keep Super Bravo going. A blog post discusses lift staffing/lift maintenance and hints at future lift replacements.
- Waterville Valley shows off the first chair for its upcoming bubble lift.
- The hard work continues to repair immense damage at Sierra at Tahoe.
- Closed New York ski area Toggenburg is put up for sale.
- An unfortunate viral video shows a fight between security and Blue Mountain guests in the Orchard Express loading area over masks.
- Mt. Bachelor says the Skyliner Express will miss the entire season.
- Two Black Hawk helicopters crash land near the base of Snowbird’s Mineral Basin Express; no injuries reported.
- Despite an alleged $4.5 million theft, backers of the Mighty Argo Cable Car look to begin tower foundations as soon as this winter.
- Vancouver’s transit agency posts a Burnaby Mountain Gondola roadmap.
- A child is injured in a fall from a Camden Snow Bowl chairlift.
News Roundup: Consolidation
- Doppelmayr USA’s Katharina Schmitz joins the Ski Utah podcast to talk lift technology, next year’s projects and more.
- According to Forest Service documents, Alta plans to replace Sunnyside and Albion this summer with a single six place chairlift.
- Sierra at Tahoe President John Rice takes SAM podcast listeners through the harrowing Caldor Fire disaster and recovery effort.
- White Pine, Wyoming is sold to new owners.
- Kimberley announces the Northstar Express will be inoperable for the entire season following last month’s fire.
- Vail Resorts says Stevens Pass faces its most acute staffing problems, replaces the General Manager the same day as a Seattle Times front page story comes out.
- Nine people successfully catch a child who fell from a chair at Mt. Washington.
- Big White seeks more parking at the Black Forest base in advance of two planned lift installations.
- Steamboat repairs the Sunshine Express; Storm Peak Express lives up to its name.
- Mt. Bachelor will be without the Skyliner Express for an indefinite period.
- Keystone closes the River Run Gondola for three days of maintenance (now back open).
- Redevelopment of the Meadows parking lot at Steamboat could include replacing the Wildhorse Gondola with a higher capacity detachable.
- BigRock Mountain’s quad chair fundraising gets off to a strong start.
- Vail Resorts and Park City ski patrollers reach a tentative contract agreement, likely avoiding a strike.
- Despite the headlines, Vail Resorts’ skier visits are actually down from the last two seasons as of January 2nd. Ski school, dining and retail/rental revenue are all up from last year but still down significantly from pre-Covid 2019-20.
Ikon Pass Signs Mt. Bachelor and Windham Mountain
New resorts on both coasts will join Alterra’s Ikon Pass for winter 2020-21. In central Oregon, Mt. Bachelor will become the fifth Powdr-owned mountain to sign on to Ikon following Copper, Eldora, Killington and Snowbird. In New York’s Catskill region, independently-owned Windham Mountain will be the first Ikon destination in the Empire State. Both new additions will offer seven day access on the full Ikon Pass and five restricted days with the Ikon Base Pass. Ikon Pass holders will now enjoy access to 42 mountains in North America with a total of 503 lifts. The competing Epic Pass from Vail Resorts offers 42 different mountains with 434 lifts in the US and Canada. Both passes also include days in Europe, Asia and Australia.
“As we look ahead, we are excited to announce these new partners that represent the spirit of the Ikon Pass community, bringing added value to pass holders, at some of the lowest rates available since we launched the Ikon Pass,” said Erik Forsell, Chief Marketing Officer for Alterra Mountain Company. “Mt. Bachelor in Oregon and Windham Mountain in New York are favorites in their regions, adding expanded access in two new states in North America and inspiring Ikon Pass holders to seek more adventures.” Alterra recently introduced enhanced renewal savings and an Adventure Assurance program to entice buyers amid COVID-19 uncertainty.
News Roundup: Answers
- Stevens Pass nears completion of its largest lift investment ever.
- Bretton Woods prepares to open New Hampshire’s first eight passenger gondola as soon as October.
- A nonprofit hopes a T-Bar will be the right lift for historically troubled Ascutney Mountain.
- The 17 former Peak resorts are now Vail resorts.
- Vail season pass sales are up double digit percentages from last year and the company expects to earn between $778 and $818 million in fiscal year 2020 with a net income of $293 to $353 million.
- Mt. Bachelor launches an all-new James Niehues-painted trail map with some surprise new lift names: Alpenglow, Early Riser and Little Pine.
- The Berry family and Arctaris Impact Investors issue dueling letters on why the Saddleback sale fell through.
- Here’s another construction update from Alaska’s brand new ski area.
- The Forest Service approves Mammoth Mountain’s Chair 16 replacement project.
- Stakeholders seek an extension as the Hermitage Club bankruptcy works its way through the courts.
- The ski resort portion of American Dream now won’t open until December 5th.
- Doppelmayr is out with a new issue of Wir Magazine which profiles Ramcharger 8 and Whistler Blackcomb’s three newest additions.
- Vail concludes that undetected ground movement caused July’s tower separation and evacuation of the Eagle Bahn Gondola.
News Roundup: Docs
- A former employee plans to reopen Crystal Mountain, BC in December with one of three lifts in operation.
- The Hermitage Club bankruptcy is now a Chapter 7 liquidation and the current receiver will be relieved of his duties.
- Grafton inches closer to opening the midwest’s only chondola.
- The Forest Service approves Mt. Bachelor’s upcoming lift project.
- The USFS also releases the Environmental Assessment for Arizona Snowbowl’s proposed Telemix, which would also include cabin parking.
- The Skyliner officially goes on Walt Disney World’s park map.
- Here’s the alignment for the proposed new lift on Breckenridge’s Peak 7.
- The number of U.S. ski resorts that operated last season jumped by four from 2017/18 to 476. New York still leads the pack with 51 areas followed by Colorado and Michigan.
- Arapahoe Basin becomes Ikon Pass destination number 40.
New Quad to Anchor Woodward Mountain Park at Mt. Bachelor
Progression will be the name of the game next winter at a reimagined Sunrise base area on the east side of Mt. Bachelor. Powdr Co. today revealed three new lifts, a remodeled lodge and new parking lot will make up the first Woodward Mountain Park, designed to offer a fun and intuitive learning experience. Woodward Mountain Parks will eventually come to multiple Powdr resorts, building on the success of the company’s Woodward indoor action sports parks located throughout North America. At Mt. Bachelor, 70 foot and 300 foot covered carpets will be joined by a 629 foot long Doppelmayr quad chair servicing five new acres below the Sunrise Lodge.
“Woodward is all about stoking passion and I’m excited for our guests to enjoy reimagined on-mountain environments that’ll be fun for every age and ability level,” said John McLeod, president and general manager of Mt. Bachelor in a statement. “The Mt. Bachelor Woodward Mountain Park will debut expanded terrain and new and inclusive experiences that our guests will love. Combined with our significant Sunrise lodge and base area upgrades, we’re transforming the Mt. Bachelor the guest experience for the future.” Relatedly, Mt. Bachelor will debut a new trail map next winter painted by James Niehues.
Utah-based Powdr is on an epic building blitz. The Bachelor addition will be the fourth chairlift for the firm this year on top of new lodges at Killington and Lee Canyon, a major snowmaking upgrade at Pico and the all new Woodward Park City ski area. Last year, Powdr added six lifts at its resorts for an impressive total of ten in two years.
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