- Washington’s Mission Ridge buys Blacktail Mountain, Montana.
- Bousquet intends to replace the Blue chair with a quad in the next two to three years.
- A gondola is proposed to cross between Kansas and Missouri.
- Bromont adds loading conveyors to two fixed quads; Sun Peaks upgrades Crystal with one too.
- Rusty Gregory says Ikon Pass sales are growing at a faster rate than any previous selling season.
- Vail Resorts will limit ticket sales during holidays, introduce lift line wait time forecasts and devote extra staff to managing lift mazes.
- Catamount touts more than $15 million offseason upgrades including two new chairlifts.
- Whitefish Mountain Resort posts updated trail maps showing Chair 8’s new alignment.
- Next year’s new lift at Whitefish will be called the Snow Ghost Express.
- Justin Sibley becomes CEO of Powdr.
- Jackson Hole’s five year roadmap includes detachable replacements for Thunder and Sublette plus a potential a Lower Faces lift.
- Gallix, the Quebec ski area where lift was damaged by flooding, says repairs will cost over CA$2 million. The bottom station of the chairlift has been disassembled and a new rope ordered.
- Poma and the Government of Brazil reach an agreement to reactivate Rio’s longest urban gondola after 5 years.
- The Telluride Daily Planet explains the gondola evacuation process for one of the more complex systems in the country.
- Manning Park says the atmospheric river which caused flooding across southern British Columbia damaged its alpine ski area.
- Big Sky’s Swift Current will open Thursday with Swifty 6 packs of local beer to celebrate.
- Aspen Mountain is finally approved to add a lift in Pandora’s.
- Connecticut’s Woodbury Ski Area is sold with the new owner intending to reopen it.
Teleférico do Alemão
News Roundup: Turning to ‘22
- The new lift at Great Bear Ski Valley is eight weeks ahead of schedule with chairs on the line.
- Another lockdown hits Australian resorts, this time Perisher and Thredbo in New South Wales.
- New Zealand shuts down all ski resorts as part of a nationwide freeze.
- A man dies after a fall from the sky ride at Utah’s Lagoon amusement park.
- Cape Smokey expects Canada’s first new gondola since 2018 to open next week.
- Sunlight solicits a new trail map painted by Kevin Mastin.
- Brazil’s government will study the feasibility of restarting the world’s largest abandoned urban gondola.
- A gondola system is being considered for Tijuana, Mexico.
- The Arizona Gondola re-enters service after 18 days of lightning-related downtime.
- Doppelmayr will build Latin America’s first gondola with air conditioning.
- An extended interview with Poma Chairman Jean Souchal covers Covid recovery, urban growth and why Americans call surface lifts of all brands Pomas.
- Despite offering $10 million, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania receives no bids for reopening Denton Hill.
- California and Nevada resorts report an almost 22 percent increase in skier visits during the Covid season of 2020-21.
- Washington, DC budgets $10 million to purchase property needed for a possible future Georgetown-Rosslyn Gondola.
- Steamboat confirms the first section of the Wild Blue Gondola project is a go for next summer.
- The Boat will also retire the Priest Creek double and sell its chairs.
- Ontario’s Beaver Valley Ski Club plans to replace the Avalanche double in 2022.
- Time to vote! Choices for renaming Squaw Valley’s Squaw Creek triple are Eagle Eye, Highline, Resort, Snow King, Storm Rider and Valley View.
- Welch Village updates guests on the Cannon Valley Quad project.
News Roundup: Quebec
- Intrawest likely won’t buy any new lifts this year.
- TV station in Maine highlights lift maintenance and oversight with visits to Sugarloaf and Camden Snow Bowl.
- Denver7 lands the first interview with Larry Smith of the Colorado Passenger Tramway Board following Granby Ranch incident.
- Sunshine Polishing moving gondola refurbishing operation to Grand Junction.
- A $67 million, six-year old gondola in Rio sits abandoned.
- Poma double rope evacuated at Mont Orford.
- Heron-Poma double rope evac’d at Sleeping Giant before problem apparently fixed with a screwdriver.
- French lift site reports on two brand new lifts in Quebec.
- Waterville Valley’s new Green Peak triple will finally open Saturday.
- “Mexicable is a great experience and it is something that you need to do should you ever visit Mexico City.”
- Austrian rope manufacturer Teufelberger acquires Italian competitor Redaelli (Fatzer of Switzerland and ArcelorMittal of France are the other big two.)
- See more photos of the mind-blowing Giggijochbahn gondola.
- La Paz’s fourth gondola opens March 6th.
- Leitner Ropeways will complete the new 8-passenger gondola in Torreón, Mexico in April.
- British Columbia approves construction of Revelstoke Adventure Park with chairlift/gondola construction planned for 2017 and 2018 adjacent to Revelstoke Mountain Resort.
- Seilbahn Blog has some awesome new photos of the first and only D-Line chairlift.
- Seven year-old falls from chair at Thunder Ridge.
- The New York Times checks in at Tamarack.
- Arapahoe Basin formally unveils Beavers/Steep Gullies trail map & expansion plan with fixed-grip quad chairlift to debut in late 2018.
- Doppelmayr to build 21,000′, $18 million gondola in Silao, Mexico.
- Sugarloaf and Doppelmayr are doing a mid-season load test of Skyline on Thursday.
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.
Olympic Spotlight Shines on Rio and its Teleféricos
With the Olympics opening tomorrow in Rio de Janeiro, the world looks to a seaside metropolis with more than six million residents and the first South American city to host an Olympic Games. While Brazil has no ski resorts, Rio features aerial lifts ranging from hundred year-old tramways to modern gondolas connecting the city’s favelas to the regional transit network.
The famous Sugarloaf Mountain twin tramways were among the world’s first cableways of any kind when they debuted in 1912. A century later, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff championed development of a five-section Poma gondola connecting some of Rio’s largest slums, modeled after the pioneering gondola network in Medellín. In 2013, Doppelmayr built a three-station gondola in Morro da Providência, serving more than 5,000 residents in one of Rio’s oldest favelas. Further urban cable projects proposed for Rio have faltered as the city works to combat challenges we’ve become all too familiar with leading up to the Games.
Teleférico do Alemão
Teleférico do Alemão is one of the largest and most complex gondola systems in the world with six stations and 152 10-passenger Sigma Diamond cabins. Built by Poma and operated by private train company SuperVia, Teleférico do Alemão opened July 7, 2011. The system is capable of transporting 3,000 passengers per hour over 2.2 miles of dense neighborhoods in 16 minutes. The lift changes angle four times, including a 100-degree turn at Alemão Station.
70,000 residents are eligible for two free rides daily on the gondola, which links favelas in the Complexo do Alemão to the Bonsucesso train station. Six expansive rooftop stations that feature banks, stores and social services rise above the favelas. The gondola system cost approximately $74 million to build and serves 9,000 daily riders. Initial ridership estimates of 30,000 per day have not been realized as Rio has struggled to attract non-residents to ride the teleférico through crime-ridden neighborhoods. Unlike in Medellín and La Paz, residents have criticized the construction of an expensive gondola through communities that lack electricity, clean water and basic sanitation.
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