- Doppelmayr and the Government of Bolivia settle a multi-million dollar dispute over payment for urban gondola lines already completed.
- A small child falls from a lift at Ski Sundown.
- The world’s longest multi-section gondola opens in Serbia.
- Les Otten’s company takes 100 percent ownership of The Balsams.
- Brundage Mountain temporarily closes a lift due to Covid-related staffing issues.
- A shutdown of skiing has cost 9,000 jobs and CA$90 million in Ontario.
- The Wenatchee Express won’t open January 15th and a new date is TBD.
- Laurel Mountain closes for a week due to lift issues but will reopen today.
- French ski resorts remain closed through at least next week.
- Bartholet opens a new production site and teases an autonomous ropeway solution coming soon.
- The Sea to Sky Gondola sues insurance brokers over business interruption coverage and claims. The company has also ordered a fourth batch of cabins from CWA and intends to reopen late spring or early summer.
- Vail Resorts acknowledges a rough start to the season with skier visits down 16.6 percent, lift ticket revenue down 20.9 percent, retail/rental down 39.2 percent, ski school down 52.6 percent and dining down 66.2 percent through January 3rd.
- Cuchara gets close to reopening with one of four chairlifts.
- A Colorado appeals court upholds that waivers broadly protect ski resorts from chairlift-related injury claims.
- The Province of British Columbia and Big White will host a virtual public meeting regarding the resort’s ambitious master plan on January 26th.
- Spirit Mountain remains at a financial crossroads.
- Gunstock President Tom Day discusses what lift projects he’d like to see in the future and much more.
- With a part fast-tracked from Italy, Kimberley’s lone detachable chairlift could reopen as early as Sunday.
- A New York ski club fundraises for a new T-Bar cable.
- Parts are already arriving for Catamount’s new Glade triple.
Sea to Sky Gondola
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: New Names
- A new ownership group takes over Brundage Mountain Resort.
- Commuters in the Vancouver region overwhelmingly support a Burnaby Mountain Gondola.
- The Sea to Sky Gondola team and partners splice together multiple haul rope sections to run cabins off the line, completing cleanup.
- The Ropeway Center at Colorado School of Mines presents a new video series.
- Doppelmayr will build the Yodeler detachable quad at Holiday Valley.
- The Forest Service says yes to two future chairlifts at Lee Canyon.
- Ditto for Sunlight’s East Ridge project.
- With its high speed quad nearing completion, Saddleback is poised to reopen in mid-December.
- Windham Mountain renames the Wheelchair lift Baker in honor of a former ski patroller.
- Arizona Snowbowl publishes a new trail map painted by Kevin Mastin.
- Big Sky’s new map shows Madison is now called Jayhawk.
- The Tampa Bay-St. Petersburg-Clearwater region will spend six figures to study gondola transit.
- Without an operator, the only lift in Oklahoma faces an uncertain future.
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: Good Things
- A developer looks to build a new sightseeing/biking/hiking chairlift near Park City.
- Soldier Mountain, rebuilding from a summer wildfire, vows to open on time in December.
- The Sea to Sky Gondola turns its (re)construction fence into a fundraiser for local charities.
- More than 10,000 people weighed in on Burnaby Mountain Gondola routes.
- Here’s the latest on Aspen’s new Lift One in video form.
- Mad River Glen gets a James Niehues trail map. For a limited time a portion of all purchases on James’ website via this link will benefit Lift Blog.
- A landslide makes a mess of a chairlift in Italy.
- Check out progress on the Doppelmayr and Leitner sections of North America’s largest lift construction project.
- Bear’s Den Mountain, now Thrill Hills, hopes to reopen this winter after five years shuttered.
- Nordic Valley is a busy place with six pack construction underway.
- Home to Alaska’s first two gondolas, Icy Strait Point is Seatrade’s Global Cruise Port of the Year for 2020.
- Sky Tavern will replace its platter lifts with carpets.
- Arizona Snowbowl’s huge new Telemix will be called the Arizona Gondola.
- Alterra reorganizes with three divisions: Mountain, Hospitality and Real Estate.
- Big Sky aims to launch Swift Current 6 by Thanksgiving 2021 and now envisions three gondola sections rising from Mountain Village to the Tram.
- Fire crews work to contain a small blaze at Purgatory Resort.
- The Forest Service approves construction of a gondola and backside expansion at Snow King Mountain, subject to a customary objection period.
Sea to Sky Gondola Offers $250,000 Reward for Info on Crimes
Reeling from its haul rope being cut twice in 13 months, the Sea to Sky Gondola Limited Partnership today announced a CA$250,000 bounty for information leading to the arrest and conviction of individual(s) responsible. The gondola cable was first cut on August 10th, 2019 and again on September 14th, 2020. The reward will be funded entirely by the gondola’s owners and not by taxpayers.
“This individual on both occasions came very close to hurting people,” remarked General Manager Kirby Brown in an afternoon press conference at the gondola base. “This individual hurt our community and certainly hurt our business. As we begin the incredibly dangerous and delicate extraction process yet again, this individual has put my team directly in harm’s way. This individual is a criminal who needs to be caught and brought to justice.” Kirby estimated 25 to 30 of the 39 cabins that were on the system this time will be written off and damage will again total in the millions.
