- Sun Valley’s proposed Frenchman’s replacement would be a higher capacity detachable quad and River Run would be a six pack with the same capacity as the existing quad.
- Park City’s proposed Cabriolet replacement would include a mid-station with slight angle change.
- From the classifieds: a used Doppelmayr quad for sale in Ontario.
- Marble Mountain, Newfoundland cancels July lift service citing supply chain delays.
- Closed Sugar Loaf, Michigan could reopen as a non-lift recreation area.
- A proposed 30 percent tariff on goods from the EU and 35 percent on Canada could spell trouble for the ski industry.
- A full aerial tram car and bear spray don’t mix well.
- MND and ten associated individuals in France are fined €1.89 million for “late communication of inside information, insider trading and breaches of professional obligations.”
Park City
Park City Looks to Replace Canyons Village Cabriolet
Park City and the Canyons Village Management Association today announced plans (pending approval) to retire the aging Cabriolet, which carries guests from a lower parking lot and transit center to Canyons Village. The new lift would be a gondola, though specifics on cabin size and design will be detailed later this month. The one year build is expected to follow closely behind the Sunrise Gondola, slated to open this coming winter between Canyons Village and Red Pine Lodge.
Open air cabriolets became popular in the 1990s as a way to efficiently move guests over relatively short distances. These lifts were usually chosen to quickly move crowds between parking lots and villages. On the plus side, they’re efficient people movers and rarely stop. On the less great side, they require guests to remain standing while exposed to the elements and don’t easily accommodate bikes.
Intrawest installed four cabriolets between 1994 and 2008 (at Tremblant, Mountain Creek, Panorama and Winter Park) while American Skiing Company’s lone cabriolet debuted at The Canyons in 2000. At opening, The Canyons Cabriolet carried 3,000 passengers an hour in 40 eight place carriers. Talisker Corporation inhereted the lift when it acquired The Canyons in 2007 and Vail Resorts took over operations in 2013 while combining Park City and The Canyons into one mountain. The Cabriolet kept spinning through all this change, reliably transporting thousands of skiers each day from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm.
The new gondola would be designed to “enhance mountain accessibility for lodging guests, base and mid village area residents, and day skiers and snowboarders,” Vail Resorts said in an email to media. This opens up the possibility of an intermediate station. The new lift would also likely feature larger cabins to service the new Canyons Village Parking Structure. Park City broke ground on the expansive new garage and pedestrian plaza this spring. The first phase will open in 2025-26 with 653 parking spaces. The full five story, 1,850 stall facility is expected to debut in winter 2026-27 alongside the new gondola, again pending approval.
Residents can learn more about the project at an Open House on July 14th.
News Roundup: Gondola Mania
- The Forest Service green lights Breckenridge to construct a Peak 9 gondola, remove A-Chair, replace C-Chair, remove Eldorado Platter and relocate Camelback Platter.
- Aspen Mountain proposes replacing Little Nell and Bell Mountain with one new chairlift.
- Another insightful Deer Valley East Village construction update.
- Park City identifies specific gondola alignments for study between Old Town and Deer Valley.
- Park City Municipal councilors and the new owner of Town Lift Plaza float replacing the existing Town triple chair with a gondola.
- I got to tour Sunrise Gondola construction at Park City’s Canyons Village earlier today.
News Roundup: On & Off
- The first towers and top terminal are set for the new gondola in Idaho Springs, Colorado, which will feature 22 cabins and North America’s first five Bike Cabs.
- Winter Park’s proposed town gondola secures local approval.
- Also at Winter Park, a draft Forest Service decision green lights removal of Looking Glass, replacement of Gemini, Discovery and Endeavour as well as construction of the Copper Creek six pack (subject to an objection period.)
- Holiday Mountain plans to re-use 1969 towers on a new chairlift.
- Sommet Saint-Sauveur commissions the first Mantis AI software in North America tied directly into a lift control system.
- An update on Deer Valley’s six lifts going in this summer.
- Park City flies towers for the Sunrise Gondola.
- Utah posts its third highest skier visits in history.
- Teton County, Wyoming to oppose Grand Targhee expansion; Teton County, Idaho not sure yet.
- The Forest Service approves Sipapu to replace Lift 3 with completion slated for Fall 2025.
