- The Doppelmayr Group to merge its Frey AG Stans and Garaventa units in Switzerland.
- Four Seasons, New York closes for good to be redeveloped.
- Both the Denver Post and Colorado Sun cover growing local frustration with Telluride’s owner over gondola funding, snowmaking, labor relations and alleged personal conduct.
- Powder Mountain works to build out private skiing while maintaining a public ski resort next door.
- The former owner of closed Spout Springs, Oregon is found liable for the cost of removing improvements from Forest Service land.
Spout Springs
News Roundup: Split Decision
- Voters green light funding for continued operations of the Telluride-Mountain Village gondola and an eventual replacement.
- Casper, Wyoming voters say no to a new chairlift for Hogadon.
- Hunter Mountain shows off a brand new trail map showing two new lift alignments.
- Arizona Snowbowl’s latest map shows the new Aspen quad.
- Big Sky’s new map includes the paths of the new One&Only Gondola and Madison 8.
- Ober Mountain’s three chairlifts gain new names.
- Snowbird’s 24-25 map illustrates Wilbere’s new alignment.
- The longest gondola in the world progresses toward completion in the Caribbean.
- Closed Big Tupper, New York sells for $650,000 to investors hoping to reopen it.
- The nonprofit that runs Anthony Lakes, Oregon is interested in resurrecting Spout Springs.
- Leitner opens a new global logistics center in Italy.
- A 162 foot tall wind turbine is installed at Skytrac’s new facility in Utah.
News Roundup: Bike Season
- Mt. Holiday, Michigan seeks $4 million for lift and mountain improvements.
- The Government of Venezuela reportedly owes Doppelmayr more than €100 million and now sources parts and service from Chinese companies.
- The Arizona Gondola misses Independence Day weekend and remains closed due to a mechanical issue.
- Doppelmayr will open a substantial parts and service facility in Mexico to serve the growing Latin American market.
- Bolton Valley opens late for summer due to a lift part supply issue.
- The Forest Service seeks a new operator for Spout Springs, Oregon.
- Grand Targhee and Doppelmayr fly towers for the Colter expansion.
- Critics allege the Little Cottonwood 3S gondola would cost more than a billion dollars.
- Mammoth Mountain seeks Forest Service approval for lift and trail development surrounding the Main Lodge.
- Sierra at Tahoe posts another fire recovery update.
- Thanks to Aidan Wilson for the below photos of Utah Olympic Park’s big expansion.
News Roundup: Alterra
- Neighbors aren’t happy about light and noise from Woodward Park City, though the new area was able to turn down the start alarm on the Hot Laps chairlift.
- Mt. Baldy in Thunder Bay, Ontario plans to buy a new quad chair for next season.
- The City of Durango considers whether building a new chairlift at Chapman Hill makes sense at an increasingly marginal elevation for natural snow.
- Spout Springs will remain closed this season and is still for sale.
- 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.
- Alterra closes on Sugarbush and Win Smith transitions from owner to employee.
- A French paraglider is lucky to survive being caught in a platter lift‘s haul rope.
- 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.
- Edmonton urban gondola backers release robust ridership projections.
- A gondola from Boise to Bogus Basin would be too long and cost too much to be practical.
News Roundup: A Long Time Coming
- Above: groomers and mechanics deploy a new strategy to keep the Jackson Hole Aerial Tram flying above this winter’s huge snowpack.
- Despite planning to open this winter for the first time in three years, Spout Springs now says it won’t happen.
- A Boston private equity firm is reportedly interested in spending $25-30 million to reopen Maine’s third largest resort.
- We’ll have to wait awhile longer to ski year round in New Jersey
- Killington confirms North Ridge Quad is a go for this summer.
- This morning at 9:00 Pacific is a rare chance to score a classic Murray-Latta double chair.
- Mt. Mancelona in Michigan revives the world’s second oldest T-Bar but earns a cease and desist order from the state amid a host of financial problems.
- A revived Fortress Mountain would mimic Red Mountain and Whitewater but with a fleet of brand new lifts.
- Reader Christoph thinks he’s solved the mystery of where Mission Ridge’s new bubble lift is from: Brixen, Austria.
- County approval paves the way for Eldora to build the Jolly Jug expansion lift next year.
- Aspen Highlands’ Golden Horn platter is now a 2020 project.
- Mt. Hood Meadows says it’s announcing the most significant improvement of this century later today.
- There’s another new British Columbia resort idea floating around: Zincton Mountain Village.
- Shuttered two chair area Deer Mountain hits the market.
- On the other side of South Dakota, flooding damages the lone lift and ends the season at Great Bear.
- The Sea to Sky Gondola gets negative press for telling unprepared hikers to walk down from the summit after closing time.
- An ad in the New York State Contract Reporter suggests a new chairlift is coming to Belleayre this summer, though the resort tells me no decision has been made yet.
- We now know why Sun Valley pushed back the Cold Springs project to 2020: the alignment has changed for the high speed quad.
- Bretton Woods says its new gondola will open later this year. Reader Donovan Seabury sent me these pictures of its progress.
News Roundup: Worth the Wait
- Copper Mountain becomes the fifth US ski resort to offer a combination chair/gondola lift with American Eagle 2.0.
- Supply chain delays and five feet of snow push back delivery of the Bretton Woods gondola to an unknown future date.
- Les Otten is still working behind the scenes to line up financing for The Balsams rebuild.
- New owners close on Tamarack and reiterate their plan to resurrect Wildwood in time for next season.
- Vail Resorts won’t spin Crested Butte’s last remaining Riblet this season.
- Spout Springs plans to open this winter for the first time in three years.
- A metal panel falls 130 feet from the Portland Aerial Tram and hits a pedestrian.
- Is the Geogetown-Rosslyn Gondola idea a bold solution or vanity infrastructure?
News Roundup: Retirements
- Telluride weighs building at least one big detachable next summer as the Forest Service tentatively approves replacements for Plunge, Sunshine Express and Village Express.
- White Pass, WA retires its platter in favor of a 380’ carpet.
- LiftDigital goes live for testing at Winter Park.
- Taos says goodbye to two more chairlifts – that’s four in one summer!
- Song Mountain, NY is replacing its 1965 Thunderbird T-Bar with a chairlift.
Anyone know where it’s from? - The Rainforest Adventures crew gets one Skytrac back in action and works to repair the other following Irma’s devastation of St. Maarten.
- Scroll through these photos of a new high-speed quad in Switzerland with four stations, three sections, two haul ropes and only one drive!
- Albany gondola group to be led by former chief executive of the New York State Department of Transportation and Federal Highway Administration Thomas Madison, Jr.
- Authorities briefly seize Granby Ranch, site of last season’s fatal lift incident, over delinquent taxes.
- Spout Springs in Oregon won’t open for a second year in a row and remains for sale.
- Mi Teleférico’s Orange Line did 93,847 riders its first weekend.
- Frank F. sent over these photos of the new Skytrac Buttercup Quad going in at Mt. Hood Meadows:
Not So Happy: Reopening Spout Springs Just Got Tougher
Next I rounded the corner to the base-to-summit Happy double, which looked anything but happy. Surveying the scene above, I instantly assumed vandals had somehow knocked over the building that houses the 1965 double chair’s bottom drive bullwheel. But another clue was all around me. The massive snow load from this winter in the Blue Mountains was probably too much for the almost 55-year old building to handle. Not only did it fall on top of the terminal, wood got hung up in a chair which bent like a pretzel and caused the light side to de-rope in two places.
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