- The Boston Globe profiles a man who bought 62 lifts at 11 mountain resorts in his career and now wants to build a resort with 25 lifts at The Balsams.
- While states like West Virginia have no government oversight agency, a New Hampshire newspaper asks whether that state’s tramway board goes far enough. Part II of the investigation deals with lift inspections and Part III the recent grip-slip incident at Granite Gorge.
- The writing was on the wall but it’s now official; there will be no season at Saddleback.
- Nippon Cable will build Japan’s first chondola this summer at Niseko along with a pulse gondola.
- A San Diego County Supervisor thinks his city will have a gondola before the Chargers build a new stadium. The San Diego Bay to Balboa Park Skyway would cover two miles in 12 minutes and carry 2,400 people per hour.
- The federal government is in a dispute with the concessionaire that, up until yesterday, operated Badger Pass Ski Area in Yosemite National Park. Deleware North Corporation wants $51.2 million for trademarks including the Badger Pass® name so the National Park Service has re-named the mountain Yosemite Ski & Snowboard Area. Its four chairlifts are safe from the litigation and now operated by Aramark Corporation as part of a $2 billion contract.
The Balsams
News Roundup: Penkenbahn
- After several high-profile incidents, a good reminder from the NSAA that 86 percent of falls from chairlifts can be attributed to rider error.
- Lots of questions surround last week’s skier-pushes-snowboarder-off-lift story from Aspen Highlands. Police say even without an arrest made, the public is not in any danger.
- Bravo to Bristol Mountain for actually pressing charges against a freeloading teen for theft of services.
- Only at a tiny mountain in Maine would volunteer ski patrollers derail a double chair they are also responsible for inspecting.
- An Austrian man is in a coma after the harness he was wearing around his neck became entangled with a platter lift carrier. At least one lift operator may not have been at his or her assigned post.
- Mt. Rose Ski Tahoe is for sale.
- Fun Spot America near Orlando looks to add a gondola ride (thanks Jay T. for the tip.)
- Dignitaries break ground at Laurel Mountain in preparation for a November re-opening.
- A mix of public and private groups including Georgetown University are about to spend $250k to study a gondola linking Rosslyn, Virginia with Georgetown (one of Washington, D.C.’s highest-profile neighborhoods without a metro station.)
- The Balsams Wilderness won’t re-open in 2016 after all. A revised timeline has three new and two existing lifts spinning in late 2017.
- This is our 200th post!
News Roundup: Resort Happenings
- Hidden Valley, New Jersey will reopen as the National Winter Activity Center this month with two new Partek lifts.
- The Balsams crosses another hurdle which could mean new lifts in the New Hampshire high country as early as this summer.
- Sunshine Village hopes to have the Goat’s Eye Express running by today.
- Construction at Laurel Mountain is 30% complete and ahead of schedule. The state-owned mountain will open next winter for the first time since 2005 with a brand new SkyTrac quad.
- Magic Mountain only managed to open one lift last winter and may not spin any this season. The Vermont area had five aerial lifts in its heyday.
- CNL Lifestyle Properties, the real estate investment trust that was slated to wind down by Dec. 31st, only sold one of its 16 mountain resorts by that date. Okemo, Northstar, Big Sky and a dozen others will remain for sale into 2016.
- Aspen Skiing Company will submit the Pandora terrain expansion and chairlift to the Forest Service for review in 2016.
- Girl uninjured after mis-loading, dangling by her helmet and falling 20 feet from a chair in Saskatchewan.
- Thanks to some much-needed snow, Vermont now has a third six-pack with bubble chairs and heated seats. This one’s not open to the public, unfortunately.
News Roundup: Flying Volkswagens
- Gunther Jochl, the Austrian-born owner of Sugar Mountain, got the CEOs of both Doppelmayr and CWA to come christen his new six-pack Saturday along with the governor of North Carolina. Apparently the lift may get gondola cabins in the future.
- A lawsuit from a homeowner could force the closure of Pennsylvania’s second largest ski resort. Seven Springs Mountain Resort operates two six-packs and eight fixed-grip lifts on 300 acres. Unfortunately, four of those lifts and 75 percent of the mountain’s ski runs cross a public road that the homeowner wants opened in winter. There are plenty of other ski resorts that have major highways passing through that close seasonally, including Deer Valley, Bridger Bowl and Mt. Baker.
- Cherry Peak, the new ski area in Utah, won’t be able to complete their Summit lift in time for this season. When I was there a few months ago, towers were laying on the ground along the line which will either have to be set or moved elsewhere. Two other triple chairs and a carpet are set to go.
- Arizona Snowbowl’s first new lift in 30 years is almost finished.
- An 8.5 mile gondola system coming to Missouri’s Las Vegas?
- Bartholet’s aerial tramway across the city of Puebla in Mexico will be finished December 15th, about a year behind schedule. Speaking of BMF, they have a new website.
- The Balsams clears some more hurdles but has still yet to break ground.
- Staying on the mega-resort topic, Hemlock Resort near Chilliwack, BC receives approval to spend $1.5 billion on 23 new lifts and 20,000 lodging beds among other improvements over the next 60 years. Hemlock currently has a 1977-vintage Doppelmayr triple and two even older Mueller doubles. Buried in the linked article is the fact that the ski area never opened last year due to lack of snow.
