- A ranch in Hawaii scales down its proposed gondola in hopes of allaying community concerns. Even so a State Representative plans to introduce a bill to ban chairlifts and gondolas from ever being constructed in Hawaii.
- A lightning-caused fire burns the drive terminal of Camp 10, Wisconsin’s Red T-Bar.
- Mountain High revives the Discovery lift damaged in a 2024 wildfire.
- Alterra introduces Reserve add-on passes with line cutting privileges and other perks at Big Bear, Blue Mountain, Crystal Mountain, Solitude, Sugarbush and Tremblant.
- Thousands of Crystal skiers aren’t happy about the Reserve Pass.
- Steamboat takes another step toward a detachable base area transit gondola.
- Hermon Mountain, Maine will close after this season if a buyer can’t be found.
- Hickory, New York leaves Indy Pass.
- Skytrac commissions its on-site wind turbine.
- Waterville Valley shares a wild picture of bubble chairs during a fall winds and a T-Bar construction update.
- Deer Valley unveils its 25-26 trail map depicting eight new lifts.
Waterville Valley
News Roundup: Aerials
- Okanagan Gondola eyes a 2027 opening.
- Waterville Valley explains the reasoning behind building a lift in house.
- Quebec’s CMSQ group is selected to operate Mont Édouard and plans a CA$16 million six pack for 2026.
- CMSQ also intends to operate Mont Adstock and would like to take control of Mont-Sainte-Anne and Stoneham.
- BigRock, Maine decommissions its Mueller double.
- Vail narrows down on a gondola plan for West Lionshead.
- Still no arrests five years after the Sea to Sky Gondola cable was cut.
- A deal is in the works to reopen Toggenburg, New York for skiing.
- The Canadian government finds no illegal monopoly with the Banff Gondola and Jasper Sky Tram under common ownership.
- Five people are hospitalized following a chairlift collapse in Russia. Photos and video show the single chairs’s drive terminal upside down.
- The Forest Service approves a Sandia Peak Telemix.
- Aspen takes an exploratory look at valley gondola transport.
- Kicking Horse finishes installation of new hanger arms, hopes to reopen its gondola soon.
- The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway temporarily closes due to technical issues.
- Here’s a look from the air where Powder Mountain’s DMI, Davenport and Halfpint lifts are going.
News Roundup: Bigger Daddy
- Big White announces a CA$3 million renovation of Black Forest Express with Ridge Rocket Express to receive similar treatment next year.
- Dagmar, Ontario to lengthen the Big Daddy quad.
- Waterville Valley’s awesome ops blog shares stories of freeing a chair hung up in a comm line, sending a snowmaker cross country for a lift engine and summer preventative maintenance.
- The Bitterroot Resort property that never really got off the ground south of Missoula is for sale.
- More details emerge on possible aerial transit in Oshawa, Ontario.
- The Tennessee State Fair christens its new sky ride chairlift.
- The new head of NSAA calls for a cultural shift toward restraint bar use following a tough season.
- Sigma Cabins introduces a new logo to match sister company Poma’s rebranding.
- An update on the Los Angeles Dodgers gondola project with Leitner-Poma and Zero Emissins Transit.
- Insurer Safehold pulls out of Oregon, leaving resorts scrambling with just one carrier in the state.
- Sipapu formally announces its Lift 3 replacement (no it’s not the last of its kind in North America.)
- Chair sales are ongoing at Mammoth and Alpental.
- London’s IFS Cloud Cable Car adds glass floored cabins to increase revenue.
- Guests got stuck mid trip on Snowbird’s Tram for two hours yesterday.
News Roundup: On & Off
- The first towers and top terminal are set for the new gondola in Idaho Springs, Colorado, which will feature 22 cabins and North America’s first five Bike Cabs.
- Winter Park’s proposed town gondola secures local approval.
- Also at Winter Park, a draft Forest Service decision green lights removal of Looking Glass, replacement of Gemini, Discovery and Endeavour as well as construction of the Copper Creek six pack (subject to an objection period.)
- Holiday Mountain plans to re-use 1969 towers on a new chairlift.
- Sommet Saint-Sauveur commissions the first Mantis AI software in North America tied directly into a lift control system.
- An update on Deer Valley’s six lifts going in this summer.
- Park City flies towers for the Sunrise Gondola.
- Utah posts its third highest skier visits in history.
