- Park City lift mechanics and electricians will vote whether to unionize early next week.
- Charges against four Marines are dropped after they pay more than $18,000 in restitution for allegedly causing a lift deropement at the San Diego Zoo.
- Alta modifies operations and offers passholders refunds due to the delayed Sunnyside lift project.
- Sierra at Tahoe will reopen December 3rd following 15 months of fire recovery efforts.
- A progress report on Copper Mountain’s Alpine terminal replacement project.
- Grand Targhee debuts a new VistaMap.
- Disciples 8 shows up on the Boyne Mountain trail map.
- Echo Mountain and Granby Ranch become the latest Colorado resorts to join the Indy Pass.
- Mammoth Mountain looks to replace the Panorama Gondola with a realigned 10 passenger version.
- Vail Resorts CEO Kirsten Lynch reflects on last season and details what the company is doing to make this season better.
- Northern Virginia Magazine profiles the successful rebirth of Timberline Mountain under the Perfect family.
- A new owner takes a majority stake in Massif du Sud, promising new investment.
- Resorts are still flying towers for new lifts including Red Dog at Palisades, Hidden Valley at Snoqualmie and La Laurentienne at Sommet Gabriel.
- Construction continues on two new lifts at Vail, with completion expected in December.
- Whistler Blackcomb and Doppelmayr expect the delayed Creekside Gondola haul rope to arrive today.
- Reflecting on the Lone Peak Tram as it enters its final season.
- Frost Fire, North Dakota won’t open this season.
- Closed Holiday Mountain, Manitoba plans to reopen under new ownership.
- Searchmont updates guests on numerous lift projects around the mountain.
- Redevelopment of Big Squaw is cancelled due to failed negotiations with the current owner and global financial conditions.
Timberline Mountain
News Roundup: Key Weekend
- Looking back as Blackcomb turns 40.
- As Chair 1 reopens, 49 Degrees North provides a thorough update regarding what happened last weekend and the steps it’s taking to avoid future issues.
- Liftopia’s assets are acquired by a European firm.
- Arizona Snowbowl quietly opens the Arizona Gondola.
- More on the Eiger Express: Not only does it feature the first automated cargo loading on a passenger ropeway, but also a VIP cabin with boarding from a dedicated lounge (cost: $13,500 per year.)
- This interview with Hermitage Club manager Bill Benneyan includes tons of historical facts about Haystack and also Mountain Creek. The Club opens tomorrow for the first time in two and a half years.
- Mission Ridge works hard to complete the lift it brought over from Europe but cannot estimate a completion date.
- Residents seek to stop construction of Wasatch Peaks Ranch, a 3,000 acre private ski resort near Snowbasin.
- Leitner-Poma of America introduces Freedom Control, a wireless remote control for lifts.
- Public comments are being solicited for Big White’s new master plan, which includes a staggering amount of new terrain.
- Ski Magazine ranks top lift systems in the East.
- California effectively shuts down lodging in some ski regions.
- The new Broadway quad will carry its first passengers this weekend at Sun Valley.
- Zermatt and Doppelmayr prepare to launch the first unstaffed lift in Switzerland, a 10 passenger gondola.
- French ski resorts sue the government over closures.
- Holiday Valley pursues a tax break for its $4 million Yodeler Express project.
- A lawsuit seeking class action status alleges lift operators and other employees at Vail Resorts were not paid for use of personal equipment and time spent getting to and from work stations.
- Timberline Mountain relaunches tomorrow with both new chairlifts in operation.
- British Columbia’s Zincton Mountain Village releases new maps of its proposed layout.
- Les Otten courts environmental, social and governance investors as he tries to revive the northernmost ski area in New Hampshire.
- When asked about acquisitions on last night’s earnings call, Rob Katz said Vail is focused on positioning the company to be able to make the most of whatever opportunities may come over the next 12 months.
- Vail is forced to cancel some guest reservations and black out employee skiing in Colorado this weekend due to limited snow and terrain.
News Roundup: On the Map
- Sugarloaf’s forthcoming West Mountain expansion makes the trail map.
- Disney blogs report some recent downtime on the Skyliner.
- Pine Knob removes Chair 4 and puts a rope tow in its place.
- Four mountains get new trail maps from VistaMap: Granite Peak, Loon Mountain, Sunrise Park and West Mountain.
- Winter Park renames Eskimo Express Explorer Express with the following reason behind it:
Last summer, we examined the names of our trails and lifts, and recognized that the name “Eskimo” is considered derogatory and offensive by many. Through research we learned people in many parts of the Arctic consider Eskimo a derogatory term because it was widely used by racist, non-native colonizers. Many people also thought it meant eater of raw meat, which connoted barbarism and violence. Brands with longer histories than Winter Park’s have also decided to abandon the term. The iconic Eskimo Pie dropped the name in 2020, and the Edmonton Canadian football team announced it would no longer use the name as well.
