- Suit filed against Ski Liberty by family of boy who dangled from a chair for seven minutes after mis-loading.
- Mi Teleférico’s four gondola lines transported 194,971 passengers last Wednesday, an impressive single day record.
- Squaw|Alpine now wants an extension of permit for replacing Hot Wheels.
- Doppelmayr remembers past CEO Artur Doppelmayr, who died May 12th.
- Apparently the Utah Olympic Park is adding two new chairlifts this summer, although I am still trying to confirm.
- Steamboat’s gondola rebuild is taking longer than expected and reopening has been pushed back two weeks to July 15th.
- Vail Resorts will re-use chairs and towers from Keystone’s Montezuma Express in building the new Red Buffalo Express at Beaver Creek.
- Saddleback Mountain Foundation needs $11.2 million to purchase Maine’s third largest ski area, including $3.2 million to replace the Rangeley lift with a fixed-grip quad. So far, the group has only raised a fraction of that amount.
- Sunday River’s new Spruce Peak triple will be a Doppelmayr Tristar, Boyne Resorts’ fourth.
- Schweitzer works toward $6-8 million Snow Ghost replacement.
- “It is not rocket science about lift geometry,” Aspen Council member says in frustration re: Lift 1A. “There is enough expertise in this community to know where a lift goes.”
- Mont Ripley offers $1,000 for information leading to the arrest of arsonist(s) who damaged lift.
- Longtime Whistler Blackcomb COO and Peak 2 Peak visionary Dave Brownlie is leaving to pursue new opportunities just seven months into Vail ownership.
Sunday River
News Roundup: Confirmed
- $150 million Raymond James settlement includes $762,503 for Burke Mountain’s new Leitner-Poma T-Bar.
- Power outage leads to rope evacuation of Loveland’s newest lift.
- Steamboat gondola refurbishing begins (I got to tour Northstar’s gondola this week which received a similar upgrade in 2015.)
- Orlando Sentinel confirms Walt Disney World is building three Doppelmayr 10-passenger gondolas with six stations.
- Crystal Mountain breaks away from Boyne Resorts, orders five additional gondola cabins and plans to build new Discovery and Gold Hills lifts in 2018.
- Eldora is selling Hall and Heron chairs as six-pack construction begins.
- Preview Oakland’s new $13 million restaurant accessible only by gondola.
- Sunday River’s new owner commits to replacing Spruce Peak.
- This week’s cities floating gondolas include Edmonton and Burlington, Vermont.
- Fatzer delivers four 153-ton track ropes to Germany’s Zugspitze using two trucks linked together for the entire journey.
News Roundup: A Million
- Foundation work is starting for Disney gondolas.
- Partek will build a fixed-grip quad at Mt. Peter, NY this summer.
- East River Skyway proposal expanded to five phases with more possible stations.
- Belleayre bid documents suggest December 2017 completion and a name for gondola: Catskill Thunder. Funding was approved Monday though I’m told a manufacturer has not yet been awarded the contract.
- NY State Fair gondola is also funded, separate from a chairlift to be built there by SkyTrans Manufacturing this summer.
- Lee Canyon seeks approval to build two new quad chairs in new places.
- Work to resume on Poma gondola in Zacatecas, Mexico with commissioning scheduled for September.
- Gould Academy may build a T-Bar up Monday Mourning at Sunday River.
- Intrawest stock hits record high amid acquisition rumblings.
- A Yan detachable still operates with original grips in Spain.
- Quebec announces $70 million in subsidies to support infrastructure investments at ski resorts in the province, including lift upgrades.
- SEC filing shows exactly how much CNL Lifestyle Properties paid for each of the 16 ski resorts it owns. The most valuable was Northstar at $80.1 million with Loon Mountain selling for just $15.5 million. The Gatlinburg Sky Lift operation went for a whopping $19.9 million!
- Bridger Bowl to sell chairs from Virginia City if buyer falls through.
- Interalpin, the every-other-year mountain technology nerd fest is April 26-28.
- If rent payments to the federal government are any indication, Colorado is booming.
- Flying demo tent gets hung up on Stowe gondola.
- Staff at Barcelona’s urban gondola will strike.
