Vail Resorts

Bergman Bowl Project Moves Forward at Keystone

Peter Landsman32 Comments

Being the first Front Range mountain to open wasn’t the only great news for Keystone Resort this morning. The White River National Forest also released a Draft Decision Notice paving the way for construction of the mountain’s seventh high speed chairlift. The lift will service 555 acres of alpine terrain in Bergman and Erickson bowls, delivering up to 2,400 skiers per hour to an altitude of 12,300 feet. The project also includes 20 acres of new snowmaking, expansion of the Outpost restaurant and a ski patrol station atop Bergman Bowl.

The White River hosts the most skiing of any National Forest and staff worked closely with Keystone to minimize environmental impacts. The lift’s bottom terminal, towers and access roads were shifted from initial locations to reduce impacts on wetlands. Required glading was also reduced by 19 acres and tree clearing by 10 acres to lessen pressure on Canada lynx.

Project approval is subject to a 45 day objection period. Assuming everything is still a go, Vail Resorts could opt to start building as soon as next summer. Keystone’s parent company had planned to replace the Peru Express this year, a project awarded to Leitner-Poma but delayed by the coronavirus. Vail also postponed construction of new lifts at Beaver Creek, Breckenridge and Crested Butte. If the ski season now underway is successful, the Bergman Bowl Express could be one of a bunch of new lifts in Colorado over the next few years.

Mt. Sunapee Master Plan Includes Lift System Overhaul

Peter Landsman10 Comments

Vail Resorts recently submitted an updated improvement plan for Mt. Sunapee to the State of New Hampshire which includes construction of five new chairlifts and two surface lifts. Most transformative would be the West Bowl expansion, including a mile long high speed quad and 1,082 feet of vertical. This would be Mt. Sunapee’s second longest lift, servicing five new trails. West Bowl would also feature a new beginner conveyor, parking and guest services building.

Vail also plans to upgrade the Sunapee Express to a six pack or combination lift with gondola cabins capable of moving 3,000 guests per hour. The existing high speed quad opened in 1998 and is undersized for the amount of terrain it services.

As planned by Triple Peaks before the 2018 Vail purchase, the North Peak triple would be replaced by a fixed grip quad. The nearby Spruce triple is also slated to be upgraded to a fixed quad, compensating for Vail’s recent removal of the Duckling double. It’s possible one of these two lifts would utilize equipment from the former Sunbowl quad, which remains in storage on site.

The Sunapee Express would become a six place chairlift or gondola/chair combination lift under a new master plan for Mt. Sunapee.

A new triple chair would be be built to connect the bottom of Sunbowl to North Peak. Known as Cataract, this lift would service a modest amount of new terrain and improve skier circulation. Rather than purchasing new, Vail may opt to re-use equipment from the North Peak and/or Spruce triples for Cataract.

A rope tow is proposed to link Parking Lot 2 and Spruce Lodge, reducing the resort’s reliance on shuttle buses. Finally, Vail seeks to add a grip maintenance building and carrier storage for the Sunbowl Express.

The plan would increase Mt. Sunapee’s comfortable carrying capacity by 40 percent to 6,850 skiers. Most of the proposed projects were previously approved during Triple Peaks ownership, though a few are new. A public meeting will be held Thursday evening to solicit comments or you can submit them to MountSunapeeComments@dncr.nh.gov. The deadline to weigh in is November 12th.

News Roundup: Vail Numbers

Peter Landsman9 Comments
  • 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.”

News Roundup: Endless Winter

Peter Landsman9 Comments

News Roundup: Tough Choices

Peter Landsman11 Comments
  • The Italian parent of Leitner and Poma reports record revenue of €1.06 billion, having completed 78 ropeway projects in 2019, though the company expects sales to fall 30 percent in 2020.
  • Public comments are now being solicited regarding Steamboat’s proposed Wild Blue Gondola, Sundown Express replacement and Priest Creek removal projects.
  • Vail Resorts suspends operations at two Australian resorts just three days into the season due to the evolving Coronavirus situation.
  • Even though American Dream and Big Snow in New Jersey are closed, a second American Dream location remains in development in Miami.
  • Vail Resorts-owned OnTheSnow.com and sister websites will shut down Monday due to the challenging financial landscape. A Vail-owned TV station is also closing.
  • Bloomberg speaks with the CEOs of both Alterra and Vail about next winter.
  • Today is the last day to comment on Little Cottonwood Canyon transportation alternatives, including a 3S gondola.
  • Walt Disney World won’t allow unrelated parties to ride together in gondola cabins when the Skyliner reopens.
  • Doppelmayr USA, Leitner-Poma of America, MND America, Skytrac and SkyTrans all received Paycheck Protection Program loans supporting more than 400 American jobs.
  • A key link located on a receding glacier, the Horstman T-Bar at Whistler Blackcomb is no more.
  • Design work continues for Aspen Mountain’s Lift One Telemix and related developments.

News Roundup: Mask Up

Peter Landsman9 Comments

News Roundup: Switzerland to Italy

Peter Landsman43 Comments

News Roundup: Working Capital

Peter Landsman5 Comments

News Roundup: Graduation Season

Peter Landsman21 Comments

 

Following Cancellations, How Will Lift Construction Recover?

Peter Landsman14 Comments

When Vail Resorts spelled out its suspension of operations in mid-March, the shutdown was hoped to last only a week.  Fifty days later, all 37 resorts remain shuttered and the company has borrowed more than a billion dollars to weather a possible extended recession.

Almost immediately, Vail Resorts postponed discretionary capital improvement projects including seven new chairlifts.  Vail is just one of numerous operators of lifts facing epic challenges due to COVID-19.  The impacts trickle down to suppliers, particularly global suppliers of large machinery like the Leitner Group and Doppelmayr.  While the two major lift manufacturers are of similar size and structure, their customers are incredibly diverse, from mom and pop outfits to governments, NGOs and Fortune 100 companies.

pacemay2020

As regular readers of this blog know, the lift business is not the same as the ski business.  Leitner-Poma, Skytrac and Doppelmayr USA have all completed projects for non-ski venues recently such as theme parks, zoos, stadiums and cruise ports.  Not only are these projects making up an increasing share of contracts, they tend to be large in scope and often include lucrative operation and maintenance deals.  Some of these non-traditional customers are in even worse shape than the ski business, more dependent on high guest densities and air travel.  Put another way, there is little chance the Walt Disney Company, Carnival Corporation or the Miami Dolphins would have signed to build their recent lift projects in today’s environment.  So-called “point of interest” projects may disappear entirely for a few years.

One bright spot could be urban transport.  The Portland Aerial Tram and Roosevelt Island Tramway have both remained operational throughout the pandemic, albeit at reduced capacity (the Portland Tram carries health care workers to three different hospitals and is about as essential as it gets.)  Large aerial tramways have been ceding market share to monocable, 2S and 3S gondolas, a trend which will probably accelerate with new personal space concerns.  With gondolas, each person or family can take their own cabin unlike on trains or buses.  There are lots of great concepts for urban gondolas in North America and infrastructure spending programs could finally get one or two off the ground.  Mexico already has a large urban gondola system in operation with two more under construction.

Continue reading →