Winter Park is a place for all people to Venture Out, to escape and retreat, to transform and trailblaze. Winter Park is an inclusive place and that’s why we moved to change the name of the Eskimo Express Lift to the Explorer Express Lift. The name “Explorer” more accurately represents our resort, our brand, our team, and our guests.
- Both Gore Mountain’s new lifts run in somewhat new locations.
- You can virtually tour the new 3K K-onnection 3S gondola, including on top of towers and inside stations.
- Europe’s longest 3S opens tomorrow.
- New ski area alert! Skeetawk sends first chair tomorrow after decades of dreaming.
- Paul Bunyan, Wisconsin to reopen this month after 25 years shuttered.
- Mt. Baldy, Ontario’s new quad chair isn’t finished so the ski area is closing for an hour to teach people how to ride the T-Bar.
- Austria and Switzerland say yes to skiing while France, Germany, and Italy continue to keep lifts closed.
- BousquetMountain.com goes live with a new trail map.
- Liftopia will likely be sold with proceeds going to creditors.
- Saddleback secures $1.3 million in new funding to support redevelopment.
- Mountain Capital Partners’ bet that Texans would love lift-served mountain biking is paying off.
- This fact sheet outlines the five transportation options for Little Cottonwood Canyon, two of which include a gondola.
News Roundup: Going Virtual
- Beaver Creek’s website is updated to show the McCoy Park expansion coming for the 2021-22 ski season.
- Doppelmayr will build a $9.3 million temporary gondola for a horticulture show in Germany.
- A developer in St. George, Utah looks to build a lift-served bike park.
- An unnamed ski area in New York hits the market with an asking price of $1.6 million.
- The pandemic may have actually helped Timberline Mountain rebuild faster this summer.
- Searchmont, located near the Ontario-Michigan border with two new lifts under construction, remains uncertain what this winter will look like.
- Jamie Storrs, Senior Manager of Communications for Vail Resorts in the east, answers questions about reservations and more on the Out of Bounds Podcast.
- Spirit Mountain receives a $300,000 cash infusion allowing it to open this winter.
- Solitude profiles a major maintenance project on the Eagle Express.
- The Park Record checks in on Mayflower Mountain Resort construction and The Wall Street Journal reports Extell would like to partner with an established ski operator like Vail or Alterra.
- Indy Pass sales are pacing six times higher than last year!
- New Alaska ski area Skeetawk plans a December 5th grand opening.
- Poma launches a fresh new website.
- Mt. Baldy, Ontario, which initially held off on construction of a new chairlift this summer, decides to proceed with a fall installation.
- A virtual open house is now open for Los Angeles Aerial Rapid Transit project scoping.
News Roundup: Vail Numbers
- Vail Resorts has sold 850,000 season passes as of September 18th, an 18 percent increase compared to last year at this time.
- CEO Rob Katz assures skiers reservations should be widely available for most resorts on most days.
- Vail lost $153.6 million in the quarter ended July 31st compared with an $89.5 million loss in the same period last year.
- For the full fiscal year 2020, Vail reported a net income of $98.8 million, a decrease of 67.2 percent.
- The company also recently cut 410 jobs.
- Regarding capital projects and the seven lift projects Vail postponed this year, Katz said on the conference call:
“We are of course going to be monitoring the season closely before we come out with any plan for calendar year 2021. We’ll make sure we’re incorporating what happened this year. We will likely still be in a conservative approach though hopefully not as conservative as last year because the environment around Covid and travel has all improved. We will definitely be prioritizing projects that we think will have a significant impact on the guest experience and certainly some of the projects that we deferred from last year will be top of the list.”
- Government-owned Marble Mountain remains on the hunt for a private operating partner.
- Towers are up for the largest new lift of the year.
- A fire comes uncomfortably close to Mt. Waterman, California.
- More than 6,500 people commented on Little Cottonwood Canyon transportation alternatives including a possible 3S.
- Mont-Sainte-Anne’s gondola remains inoperable following last winter’s mishaps but the ski area expects it to reopen in December.
- Disney won’t open chairlift-accessed Blizzard Beach until at least March of 2021.
- The Sea to Sky Gondola reopens its base facilities.
- Defunct Vermont ski area Snow Valley is for sale.
- The Town of Mountain Village acquires 20 used gondola cabins for social distancing at the base of Telluride.
- The last chance to comment on Burnaby Mountain Gondola routes is Wednesday.
- The Forest Service signs off on two new lifts and removal of three old ones at Waterville Valley.
- Snow King’s gondola is approved by the Town of Jackson.