- The Forest Service hosts a public meeting on the proposed Green Peak gondola.
- Jay Peak President and General Manager Steve Wright tells US Senators the Bonaventure replacement is sidelined by Canadians’ redicence to visit and tariff-related cost increases.
- Eaglecrest permanently closes the Black Bear double, will focus on upgrading Ptarmigan to a triple and installing a used gondola.
- Garaventa and CWA debut tram cabins in Switzerland made to look like wood with flower pots on the ends.
News Roundup: Retrofits
- US ski resorts report their second best season ever with 61.5 million visits.
- Colorado releases a detailed report on Winter Park’s gondola tower evener beam failure last December. Leitner-Poma will retrofit or replace similar beams on existing lifts and modify the beam’s design for future installations.
- The Kicking Horse gondola hanger failure remains under investigation but the resort will replace all hangers and not operate the gondola until mid-summer at the earliest.
- Homewood to install its D-Line gondola in 2026 after years of delays.
- McCauley Mountain to sell Hall chairs from the former Big double.
- The Covid-delayed Timber expansion at Tremblant is back on the table.
- The White Mountain National Forest seeks comments on Waterville Valley’s proposed village-to-mountain gondola.
- Eaglecrest, Alaska continues to lose money with its planned gondola still in the parking lot.
- Salt Lake Community College launches a training program for lift maintenance professionals.
- Wildcat’s Snowcat triple, which missed all of last season, to get a new haul rope, drive, controls, comm line and operator houses.
- A Park City billionaire acquires the PCMR Town Lift plaza, envisions a future gondola.
News Roundup: Passport
- Vail Resorts reports skier visits down 3.1%, lift revenue up 3.4%, ski school revenue up 2.7%, dining up 2.2% and retail/rental down 4.0% with pass sales for next year down slightly in units.
- Burke Mountain to be sold to Bear Den Partners for $11.5 million.
- Park City explores possible routes for a Main Street-Deer Valley gondola.
- Ski Utah continues advocating for a Little Cottonwood gondola.
- Telluride seeks approval for yet-to-be-specified projects from its master plan.
- Boyne launches two multi-resort pass products good at all their resorts.
- Local artists to transform Park City Sunrise chairs into works of art to be auctioned for charity.
- Italy opens a criminal investigation into last week’s fatal tram incident involving a haul rope failure and track rope brake failure on one of two cabins.
- Steeplechase, Minnesota turns to crowdfunding to finance expansion.
- Leitner-Poma Canada is hiring lift installers for a project at Whitewater, BC.
- Loveland to operate the new Lift 7 quad as a triple.
- Killington is full steam ahead on Superstar replacement.
- Red Lodge Mountain begins repairing the chairlift involved in a fatal incident last month.
- Palisades Tahoe invites local high school students on mountain operations tours to aid with recruitment.
News Roundup: Court of Appeals
- Sipapu, New Mexico proposes replacing one of the last detachable Poma lifts in the United States.
- Four people are killed in an aerial tramway crash in Italy.
- Skiland, Alaska rope evacuates its only chairlift.
- Kicking Horse closes for the season without its gondola; any compensation for passholders affected by five weeks of gondola closure to be determined at a later date.
- Two new gondolas near completion in West Virginia.
- South Carolina’s only gondola is almost ready to roll.
- Bretton Woods formally announces the Bethlehem Express replacement project.
- A Utah court of appeals hears arguments from Park City the town and Park City the ski area re: canceled 2022 Eagle and Silverlode lift projects.
- Vail also tussles with South Lake Tahoe over Heavenly parking and taxation.
- Titcomb Mountain, Maine fundraises to build a new T-Bar as soon as this summer.
News Roundup: USFS
- The Forest Service approves three lift projects at Taos, including a base to base gondola.
- Red Lodge Mountain reopens all lifts except the Triple Chair involved in last month’s fatal incident.
- The widow of the man killed at Red Lodge hires a law firm and engineer to look into the circumstances.
- Telluride Ski Resort declines to help fund a new Mountain Village gondola so the town looks to pass a lift ticket tax.
- Powder Mountain to construct a new lift in Wolf Canyon/DMI.
- A child falls from a lift at Park City.
- An urban gondola is floated in Denver.
- Cataloochee, North Carolina lists parts from the Omigosh double for sale.
