- Vail Resorts reports skier visits down 3.1%, lift revenue up 3.4%, ski school revenue up 2.7%, dining up 2.2% and retail/rental down 4.0% with pass sales for next year down slightly in units.
- Burke Mountain to be sold to Bear Den Partners for $11.5 million.
- Park City explores possible routes for a Main Street-Deer Valley gondola.
- Ski Utah continues advocating for a Little Cottonwood gondola.
- Telluride seeks approval for yet-to-be-specified projects from its master plan.
- Boyne launches two multi-resort pass products good at all their resorts.
- Local artists to transform Park City Sunrise chairs into works of art to be auctioned for charity.
- Italy opens a criminal investigation into last week’s fatal tram incident involving a haul rope failure and track rope brake failure on one of two cabins.
- Steeplechase, Minnesota turns to crowdfunding to finance expansion.
- Leitner-Poma Canada is hiring lift installers for a project at Whitewater, BC.
- Loveland to operate the new Lift 7 quad as a triple.
- Killington is full steam ahead on Superstar replacement.
- Red Lodge Mountain begins repairing the chairlift involved in a fatal incident last month.
- Palisades Tahoe invites local high school students on mountain operations tours to aid with recruitment.
Whitewater
News Roundup: Raven
- Smugglers’ Notch abandons plans for a gondola to Stowe.
- Marmot Basin removes the long-closed Caribou double.
- Whitewater names its new quad Raven, posts an expansion map.
- Boyne Mountain’s new map shows two new lifts.
- Ditto for Sun Valley.
- Winter Park’s 23-24 map shows the new mid-station for Wild Spur Express.
- Steamboat introduces a completely new map with Wild Blue and Mahogany Ridge.
- Steamboat begins testing Wild Blue II a.k.a. The Monster.
- Cooper and Mt. Shasta join the Powder Alliance.
- More than 50 new resorts will join the Indy Pass next week, including Great Bear, South Dakota.
- The No Boundaries Pass says Indy Pass banned its resorts from participating.
- Lost Colorado area St. Mary’s Glacier goes up for sale.
- Windham Mountain rebrands as Windham Mountain Club, will no longer sell single day tickets during peak periods.
- The Forest Service says it’s working with Montana Snowbowl to correct lift issues from last season before winter.
- Doppelmayr turns 130.
- An Ontario mountain needs a $100,000 lifeline to operate this winter.
- The Summit at Snoqualmie will sell chairs from the old Easy Rider triple.
- Rabbit Hill, Alberta moves lift towers due to ground movement.
- The Okanagan Gondola project continues to move forward in British Columbia.
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.
News Roundup: On Line
- MND raises more money to continue growth plans.
- Palisades Tahoe opens Red Dog, Mount Baldy, Ontario opens the chairlift it worked years to build.
- Vail aims to open Sun Down Express this weekend.
- Sunnyside at Alta will open tomorrow, two months late.
- Cascade Mountain’s delayed lift also spins tomorrow.
- Granite Gorge, New Hampshire reopens after a multi-year closure.
- Loup Loup temporarily closes its lone chairlift to remove hazard trees identified by the Forest Service.
- Children are injured falling from lifts at Boyne Mountain, Bristol Mountain and Mt. Snow.
- Vail Resorts reports a 12.5 percent increase in skier visits but cautions extreme weather and airline disruptions hurt holiday performance.
- Unionized lift mechanics at Park City prepare to negotiate their first contract with Vail Resorts.
- Whitewater’s Silver King lift will be down for up to a month.
- Crystal Mountain, Michigan’s main lift to be down all weekend.
Whitewater Announces New Quad for 2023
The good news from Canada continues with a lift project at Whitewater, British Columbia unveiled today. Beginning in the 2023-24 season, a new Leitner-Poma fixed grip quad will ascend Silver King Ridge, complementing the existing Silver King double.
The 1,410 vertical foot lift will service 160 acres of new territory and carry 1,600 skiers per hour. “Whitewater is known for its steep, playful terrain, and the new quad truly aligns with the Whitewater brand by opening access to more of that type of terrain,” said Colby Lehman, Outdoor Operations Manager at Whitewater. “This new quad will also reduce the demand on the current Silver King lift, which ultimately will make for a better experience for both experts and beginners,” he continued.
Construction on the project will begin this summer and take two seasons to complete.
Instagram Tuesday: Lifted
Every Tuesday, I feature my favorite Instagram photos from around the lift world.
Instagram Tuesday: Home Stretch
Every Tuesday, I feature my favorite Instagram photos from around the lift world.
https://instagram.com/p/BaIT6_OHbDA/
Instagram Tuesday: Projects
Every Tuesday, I feature my favorite Instagram photos from around the lift world.
Instagram Tuesday: Winter is Coming
Every Tuesday, I feature my favorite Instagram photos from around the lift world.
News Roundup: T-Bar Rebirth
- Gould Academy is fundraising to put a T-Bar up Monday Mourning at Sunday River but hasn’t signed a contract yet, I’m told. The race training lift could become New England’s sixth new T-Bar in three years.
- Grouse Mountain sells to Chinese and Canadian investors, Blue Knob goes to a group of Pittsburgh skiers.
- Waterville Valley’s new High Country T-Bar would follow an all-new alignment starting lower and ending higher than the current double.
- LiftDigital safety bar displays to debut at Wachusett and on the Super Gauge Express at Winter Park.
- Homeowners and insurers may sue the Christchurch Adventure Park in New Zealand over its decision to keep a brand new Doppelmayr high-speed quad running during a wildfire in an effort to save the haul rope. A video allegedly shows burning chairs starting new fires along the 5,790-foot lift line. The haul rope was written off and the park remains closed five months later.
- LST’s first detachable finally opens to the public in France.
- Val Neigette, Quebec is closing and selling off equipment, including a 1990 Doppelmayr quad chair.
- Developer floats building a gondola across Interstate 25 in Loveland, Colorado.
- Aspen Snowmass COO David Perry leaves Skico to help launch new, still nameless company which will include Intrawest, KSL and Mammoth resorts.
- Sunshine Village and Parks Canada fight hard to prevent a wildfire from crossing into the ski area.
- Disney Skyliner’s first lift line is already cut.
- Steamboat gondola reopening delayed a third time for more testing with the CPTSB.
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