Hemlock Master Plan rendering from Brent Harley & Associates.
News Roundup: Tower Time
- The East’s next big resort at The Balsams still hopes to break ground before the snow flies and open in late 2016. Still no word on who will supply the lifts.
- Leitner-Poma flies towers at Loveland, Snowmass and Sipapu. Brian from Timberline Helicopters has flown every tower in the west so far this summer with his K-Max. At Sipapu it reportedly only took him 37 minutes!
- Meanwhile, Doppelmayr puts up some big terminals.
- SkyTrans Manufacturing helps crews from Sugarloaf take down the Bucksaw double. Probably means it’s coming soon to a zoo near you.
News Roundup: Adding Lifts
- The Balsams mega-project gets snowmaking water permit and releases its phase one plan which includes six new lifts. That will be the contract of the year next summer if it really happens.
- The owners of Saddleback have extended the deadline to find financing for a new lift before pulling the plug on this season.
- Mt. Rose Ski Tahoe announces an $11.00 minimum wage for all resort employees next season.
- Kitzbuhel in Austria will add another 8-passenger bubble lift for next season to be built by Leitner.
- France’s Avoriaz also announced a new Poma six-pack.
- Whistler will add the Creekside Gondola to its Bike Park starting Friday. The gondola has been outfitted with the latest Deasonbuilt center-pole bike carriers. Creekside will become Whistler-Blackcomb’s 11th lift open for summer operations including three gondolas and six detachable quads.
- The Neptuno double chair (Poma) in Las Lenas de-roped off 5 towers last week thanks to an avalanche. See photo below.
News Roundup: Doppelmayr Garaventa 2015
- Doppelmayr wins a €9.4 million contract for a detachable gondola in Bogota, Colombia. The 10-passenger, two mile system will carry 2,600 passengers per hour.
- The US Forest Service accepts Crested Butte’s new master plan for review. It includes replacing the North Face lift as well as two new lifts in Teocalli Bowl.
- Rick Spear, the president of Leitner-Poma, thinks an aerial tram from Staten Island to Manhattan is (not surprisingly) a good idea.
- Arizona Snowbowl’s new lift announcement gets lots of press.
- Italy’s Leitner and Aguido are merging. Leitner built a couple dozen lifts in the US and Canada before their joint venture with Poma began in 2002. Aguido built the Cannon Mountain Aerial Tramway in New Hampshire.
- Sugarloaf decides it doesn’t have the money to upgrade its oldest lift to acceptable safety standards so it will be removed without a replacement. Bucksaw was built in 1969. After it is removed there will be 23 Stadeli lifts remaining in operation, four of which are older than Bucksaw.
- Construction on The Balsams has been delayed again. I’ll believe the hype when lift towers start going in.
- Rumor on Skilifts.org is SkyTrac will complete the abandoned, half-constructed Stagecoach lift on the Moonlight Basin side of Big Sky. I believe this Doppelmayr double came from the defunct Fortress Mountain in Alberta.
The Stagecoach lift was partially completed before Moonlight Basin went bankrupt in 2009.
News Roundup: Small Mountains and Big Cities
- Construction on The Balsams Resort in New Hampshire may begin late this summer. We could see new lifts there next summer.
- A bit further south, Waterville Valley started cutting trees for its Green Peak Expansion. Unfortunately they don’t have funding for a new lift or even a used one.
- Also in New Hampshire, Tenney Mountain plans to reopen next season after being closed since 2010. The mountain has a 1964 Stadeli double and 1987 Borvig triple
- You can own one of Oregon’s ski areas for only $1.25 million. Includes lifts with charming names like “Happy” and “Echo.”
- The Harbour Skylink would be a four-stage gondola in one of the world’s great capitals.
- Poma is currently building five gondolas in Latin America, two for the Metrocable system in Medellin, Colombia and one each in Bolivia, Chile and Mexico. They recently received €1.3 million from the French government to lead a consortium promoting ropeway transportation in cities.
- The world’s tallest observation tower is coming to Brighton, England, courtesy of Poma, who also brought us the London Eye and the High Roller in Las Vegas.
- Sigma takes on CWA with 3S gondola cabins developed by Italian car designer Pininfarina, set to debut in 2018 on the world’s highest 3S in Zermatt.
The Next Big Resort?
Last Wednesday, New Hampshire Governor Maggie Hassan signed a bill that may create the largest resort in the east out of a tiny, closed ski area called The Balsams. The resort hotel and Wilderness ski area have been closed since 2011 when the owners began renovations and ran out of cash. Now Les Otten, founder of American Skiing Company, has partnered with the Balsams ownership group to create the next big eastern ski resort. The bill the governor signed allows the state to back $28 million in development loans for the $143 million project.
Otten is perhaps best known for turning Sunday River from a one-lift operation to a 525,000 skier visit beast of the east. Circa 2002, his empire included Sunday River, Sugarloaf, Cranmore, Attitash, The Canyons, Killington, Sugarbush, Mount Snow, Heavenly and Steamboat. After leaving the ski industry, Otten created a renewable energy company and ran for Governor in Maine. He lost. Now, six years after selling The Canyons, he’s back in the lift business.
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