- Teton County, Wyoming to oppose Grand Targhee expansion; Teton County, Idaho not sure yet.
- The Forest Service approves Sipapu to replace Lift 3 with completion slated for Fall 2025.
- The Forest Service hosts a public meeting on the proposed Green Peak gondola.
- Jay Peak President and General Manager Steve Wright tells US Senators the Bonaventure replacement is sidelined by Canadians’ redicence to visit and tariff-related cost increases.
- Eaglecrest permanently closes the Black Bear double, will focus on upgrading Ptarmigan to a triple and installing a used gondola.
- Garaventa and CWA debut tram cabins in Switzerland made to look like wood with flower pots on the ends.
News Roundup: Retrofits
- US ski resorts report their second best season ever with 61.5 million visits.
- Colorado releases a detailed report on Winter Park’s gondola tower evener beam failure last December. Leitner-Poma will retrofit or replace similar beams on existing lifts and modify the beam’s design for future installations.
- The Kicking Horse gondola hanger failure remains under investigation but the resort will replace all hangers and not operate the gondola until mid-summer at the earliest.
- Homewood to install its D-Line gondola in 2026 after years of delays.
- McCauley Mountain to sell Hall chairs from the former Big double.
- The Covid-delayed Timber expansion at Tremblant is back on the table.
- The White Mountain National Forest seeks comments on Waterville Valley’s proposed village-to-mountain gondola.
- Eaglecrest, Alaska continues to lose money with its planned gondola still in the parking lot.
- Salt Lake Community College launches a training program for lift maintenance professionals.
- Wildcat’s Snowcat triple, which missed all of last season, to get a new haul rope, drive, controls, comm line and operator houses.
- A Park City billionaire acquires the PCMR Town Lift plaza, envisions a future gondola.
Waterville Valley to Build New T-Bar
MND Ropeways will construct another lift at Waterville Valley, New Hampshire this summer, replacing the existing World Cup T-Bar and Exhibition Poma. The lift will run in a new alignment, serving athletes and training programs as well as the general public. The new T-Bar will span 2,226 feet with a vertical rise of 602 feet and capacity of 1,100 skiers per hour.
“This new T-Bar is an exciting investment in our mountain’s infrastructure,” said Tim Smith, President & General Manager of Waterville Valley Resort. “It will greatly improve our ability to support training camps, race and freestyle programs, and provide enhanced access for recreational skiers.”
This will be the fifth MND Ropeways installation at Waterville following the High Country T-Bar, Tecumseh Express and two conveyors. As part of this summer’s work, Waterville will install redesigned bubbles for the Tecumseh Express’ 83 chairs. A new bubble material has already been tested and found to be more durable than the original Bartholet version.
News Roundup: Valentine’s Edition
- Vail Resorts reaches an agreement with Crested Butte lift mechanics, averting a strike.
- A window falls from a cabin on Stowe’s Mansfield Gondola during operations.
- Mission Ridge acknowledges three different chairs have detached this season from Chair 4, a 1971 Riblet double (all empty and no injuries).
- Waterville Valley completes a midseason splice on the High Country T-Bar.
- A new owner looks to reopen Crystal Mountain, BC via crowdfunding.
- Winter Park’s High Lonesome Express is back after a four week maintenance closure.
- Still no Slide Brook Express at Sugarbush but hopefully soon.
- The Glade Triple at Catamount will miss the rest of the season.
- Badger Pass, California won’t open this season.
- Ditto for Cedar Pass, also in California.
- Park City gets serious about a gondola connecting Main Street to Deer Valley.
- President Trump imposes 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum imports with potential impacts on lift manufacturers.
- The US Forest Service, landlord to 124 ski areas, lays off 3,400 employees.
- A bipartisan group of Senators sponsor a bill that would direct the Forest Service retain some of the fees resorts pay to the federal government for ski purposes, such as processing resort improvement projects.
- The gondola in Moab, Utah which sat for 25 years without ever opening, is finally being removed.
- Solitude demystifies lift maintenance for customers.
News Roundup: Tough Holiday
- Heavenly reopens the Comet Express following a serious incident that sent five to the hospital but declines to specify what went wrong. From Heavenly: “Comet Express is open and operating normally. Safety is our top priority at Heavenly Mountain Resort, and we take this incident very seriously. Following a thorough inspection by the Heavenly team and the lift manufacturer, the issue was identified and resolved, and the lift was cleared for operations by the U.S. Forest Service.”
