- A gondola in North Dakota?
- The Forest Service approves Snowy Range’s plans to upgrade Chute to a triple with a Skytrac drive station.
- With social distancing in mind, the Singapore Cable Car offers in-gondola dining.
- Big Sky stops offering season passes due to capacity concerns.
- The Hermitage Club’s Hayfever triple will head south to Bousquet.
- Leaders of Vail Resorts, Aspen Snowmass and Sugarbush write about what next winter might look like.
- The Town of Jackson green lights Snow King Mountain’s proposed gondola, though the Forest Service still needs to weigh in.
- With no skier compaction this season, a closed chairlift is hit by an avalanche in Argentina.
- New Zealand’s ski season just got better with the opening of the country’s first D-Line lift.
- Check out the impressive progress on two new lifts at Timberline Mountain.
- Gunstock will go through a master planning process to determine what lift changes and other improvements are needed.
- Whiteface’s Cloudsplitter gondola reopens today with brand new CWA cabins and other improvements.
The Remarkables
News Roundup: Preparing
- Mont-Sainte-Anne is ordered not to operate its gondola until the lift is deemed safe.
- A New Brunswick resort will pay a fine for a lift employee’s on the job injury.
- All three Disney Skyliner gondolas are set to reopen July 15th.
- Liftopia fights to stay out of bankruptcy as more ski areas say the company owes them money.
- Silver Mountain celebrates the anniversary of a historic agreement to bring the world’s longest gondola to Kellogg, Idaho.
- With its first chairlift complete, Skeetawk sets its sights on a much longer detachable quad.
- Construction of the planned Valemount Glacier resort is delayed.
- Cape Smokey begins building foundations for Atlantic Canada’s only gondola.
- White Pass will switch rotation direction of the Basin quad, requiring a tower to be moved.
- Snowy Range removes the Chute double’s drive terminal in preparation for a Skytrac Monarch upgrade.
- Big Sky Resort launches first in North America self load, self unload bike carriers on Ramcharger 8.
- The Forest Service approves expanding Summit Ski Area’s footprint to connect with Timberline Lodge & Ski Area.
- The California zoo which debuted a detachable gondola three years ago finds itself on the brink of permanent closure.
- As the Forest Service continues its review, the Town of Jackson once again takes up the issue of a Snow King Mountain gondola.
- Mission Ridge will auction off chairs from the former Liberator Express.
- A coalition including Alta, Snowbird, Ski Utah and Powdr launches a website and media campaign advocating for a Little Cottonwood Canyon gondola.
- Last year’s addition of the Peak 1 quad allows Lookout Pass to launch summer operations for the first time.
- Remains of a very old tramway in Utah may be removed.
- Green Mountain Valley School celebrates groundbreaking for a state-of-the-art T-Bar at Sugarbush.
- It took five long weeks to get a European specialist into New Zealand and able to splice the country’s first D-Line lift.
- Hunter Mountain abruptly cancels its summer skyride opening and will share more information in the coming weeks.
News Roundup: Wild Times
- Arapahoe Basin becomes the fourth US resort to reopen for skiing during coronavirus, including the soon-to-be-replaced Pallavicini chair for one final run.
- Washington’s Crystal Mountain will host two weeks of socially distanced spring skiing beginning Monday.
- While open for skiing with two high speed quads, Timberline Lodge works to replace the rope on a third and starts building the new Pucci Express all at the same time.
- The only amusement park with a chairlift in Indiana isn’t going out of business after all.
- Many state fair lifts won’t run at all this year: the California State Fair, Minnesota State Fair, Ohio State Fair and Wisconsin State Fair have all been canceled.
- Mt. Roberts Tramway rebrands as Juneau Tram.
- Sunshine Village cancels its entire summer season.
- A local resident continues to push for a San Diego urban gondola.
- One of the only people allowed to enter New Zealand recently is an expert helping to complete The Remarkables’ new D-Line six pack.
- Homewood announces a two year upgrade of Ellis: Skytrac line gear in 2020 and a fresh haul rope, drive terminal and chairs in 2021.
- Coronavirus hurts the bottom line and sale prospects for Jay Peak.
News Roundup: Shovel Ready
- Lift construction resumes in New Zealand, where resorts are optimistic they can open next month with social distancing.
- The Forest Service commences scoping for Lutsen Mountains’ big expansion, which would include seven new chairlifts.
- You can also submit comments on Keystone’s Bergman Bowl project starting today.
- The State of New York partners with Skytrac and Leitner-Poma for three fixed grip quads – two for Gore and one at Whiteface.
- Vail Resorts provides last season’s Epic Pass holders with 20-80 percent credits and introduces free refund coverage for next winter.
- Silver Mountain joins the Powder Alliance, Schweitzer exits.
- Vail Resorts says goodbye to many Peak Resorts employees as planned before COVID-19.
- The Burnaby Mountain Gondola project could benefit from an infrastructure push in Canada.
- Wolf Creek planned to reopen this weekend but an executive order late last night extended the closure of Colorado ski areas through May 23rd.
- Valemount, BC considers building a community ski hill.
- I’m not an accountant but I think this filing reveals Vail Resorts has agreed with creditors not to make capital improvements of more than $200 million per year or undertake any mergers/acquisitions through January 2022.
- Vail is also borrowing $600 million through the sale of bonds.