Surveillance footage of the incident and a description of suspect(s) may be released at a later date. Police are urging anyone with video of the Sea to Sky Highway north and south of the gondola location from September 13th at 8:00 pm to September 14th at 2:00 pm to please contact them. Video could be in the form of dash cam from a vehicle, house surveillance, or business footage. To qualify for the reward, information must be provided directly to a police officer, to the Police Gondola Information Line at 604-892-6122, or by email at gondola.info@rcmp-grc.gc.ca.
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.
Sea to Sky Gondola Deliberately Severed Again
The Sea to Sky Gondola‘s haul rope was cut again this morning in an intentional act of destruction. The horrible news comes just 13 months after the first such crime occurred the morning of August 10th, 2019. “At 04:00 hours the Squamish RCMP was contacted by the security team at the Sea to Sky Gondola stating that the line to the gondola had been cut and had crashed into the mountain,” read an early morning statement from police. “Squamish RCMP members attended immediately and began to assess information and contain the area.” The lift was not operating at that hour and there are no known injuries.
The criminal(s) responsible for the original downing were never apprehended and the gondola reopened six months later with enhanced security including 24 hour remote monitoring. Squamish RCMP is working alongside partner agencies including the West Vancouver Police Department and more will be arriving as the day goes on. There is an extensive amount of resources in the area and law enforcement is asking the public to stay out of the vicinity.
“We are in shock,” General Manager Kirby Brown told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. “This is a repeat incident of what happened last year.” He said the attraction plans to rebuild again, just as it did last fall. That included millions of dollars of work including new cabins from CWA, a replacement 55 millimeter haul rope from Fatzer and new security infrastructure.
The Sea to Sky Gondola employs 120 people and hosted 400,000 visitors per year before the recent setbacks. Anyone with information on either crime is asked to contact the Squamish Royal Canadian Mounted Police at 604-892-6100 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS.
Update: According to Brown, the cable was cut in a similar manner to last time with a skilled individual quickly climbing a tower and cutting the rope. The person was captured on surveillance footage which shows clearly what happened. There were 39 cabins on the gondola this time, six of which were in stations and undamaged. A rope specialist is en route to determine whether a new haul rope section can be spliced in or if an entirely new rope is needed. The gondola was insured and the company is already in the process of ordering what is needed to rebuild again.
News Roundup: Transitions
- Both Mountain Capital Partners and the owners of Silverton Mountain are interested in turning Colorado’s Kendall Mountain into larger resort with more lifts.
- Ariel Quiros pleads guilty to three felonies related to his ownership of Burke Mountain and Jay Peak.
- Separately, an employee is accused of embezzling more than $125,000 from Jay.
- Sunlight pauses financial planning for the new East Ridge lift, which remains under Forest Service review.
- Another lost ski area gets on the road to reopening: Paul Bunyan near Lakewood, Wisconsin.
- There’s more trouble at Spirit Mountain as two top executives resign.
- Arctic Valley secures a new 20 year lease to operate in the mountains above Anchorage.
- The home of Big Snow remains in big financial trouble.
- One year since the Sea to Sky Gondola haul rope was brazenly cut, the culprit(s) still have not been caught.
- Aspen Skiing Company makes tough cuts to benefits and compensation for year round employees.
- It turns out Soldier Mountain sold to a new owner just one day before last week’s fire.
- You’ve heard of a chair sale but how about a T sale?
- Titans of industry Win Smith and Bill Jensen end their runs atop Sugarbush and Telluride, respectively.
- Glenwood Caverns temporarily closes to conduct fire mitigation.
News Roundup: Upper Peninsula
- Big Powderhorn Mountain Resort is for sale with an asking price of $2.4 million.
- Marquette Mountain finds a new owner.
- Arizona Snowbowl plans to reopen Agassiz in early March.
- A girl was lucky to fall from Park City’s Town lift where it crosses Park Avenue and has catch netting.
- Crystal Mountain, BC won’t reopen this winter but may add a new lift this summer in addition to reactivating a T-Bar for next year.
- Doppelmayr will build Saddleback a new detachable quad, which will have a ride time under five minutes and run in the same alignment as Rangeley.
- A real estate brokerage is hired to market the Hermitage properties in advance of next month’s auction.
- Three Whistler Blackcomb leaders respond to the Make Whistler Great Again petition with a video about what it takes to run such a massive ski area.
- French lift staff go on strike.
- Nonprofit Ski Cooper has become quite profitable in recent years, allowing it to make significant upgrades.
- Despite late deliveries and winter work, Skeetawk lift construction chugs along.
- Reopening day at the Sea to Sky Gondola sets a new visitation record.
- Nordic Valley wants to build its new lift as soon as this summer.
- With two prominent new gondola systems recently opened at private venues in Florida, Miami area leaders look to gondola transit.
- Last week’s death was not the first time someone fell through chair with a flipped up seat at Vail and Beaver Creek. It also happened on the very same lift in 2009.
- Removal of a second lift begins at Timberline in preparation for this summer’s new construction.
- In a letter to passholders, Nub’s Nob announces the retirement of Blue effective at the end of this season.
- The Berry Family tells the inside story of why it took so long to sell Saddleback and reveals another ski area offered $3 million for the lifts.
