Crystal Mountain President Frank DeBerry says replacing Rainier Express is a top priority. Alterra also wants to swap the Mt. Rainier Gondola for a higher capacity machine and turn the existing gondola into a base area-Campbell Basin link. Bullion Basin Express, an East Peak lift, Kelly’s Gap Express and Northway detachable all remain under consideration.
Reader Austin S. sent in the below photos from Mt. Shasta, purported to be clearing for a new lift on Gray Butte.
Vail Resorts indefinitelypostpones summer ops at Attitash and Wildcat, citing maintenance on three different lifts.
A citizen group forms to advocate for the Pandora’s expansion on Aspen Mountain.
The Utah Department of Transportation selects enhanced bus service and a gondola with La Caille base station as the two preferred alternatives for Little Cottonwood Canyon.
Mexico City begins work on Cablebús Line 2, a Leitner system with 7 stations, 308 cabins and 59 towers. (Line 1 is Doppelmayr and already under construction.)
Seven people are injured and a gas station destroyed when a gondola haul rope being installed in Medellín, Colombia lets loose.
To address crowding concerns, Crystal Mountain eliminates walk up lift ticket sales on weekends and holidays, effective immediately. The resort will also no longer offer group discounts, gift card ticket redemptions or rental/ticket packages on weekends and holidays.
New York State opens its newest gondola in Lake Placid, called the SkyRide.
Geyser Holdings offers $4 million for the Hermitage Club and Boyne Resorts separately bids $3.6 million for the Barnstormer lift. An auction could be held next month.
Skytrac’s Hilltrac people movers now feature Sigma cabins.
Montana Snowbowl opens its Snow Park expansion for the first time.
The owners of Perfect North Slopes plan to build at least one new top-to-bottom lift at newly-acquired Timberline, West Virginia this summer.
The State of Maine postpones a decision on a loan guarantee related to the sale of Saddleback Mountain.
A creditor claiming to be owed $62 million files to foreclose on Granby Ranch.
Purgatory Resort closes indefinitely and is under a mandatory evacuation order due to the nearby 416 Fire.
Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz tells analysts in a conference call there are still select acquisition opportunities in North America (with more elsewhere) and that there are no specific plans yet for the $35 million in capital earmarked for Okemo, Mt. Sunapee, Crested Butte and Stevens Pass.
Swiss manufacturer BMF and French competitor LST team up to sell urban ropeways in France.
The Forest Service tentatively approves Steamboat’s Pioneer Ridge expansion, Bashor Gondola and other new lifts.
A plan for the complete rebuild and reopening of Denton Hill, Pennsylvania is now online.
Less than a month after opening its first two urban gondolas, the Dominican capital of Santo Domingo unveils plans for a massive 6.8 mile, six station 3S gondola line.
Politicians block Gunstock from borrowing $600,000 for lift maintenance and other offseason projects as some call for a private takeover of the county-owned ski resort.
French lift website remontees-mecaniques.net interviews Sigma CEO Yannick Morand about premium Evo & Symphony gondola cabins, air conditioning and why ten passengers are the new eight.
Non-Vail Colorado resorts tallied 7.1 million skier visits last season, only 2 percent below 2016-17.
The Balsams developers request that the New Hampshire Business Finance Authority delay consideration of its $28 million state-backed loan application.
La Paz breaks ground on its 17th and 18th gondolas, set to open in 2019.
The Saddleback sale still hasn’t closed and an update suggests a shift in focus from building new lifts to reopening with a limited number of existing ones.
Here’s a great rundown of Sigma’s new Symphony 10 gondola cabin, which complements the Diamond series.
In surprise announcement, Teton Pass says it won’t open this winter. This awesome but remote Montana resort has a 1973 SLI double and a number of used chairlifts in the parking lot for possible expansion.
New Zealand’s longest chairlift will reopen December 5th, nine months after a wildfire burned chairs and ruined the haul rope.
You can follow along as Garaventa enters the home stretch building the record-breaking Eibsee Cable Car 2.0 in Germany.
There’s also a construction blog for Leitner’s 3S project in Zermatt.
Steamboat finally opened its gondola Monday, lamenting “we made a mistake by trying to set an opening date” and thanking guests for weeks of patience.
Sunshine Village reopened the same day following fire scare.
Bidding opens for construction of a four-stage, 10-passenger urban gondola in Santiago, Chile – a contract estimated to be worth $78 million. When complete, Latin America will sport urban gondolas in Mexico City, Mexico (Leitner); Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (Poma); Medellín, Colombia (Poma); Caracas, Venezuela (Doppelmayr); Lima, Peru (Poma); Quito, Ecuador (Poma); La Paz, Bolivia (Doppelmayr); Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Doppelmayr and Poma) and Santiago, Chile (TBD.) Impressive.
Revelstoke homeowners aren’t happy lift development has stalled for almost ten years now. The resort’s response identifies master plan lifts 1 and 11 as the highest priorities but notes construction of them is subject to market demand.
In an interview, new Crystal Mountain owner John Kircher says he wants to build a second gondola to Campbell Basin.
NY State Fair gondola continues to be targeted as an example of government waste.
Whaleback’s T-Bar project is a go. The lift came from Plattekill, NY and will be installed by SkyTrans.
Poma reaches agreement to build new gondolas in Vietnam with the first next-generation Sigma Diamond EVO cabins introduced yesterday at Interalpin. The new cabins offer more natural light and feature doors that slide rather than opening out.
Skier visits at Vail Resorts were down 2.8 percent this season but lift ticket revenue increased 7.4 percent.
Mi Teleférico opens $1.5 million Operations Control Center with 22 people monitoring 1,300 surveillance cameras on 66 screens and lightning detection system for four gondola lines.
A new 3S gondola will open in Toulouse, France in 2020, becoming the first dedicated tri-cable gondola system for public transport.
In its home country of France, Poma Ropeways has won a $56 million tender to realize the first 3S gondola designed entirely for public transport. Téléphérique Urbain Sud (South Urban Cable Car) will link two hospitals to Paul Sabatier University in the city of Toulouse. You may know France’s fourth largest city, with 1.2 million inhabitants, as the global headquarters of the Airbus Group.
The gondola’s 1.9 mile route will ascend a 300-foot hill called Pech David before crossing the Garonne waterway. Factors leading to the selection of a 3S over a MGD were the need for long spans between towers (just 5 required instead of 20), the ability to more easily transport wheelchairs/bicycles as well as wind tolerance. Fourteen 35-passenger Sigma Symphony cabins will circulate between three stations with an hourly capacity of 1,500 passengers per direction. At 5 m/s, the system will achieve headways of just 90 seconds and a trip will take ten minutes each way, a 20-minute improvement from today in a car. Like other successful urban gondola projects, riders of the 3S will be able to use existing fare media and easily transfer to and from metro trains or buses. Additional stages are likely to be added to the ends of the new gondola in the future.
Lift Blog 