- Ikon Pass adds five mountains in the Aosta Valley of Italy.
- One of those mountains – Cervino – announces a monster Leitner 3S with three stations and 4,700 feet of vertical.
- Indy Pass signs a flurry of new mountains, mostly small and remote outposts:
- Hilltop and Mt. Eyak, Alaska
- Little Ski Hill, Idaho
- Hyland Hills, Minnesota
- Cuchara, Colorado (lift not yet operable)
- Mt. LaCrosse and Sunburst, Wisconsin
- Buffalo Ski Club and Dry Hill, New York
- McIntyre, New Hampshire
- Hockley Valley, Ontario
- Mont Sutton, Owl’s Head, Mont Edouard, Mont Habitant, Vallée Bleue, Val d’Irene and Ski Vorlage, Quebec
- Marble Mountain and Smokey Mountain, Newfoundland and Labrador
- Others in Europe, Asia and South America
- Buck Hill, Minnesota; Swiss Valley, Michigan and Montage Mountain, Pennsylvania leave Indy Pass.
- Judges uphold the 2022 revocation of a permit for Park City Mountain’s Eagle and Silverlode lift replacements; Vail Resorts vows to submit new applications for both.
- In another blow for Vail, a jury awards $20 million to a teenager who fell after misloading the Paradise Express at Crested Butte.
- Matthew Prince floats the idea of a gondola from Old Town Park City to Solitude and Alta.
- Big Sky’s Lone Peak Tram top station enclosure to open this season with the name Kircliff.
- A flood damages lifts at Crystal Ridge, Wisconsin.
- A new Leitner-Poma gondola opens in South Carolina.
- Jackson Hole lobbies the Forest Service for a mountain resort specific management designation applying to JHMR, Snow King and White Pine plus 620 acres not currently in JHMR’s permit area but identified in an accepted master plan (full letter here).
- Doppelmayr raises a 7,800 lb. bullwheel into position at Alpental by hand.
- Spirit Mountain to name its new chairlift via a public vote.
Park City
News Roundup: Explorer
- The Palm Springs Tramway reopens tomorrow after a week closure due to a faulty motor contactor.
- The public operator of Belleayre, Gore and Whiteface, lost a record $50 million last year.
- Wasatch Peaks adds an eighth lift to its fleet this summer.
- Montage Mountain, PA appears to leave the Indy Pass but new additions are coming soon.
- Mt. Norquay displays demo cabins from both manufacturers with gondola installation planned for 2026.
- Vail Resorts increases the discount Epic Pass holders can give friends to 50 percent.
- In an interview, Vail’s CEO says the company will refocus on North American investment.
- Austrian Fabian Dankl rides a bike on a haul rope between two lift towers (with permission).
- Unseated passengers aren’t just a winter problem.
- Snoqualmie raises $194,000 for charity from the sale of 97 Riblet doubles.
- Gore Mountain to sell chairs from Topridge in a race-to-the-parking lot format August 23rd.
- Riverbanks Zoo to open South Carolina’s only gondola this month.
- A lightning-caused wildfire burns much of Tamarack’s proposed expansion area but spares resort infrastructure so far.
- Purgatory runs into permitting delays with the Gelande lift project.
- Butternut releases a new trail map showing the Jane’s Quad.
- Sponsored job: Cable Propelled Transit Engineer at SCJ Alliance.
- I snapped a few photos of the Sunrise Gondola and parking garage projects at Park City last week.
News Roundup: Mechanics
- New hanger arms arrive at Kicking Horse five months after a cabin fell from the Golden Eagle Express.
- Snow Ridge, New York moves two towers on the North lift damaged by a 2023 tornado.
- Two possible buyers emerge for Toggenburg, New York, one of which would reopen the mountain for skiing.
- Powdr continues to work toward a transaction to sell SilverStar, BC.
- Virtually all candidates for Park City Council support exploring aerial transit for the region.
- The family of a Montana man who died in a lift deropement at Red Lodge Mountain last winter hold a community car show in his honor.
- Leaders of the European Union and United States settle on a 15 percent tariff for goods moving stateside.
- The tariff rate on Swiss goods soars to 39 percent beginning next week.
- Mexico’s President announces construction of the world’s longest urban gondola line in Mexico City with eight stations over 7.1 miles and 398 cabins.
- Oaxaca to join the urban gondola train too.
- The proposed Zincton project in interior British Columbia to bypass a full environment assessment.
- Here are two great snapshots of the lift maintenance profession.
- Telluride looks toward a 10 place gondola with a design capacity of 2,500 to 3,000 people per hour and two cabin parking/maintenance facilities.
- Vail Resorts and unionized Park City mechanics reach a tentative agreement good through mid-2028.
News Roundup: Hypotheticals
- 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 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.
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