- Whiteface will auction off retired cabins from the Cloudsplitter Gondola.
- Indy Pass adds Swain Resort in New York.
- The Central Wasatch Commission seeks feedback on potential 3S gondola transportation from Alta to Brighton and/or Brighton to Park City.
- Le Relais eliminates season passes entirely. Guests will buy blocks of skiing until they reach a certain total for the season, then all remaining blocks are free.
- A local investment banker will take over operations of nonprofit Sleeping Giant Ski Area.
- Bogus Basin’s Morning Star Express will miss the final two weekends of the season.
- A lot of Covid operating plans are coming out these days. This one from Mt. Hood Meadows stands out as excellent.
- Sugarloaf GM Karl Strand joins the Storm Skiing Podcast for a discussion on the West Mountain expansion and Sugarloaf 2030 lift plans.
- Former Aspen CMO Christian Knapp launches Lift Ticket, a new series about resorts navigating Covid.
- Doppelmayr unveils a new Wir magazine.
News Roundup: Name Change
- MND introduces a new brand with four divisions: MND Snow, MND Safety, MND Leisure and MND Ropeways (formerly LST.)
- MND expects a return to profitability next year and projects the global ropeway market will reach $4.3 billion in 2024.
- Construction gets underway on the third MND T-Bar in the United States.
- Wolf Creek leaves Colorado Ski Country USA.
- North America’s longest gondola misses Labor Day weekend due to a mechanical issue.
- Sun Peaks won’t spin the West Bowl T-Bar this winter.
- Jackson Hole will increase lift speeds and allow skiers to bypass the Aerial Tram by hiking to the summit this winter.
- China Peak reports minimal on-mountain damage from the Creek Fire so far.
- Killington will open later than normal with 50 percent lift capacity.
- Here’s the latest Timberline Mountain construction update.
News Roundup: Perfect
- Squaw Valley President and COO Ron Cohen explains why the resort’s name is changing and gives an update on the Squaw-Alpine gondola.
- The other Squaw ski area will not be changing names.
- Whitefish cuts the line for its future Hellroaring lift.
- Icy Strait Point, home to two new Doppelmayr gondolas, is in the running for Global Cruise Port of the Year.
- Nitehawk commences fundraising to replace its destroyed chairlift, though the community ski area may only be able to afford a T-Bar.
- Jay Peak reopens its tram tomorrow with freshly-slipped track ropes.
- The public is asked to weigh in on three Burnaby Mountain Gondola alignments.
- Red Mountain becomes the eighth Ikon Pass destination in Canada.
- Big Snow’s reopening first chair goes up empty in honor of the more than 14,000 New Jerseyans who have died from Covid.
- The first lifts at Mayflower Mountain Resort are now set to open in 2023 instead of 2021. A new project video suggests it will be worth the wait.
- Mad River Glen will get a James Niehues trail map if fundraising efforts succeed.
- Granby Ranch gets a new owner and operator.
- The Perfect family has pumped more than $13 million into Timberline Mountain this offseason, including the two new chairlifts which are 75 percent complete.
News Roundup: Master Planning
- 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.
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.
Timberline Mountain Rebirth to Include a Six Place Detachable
West Virginia’s first six passenger chairlift is coming to Timberline Mountain. Despite the coronavirus situation and surrounding uncertainty, Chip Perfect and his team today announced a $10+ million commitment to reopen the mountain by the end of this year. Timberline closed in the middle of the the 2018-19 season following years of financial challenges. Perfect purchased Timberline out of bankruptcy last November and his ownership group brings four decades of experience running Perfect North Slopes, Indiana. The West Virginia mountain is a hidden gem, featuring one of the highest natural snow totals and largest vertical rises in the mid-Atlantic.
The thousand vertical foot six pack will travel from base-to-summit with a ride time under six minutes. A Doppelmayr fixed grip quad will service lower mountain beginner runs, a terrain park and slopeside lodging. Other improvements will include a re-graded learning area with a conveyor carpet lift, extensive upgrades to the snowmaking system, a fully remodeled rental shop, consolidated food service facilities and an updated outdoor arrival area. “We look forward to participating in the economic development of Tucker County and we’re excited to announce the significant investment in Timberline Mountain’s infrastructure that will take place this summer,” said Perfect, who is both President of Perfect North Slopes and CEO of Timberline Mountain. “I believe skiers and snowboarders next season are going to really enjoy the new experience on this very special mountain.”
One positive of the mid-Atlantic’s low-snow winter was the ability for Perfect’s team to get to work quickly. The mountain’s three Borvig and Heron-Poma lifts are already gone with many of the chairs in the hands of loyal Timberline guests. All three new lifts are expected to be complete in time for the mountain’s grand re-opening.
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