- New York’s state-owned ski areas report visitation up over 3 percent this season with revenue up more than 8 percent.
- Black Mountain, New Hampshire delays going to a co-op model, will continue to be run by Indy Pass for now.
- Whaleback, NH passes $100,000 toward its goal of $250,000 to continue operations.
- The Caribou-Targhee National Forest weighs whether to change its forest plan to accommodate Grand Targhee’s proposed South Bowl and/or Mono Trees expansions.
- The Arapaho National Forest releases the Draft Environmental Assessment for Winter Park’s proposed Gemini Gondola, Copper Creek South chairlift, Looking Glass replacement, Endeavour replacement and Discovery replacement.
- Park City shutters Sunrise to resume construction of the Sunrise Gondola.
News Roundup: Pass Edition
- Ikon Pass adds Ischgl, Austria; loses Windham Mountain Club, New York and makes Arapahoe Basin unlimited with no blackouts. Full Ikon also adds two bonus days at Buck Hill, Minnesota; Cranmore, New Hampshire; Jiminy Peak, Massachusetts and Wild Mountain, Minnesota.
- Arapahoe Basin leaves the Mountain Collective Pass.
- Vail makes minimal changes to Epic Pass for next year.
- Indy Pass adds Burke Mountain, Vermont and Tenney Mountain, New Hampshire.
- The family behind Wisconsin Resorts Inc. want to buy Burke Mountain but the resort’s receiver says he has a better buyer.
- Wisconsin Resorts-owned Searchmont, Ontario teases multiple future terrain expansions on a new trail map.
- The group behind Perfect North Slopes, Indiana will operate Swiss Valley, Michigan
- A rope evacuation at Norway Mountain, Michigan.
- Fresh off building four new lifts, Powder Mountain has two more in the pipeline.
- Ski Cooper, Colorado slashes midweek tickets to $45, revenue surges.
- Also at Cooper, a skier is airlifted to the hospital after falling from a lift.
- Vail settles a lawsuit with a woman who fell from a lift at Stevens Pass.
- Park City gets Pioneer going for the first time this season.
- Woods Valley, New York to replaces its T-Bar with a CTEC quad ending higher on the mountain.
- 7th Heaven at Blackcomb suffers from delayed openings, closures and reduced speeds due to an electrical issue.
- Snowbird’s Mineral Basin Express repair timeline is extended due to storms.
- Whaleback Mountain’s only chairlift is closed all week due to mechanical.
- Sandia Peak works to revive mothballed Chair 2.
- A 2005 Doppelmayr Funifor suffers a serious incident in Italy involving a severed haul rope and cabin colliding into the bottom terminal. The lift was outside operating hours and one operator suffered minor injuries.
News Roundup: Lynx Express
- June Mountain closes for two days due to issues with againg J1.
- Loveland proposes replacing Lift 7 with a quad.
- Indy Pass plans more resort additions through the spring and fall.
- One of them is Tenney Mountain, which also looks to build a high speed quad.
- Tenney’s Hornet double needs a gearbox rebuild, will be closed until mid-March.
- Skeetawk, Alaska seeks state funding to develop electrical infrastructure for a future Lift 2.
- Burke Mountain’s receiver says a sale may be near.
- The proposed Burnaby Mountain Gondola in metro Vancouver would include significant transit oriented development.
- Mt. Seymour, BC removes the Brockton chair from service for an unknown amount of time.
- Manning Park, BC closes the similar Blue Chair for inspections due to the incident at Mt. Seymour.
- Marble Mountain, Newfoundland hits the market.
- Chair 8 at Bear Mountain suffers a grip slip incident with passengers.
- Rezoning paves the way for more development at Powder Mountain.
- Leitner to build a seven station gondola in Iraq.
- Poley Mountain, New Brunswick works to repair its triple chair.
- Bretton Woods applies to build a new lift, Attitash seeks to reduce capacity on the closed Flying Bear.
- Solitude completes a mid-winter bullwheel bearing replacement on Sunrise.
- The first terminal and towers go up for the winter build Saluda Skyride in South Carolina.
- Mt. Crescent, Iowa rebrands as Crescent Hill.
- An inside look at operating the largest lift fleet in the country.
- And one of the smaller ones.
- Mineral Basin at Snowbird to be closed for a week-ish due to a machanical issue.
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