- A chair bail on the Lookout Express at Sun Valley cracks in two; the lift has since reopened and the resort declined a request for comment.
- As the Park City patrol strike drags on, most of the mountain remains closed, the COO posts a video message to frustrated guests and Vail looks to hire new patrollers.
- A piece of guidage fails on the only chairlift in the Yukon, leading to a rope evacuation.
- Sugarloaf’s SuperQuad misses some of the holiday week.
- Panama looks to build a six station, 6.6 km urban gondola.
- Sasquatch Mountain, BC’s triple chair will be down for the foreseeable future due to a maintenance issue.
- Mt. Hood Meadows’ Heather Canyon double is damaged by a falling tree.
- Mont Orford opens a pop up bar in a gondola cabin.
- Ski Martock, Nova Scotia closes for the week due to a lift issue.
- Waterville Valley formally seeks approval for a village to summit gondola and southeastward expansion.
News Roundup: Chair Sale Season
- Jackson Hole takes initial steps toward adding Rock Springs and Green River canyons to its permit area, eyes new Sublette and Lower Sublette lifts.
- A California winery’s new D-Line gondola marches toward opening.
- Keystone confirms Bergman Bowl construction is a go to resume this summer and Rad Smith will paint an all-new Keystone trail map.
- Schweitzer’s upcoming detachable quad will be called Creekside Express.
- Utah Olympic Park christens its new high speed quad called Game Changer.
- Mission Ridge loses a lawsuit seeking $6 million from the county it operates in over an expansion dispute.
- MND wins a $106 million contract to supply equipment for a new ski resort in Uzbekistan including an 80 passenger aerial tramway, 10 passenger gondola, two chairlifts, six conveyor lifts, a mountain coaster, zip lines and avalanche safety systems.
- Attitash will auction chairs from the outgoing Summit Triple. Snowriver too.
- Software provider Entabeni Systems acquires Indy Pass, will cap sales next year and issue direct-to-lift cards.
- Mountain Division President James O’Donnell and Whistler Blackcomb COO Geoff Buchheister both leave Vail Resorts effective today. Buchheister is named CEO of Aspen and Bill Rock will become the new Mountain Division President at Vail.
- Crabbe Mountain explains recent lift down time.
- Paradise at Powder Mountain closes indefinitely due to a maintenance issue.
News Roundup: Busy Busy
- Ski Wentworth in Nova Scotia names its new Quad Cobequid after the local mountain range.
- The Seattle Times profiles this year’s turnaround at Stevens Pass.
- The Merrill Hill expansion opens at Sunday River after two years of construction.
- Bear Valley’s Grizzly chair is closed due to a deropement and four chairs being ejected from the haul rope (note: the description in the Instagram post is not accurate but the resort comments below the post.)
- A child is hospitalized after falling from a lift at Ski Sundown.
- Storm damage forces more comm line replacements at Sierra at Tahoe.
- Tenney Mountain to open next weekend for the first time since 2020.
- Big Squaw goes back up for sale.
- The oldest lift in Colorado will cease operations unless a new owner comes along.
- The Forest Service approves Waterville Valley’s World Cup/Exhibition T-Bar, though no construction timeline has been set.
- Former Big Sky/Crystal Mountain General Manager and prolific lift builder John Kircher dies at 64.
- Whitewater returns Silver King to service after a bullwheel bearing replacement.
- Crystal Mountain and Leitner-Poma work to reopen the Crystal Clipper this weekend.
- Deer Valley to launch Burns Express this afternoon.
- Doppelmayr pulls the haul rope for the new quad at Belle Neige (note: this lift was contracted with a February completion date.)
- Doppelmayr and Telluride still aren’t sure when Plunge Express will open.
- A misload causes a chair to get tangled in a terminal at Wolf Creek.
- A deropement leads to a rope evacuation at Crested Butte.
- Similar story at Brimacombe, Ontario.
- Whitefish rope evacuates the brand new Snow Ghost Express, says it had safety concerns that Leitner-Poma engineers are working to address.
- Palisades re-splices and reopens the new Red Dog Express.
- I’m told Bridger at Nordic Valley will miss the entire season due to a planned haul rope replacement.
- Aspen’s Silver Queen Gondola goes down due to a gearbox issue.
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