- In addition to completing the Green Lift, Magic Mountain will install a new motor and drive for the Black Lift and return capacity to three per chair.
- Lift Blog reaches 1,000 Instagram followers, 700 Facebook fans and 1,000,000 page views. Thank you to everyone who has supported me with this project over the last two years.
Sunday River Delays Spruce Replacement Until 2017
Things were looking up Aug. 18th, when Sunday River proclaimed “Make Spruce Great Again,” announcing a brand new Spruce Peak triple would be installed as soon as possible to replace the Borvig triple that was heavily damaged in a July foundation failure. I was optimistic that the announced $2.1 million Doppelmayr triple could be built this fall and open sometime after Christmas. Unfortunately, yesterday Sunday River revealed that a new lift will not be built until at least next summer, leaving the top portion of Spruce Peak without lift service for the coming winter.
A number of factors led to the setback. Doppelmayr already had a busy construction season building 17 lifts in the US and Canada this year. The old lift could not be torn down until the accident could be investigated and MountainGuard could complete its claims process. Complicating things further, CNL Lifestyle Properties wants out of the ski business, has listed Sunday River for sale and is unlikely to want to invest in capital improvements. In a letter to pass holders, Sunday River said engineering for the new lift is complete and manufacturing could begin soon but, “decisions from our insurance carrier and commitment from our financial partners” are holding things up. As NewEnglandSkiIndustry.com reported this weekend, the old Spruce lift is still standing two and a half months after the incident, minus the last tower and top terminal that fell over.
In addition to Spruce, Sunday River will replace the top terminal of the Locke Mountain triple which is of similar design. The upper portion of Locke Mountain typically opens around Halloween with the first lift-served skiing in the East. Unfortunately the terminal replacement project means that Locke Mountain will not open until at least Thanksgiving. Instead, Sunday River will attempt to open the much longer Aurora quad as soon as possible. Even though there will be no lift to the summit of Spruce Peak this year, the trails will remain open for those want to hike and may even get snowmaking and grooming. Chairs have been removed from the Locke Mountain triple in preparation for the new terminal installation. A contractor (likely SkyTrans of nearby Contoocook, New Hampshire) will remove the Spruce equipment before the start of the season so it is not a hazard to skiers.
While these developments are disappointing, Sunday River’s release notes, “We remain committed to a new Spruce Peak Triple and will keep you updated on when construction for this new lift will start.” As the saying goes, it’s always better to be safe than sorry and Boyne Resorts cannot risk another Borvig lift failure in Maine.
News Roundup: Leitner
- Michael Seeber takes a ride on Berlin’s new mile-long gondola built for the International Garden Exhibition.
- Guests can now view bears and gorillas from gondolas with glass floors in Spain.
- Paris launches study of 2.8 mile, €120 million urban gondola.
- The press takes a tour of the Partek-built State Fair Flyer in North Carolina.
- Regional district approves rezoning for Valemount Glacier.
- The future of the Grand Canyon Escalade will likely be decided Oct. 17th, construction could be complete by 2020.
- Follow this thread to see LST’s very first detachable lift take shape in La Plagne.
- NewEnglandSkiIndustry.com posts a grim progress report from Sunday River.
- Waterville Valley cuts the lift line for Green Peak.
- Good news for Leitner-Poma: Ruapehu Alpine Lifts in New Zealand plans another quad chair for 2017, gondola in 2018 that will likely be built in Colorado.
- The Teleférico do Alemão in Rio unexpectedly shut down Thursday for at least six months following the discovery of abnormal wear in the haul rope which now needs to be replaced.
- As Snowbird plans for construction in Mary Ellen Gulch beginning in 2018, environmental group takes the media on a tour of abandoned mines there. The 500-acre expansion will likely include a two-stage gondola, Sunday Saddle lift and a new, longer Mineral Basin six-pack.
- Jan Leonard, of CTEC and Skytrac fame, will be inducted into the Intermountain Ski Hall of Fame at a ceremony in Park City tomorrow.
- Big Sky posts lots of pictures as their new lifts near completion.
- Grouse Mountain is for sale, including two aerial tramways and four quad chairs.