News Roundup: Down But Not Out
- The last North American ski area still operating, Lookout Pass, closes for the season.
- Leitner-Poma is hiring installers for projects at Arapahoe Basin, Arizona Snowbowl, Aspen Snowmass, Breckenridge, Keystone and Okemo.
- A group of 150 former members buys the Hermitage Club and its five chairlifts for the bargain price of $8.06 million.
- Arapahoe Basin lays off 430 seasonal employees and cuts the hours of year round staff.
- Children of the man who died on a Vail chairlift earlier this season retain a Denver law firm for possible litigation.
- In addition to virtually all ski resorts worldwide, coronavirus shuts down urban gondolas including La Paz’s Mi Teleférico, Medellín’s Metrocable, Santo Domingo’s Teleférico and London’s Emirates Air Line.
- New owners take over Great Divide and will reevaluate proposed lift additions through a master planning process.
- The newest gondola operation in Australia becomes insolvent and enters administration, partly a result of COVID-19.
- SAM gathers leaders from Alterra, Boyne, Vail and more to talk about the crisis. A common theme: capital budgets being reexamined.
- A Vancouver developer thinks about a gondola as part of a hillside housing development near Cypress Mountain.
- Lift construction grinds to a halt in New Zealand but carries on in Alaska.
- Ski Inc. and Ski Inc. 2020 author Chris Diamond shares an optimistic view of the crisis under the assumption it won’t last into next winter.
News Roundup: In This Together
- Citing the pandemic, Hermitage Club founder Jim Barnes seeks to delay today’s auction of resort assets. A judge orders the auction to proceed at 10:00 am via telephone.
- A group intends to sue to stop the State of Alaska from awarding a new lease of public land to Arctic Valley Ski Area.
- For the first time since it opened, the Disney Skyliner gondola lines are completely devoid of cabins.
- Vail Resorts reveals Coronavirus will cost at least $180 million and the company is reviewing preciously announced capital expenditures including six planned lifts.
- The Indy Pass will include at least 47 resorts for 2020-21.
- Though the Alaska cruise ship season is delayed until at least July 1st, Icy Strait Point still plans to welcome passengers aboard its new gondola system.
- The website is live for Saddleback 2.0.
- Timberline Mountain now plans to unveil its reopening lift plans early next week.
- Construction continues on New Zealand’s first D-Line and a three station gondola at Thredbo, Australia.
- One of Colorado’s Senators asks the Forest Service to waive remaining 2020 rent payments for 122 ski areas located on National Forest lands.
- Skyline Investments, owner of two ski resorts and many other hospitality businesses, reports record revenue but warns Coronavirus will have significant impacts including the possible closure of resorts through summer.
- Skytrac is the low bidder for all three quads proposed for Gore and Whiteface Mountains.
News Roundup: Halfway
- The first D-Line lift in New Zealand won’t be built this summer after all and The Remarkables will place 60 containers of lift parts into storage until government approval comes through.
- A little ski resort in Labrador has as many new lifts as Whistler Blackcomb this winter – three!
- A proposed gondola in Oakland would generate hundreds of millions of dollars in economic benefits, says a new study.
- Two workers fall to their deaths during a practice evacuation of a new gondola in India.
- A Swiss aerial tramway will be out of service for months following an avalanche that damaged a support tower.
- Sleeping Giant experiments operating without a general manager.
- Waterville Valley explains why some of its lifts are out of service.
- Recently closed Vermont area Plymouth Notch goes up for sale along with its 1964 Mueller double.
- The old high speed quad from Horseshoe, Ontario is still available.
- Faced with the possibility of losing its operating lease completely, Sunshine Village reluctantly agrees to new guidelines that remove the proposed Goat’s Eye tramway, Bye Bye Bowl expansion and Wildside lift from future consideration. A second lift in the existing gondola corridor, Goat’s Eye II, Lookout, Hayes Hill and Lower Meadow Park expansions are still possible.
- Environmental groups and Squaw Alpine are still sparring over the proposed California Express gondola.
- Resorts across the Pacific Northwest come to the aid of Hurricane Ridge season pass holders, who lost a month of their season due to the government shutdown.
- Rain delays the debut of Spider Mountain, the seventh lift-based destination for Mountain Capital Partners.
News Roundup: First Chairs
- Hanging carriers at Powderhorn, Snowmass, Sipapu and Lutsen.
- Leitner-Poma Alpha motor room arrives at Okemo.
- No lift inspections, no updates and no comment from Maine’s third largest ski resort. The last post on their Facebook page was Oct. 17th.
- The Balsams will not break ground this year as originally planned but still hopes for a 2016-17 opening with a mix of new and existing lifts.
- Leitner-Poma would supply a gondola proposed to run from Queenstown to The Remarkables on the South Island of New Zealand. L-P built The Remarkables’ flagship six-pack “Curvy Basin Express” in 2014. The new gondola system would span 6.1 miles in two sections and take 27 minutes to ride with a potential opening in 2018. It would feature an impressive 4,200 foot vertical rise and 140 8-passenger cabins from Sigma.
- Sunshine Village cuts the ribbon on Canada’s first new bubble chair since 1999. Tee Pee Town LX (Luxury eXpress) also has the first seat heating in Canada. Congratulations to Sunshine on completing one of the most modern lift fleets on the continent while others curate lift museums.
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