- Doppelmayr signs agreement with the United Nations Human Settlements Programme to collaborate on mobility solutions worldwide.
- Yet another city in Mexico – El Marqués – looks at building a gondola.
Sunday River to Build New Lift on Spruce Peak
Sunday River announced this morning a $2.1 million Doppelmayr fixed-grip triple will replace the Spruce Peak triple, where a terminal literally fell over last month. Willis MountainGuard and Boyne Resorts deemed the lift a loss after suspected grout failure sent the top station sliding from the bedrock it was anchored to the weekend of July 9th. The 1986 Borvig triple was Sunday River’s second oldest lift and the new version will re-use its new Chairkit loading conveyor. Doppelmayr will also replace the top terminal of Sunday River’s other Borvig triple on Locke Mountain.
Exactly when the new lift will open is unclear. Doppelmayr already has a packed summer building 17 lifts across the US and Canada. In the meantime, most of Spruce Peak can be accessed from the Chondola and Aurora lifts.
This is far from the first (and won’t be the last) late-season lift replacement after unexpected disaster. On June 11, 2012, a wildfire burned through Ski Apache in New Mexico, damaging two chairlifts and a gondola. The Native American tribe that owns the mountain announced a $15 million deal with Doppelmayr on September 5th and three new lifts were completed by January.
News Roundup: Commonwealth
- Highland Mountain Bike Park is closed this week as crews reinforce a 1987 Borvig triple top terminal foundation, surely as a result of the Sunday River Spruce Peak incident. The bike park, which is no longer a ski resort in the winter, hopes to re-open tomorrow.
- At Sunday River, Spruce Peak’s haul rope has reportedly been cut. Its sister lift, the 1984 Borvig Locke Mountain triple had its rope removed from the top bullwheel.
- Cardrona Alpine Resort in New Zealand will build a Doppelmayr 6/8 chondola for next season.
- Splicer Bill Alsup died last Tuesday in a crane accident at the age of 78. He started working for Poma in 1959, ran the Poma distributorship in Vermont for more than 25 years and was also an Indy Car driver.
- Steamboat inches towards two new gondolas.
- Leitner-Poma of America is designing the huge gondola from Queenstown to The Remarkables that would have three stations, 80 towers and cost approximately $36 million.
- Italy’s first heated-seat chairlift will be an 8-pack.
- Ski Magic, LLC signs purchase agreement for Magic Mountain and will immediately begin work required by the Vermont Passenger Tramway Board to make lifts operational. First priority is the Pohlig triple chair that’s sat idle the past two seasons. Geoff Hathaway, President of the new ownership group commented, “it was either Magic or Whistler Blackcomb. I think we got the better deal.”
- Aspenites continue to argue over the placement of 1A’s new lower terminal.
Sunday River Lift Severely Damaged as Terminal Falls
A truly bizarre incident came to light tonight when Sunday River revealed the top terminal of its Spruce Peak Triple chairlift slid downhill and flipped on its side over the weekend. Scott Crowell, the resort’s lift maintenance manager discovered the damage on Sunday. From the pictures, it appears the foundation and return bullwheel moved together, with the tension of the lift and gravity sending the line to the ground. Thankfully, the lift does not operate in the summer and no one was injured.
According to Weather Underground, Bethel, Maine received nearly an inch of rain in the four days leading up to the discovery of the damage. Sunday River said the lift in question was last load tested in Fall 2015.
Spruce Peak is one of two Borvig triples remaining at Sunday River and its second oldest lift, built in 1986. Chairkit added a loading carpet at the bottom station in 2014. Spruce is 4,382 feet long and rises 1,211 feet with 17 towers and 177 chairs. In a statement, Sunday River noted, “Decisions on repairing or replacing the lift have not been made at this point and will depend on several factors, including the results of the investigation. The resort is committed to moving forward as quickly as possible.” The mountain is working with its insurance company, Willis MountainGuard, and state investigators. Presumably there is still time to get a brand new lift built in time for the coming 2016-2017 winter season if the order is placed soon. Alternatively, a lift manufacturer could come in and replace just the top terminal and any damaged chairs. Continue reading
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