Summary:
Palmyra Basin Lift – Will not go up to the peak, just serve the basin, 1200 capacity so probably a fixed-grip double or triple
Gold Hill Summit Surface Lift – Bottom at the top of Revelation and going up along the ridge
Gold Hill Lift Additional Chairs – Boost capacity from 1500 to 2200, may have already occurred
Plunge Lift Replacement – Detachable (presumably quad) with 2400 capacity
Sunshine Express Replacement – Either a detachable quad with a capacity of 2400 or a gondola with a mid-station at Town Hall/Village Market to extend the free gondola network, which would be great
Coonskin Lift Replacement – Now called Lift 7, would be a fixed-grip triple with a capacity of 1200
North Meadows Area Conveyor Lift – An additional Magic Carpet on Meadows
Free Gondola Capacity Upgrades – Additional cabins to boost capacity
I know this isn’t lift related, but is there any in-bounds terrain in North America that truly compares to the Gold Hill chutes, Palmyra Peak, and Black Iron Bowl in terms of intensity and steepness? Seems like there are many trails here where if you fall it’s highly likely that you’d die. Albeit I am judging this from videos and pictures since I have never been, but it doesn’t seem like there’s any other true “no fall zones” inbounds in North America. Only things that I can think of being somewhat near this level are Baldy chutes at Alta, North Summit, Big Couloir, Headwaters hike-to at Big Sky, Steep Gullies at A-basin, and assorted trails at Taos and Crested Butte, and hike-to stuff at Jackson Hole. I’m probably missing stuff in Canada but was wondering other people’s thoughts on this
There is definitely a lot of ski runs in North America that have truly no fall zones or falling outs you in a sticky situation. Some examples of these zones are Gemstone Bowls, Secret Bowl, and Saudan couloir zones on Blackcomb, Glacier Bowl at Whistler, the hike to terrain at Kicking Horse, and some of the chutes at Alyeska. There is also zones like Delirium Dive at Banff Sunshine but those are considered free ride zones so it’s a given that it is a no fall zone.
You got most of the comparable stuff. East Wall at A-Basin, Fantasy at Solitude, the King at Crystal, and the Ridge at Bridger Bowl all probably deserve a mention too. Gold Hill’s a bit less technical and more cliffy than others like the Headwaters, but similar ballpark. A lot of the chutes like Gold Hill 9 aren’t really that bad, it’s more of the intimidation factor on the hike. Then there are some like Gold Hill 2 that are nearly unskiable in most conditions.
Myles, Delirium can be sketchy, but there are a lot of safe routes down. Most of it isn’t a no fall zone. At Sunshine, Wild West is much more intimidating.
There is a really cool funicular connecting Bear Creek condos to the slopes. Not sure if that makes it in here because it’s private, but in case you didn’t know.
I think as far as lift upgrades and replacements go for Telluride in the next few years, this would be my plan:
2025- Coonskin ( lift 7) replacement- fixed triple should suffice as mostly a real estate dev lift and not too long.
Either 2025 or 2026- Sunshine Replacement- Was built in 1986 so more than 38 years old… Maintenence problems and overall age deem it necessary. Could see a low capacity 6 pack with gondola every 3 or 4 chairs with mid station in Mountain village. or just full gondola since over 10,000 feet long.
2026- Village express replacement- Very long lines on peak day since one of most popular pods on mountain and existing high speed quad already maxed out on capacity. I think a 6 pack d line would be perfect here.
As a side note: I know the free gondola system replacement is now starting to be discussed among Telluride Ski Co and Mountain village as it was built in 1996 and has such high run hours. I think they are estimating a 2028 start date at the very earliest but will probably take multiple years and will use d line technology.
Even though nothing has been discussed about Oak Street Lift, i could see this either being upgraded with a low capacity fixed triple, or being removed entirely near the end of the decade since it is pretty old and may not be worth it to keep maintaining and since it’s not a hugely important lift.
I would use the current Village Express HSQ to replace Coonskin. Chair 7 is almost 5000 feet long and is fall line so has a way more sensible alignment for skiing than the gondola (which is mostly side hill and starts and ends in bad spots). Having Coonskin go detach kills two birds with one stone also since it services most of the Oak Street terrain and gets you to Plunge.
Chair 4 should go HSS, I’d prefer UNI-G. Chair 10 should be a gondola.
I can see your point but there are other factors to be considered such as community and logistical hesitations. I also think that although sunshine is pretty old and aged significantly, there really arent significant lines unlike village express. So while I agree that they both should be replaced, I think Village is more important since often there are long lines especially during peak seasons.
Telluride has the oldest lift fleet of any destination resort in the West. Add to that significant deferred maintenance and you have a recipe for problems going forward. The ski area owner is quite old, lives in California, doesn’t ski, and has an adversarial relationship with the community (precipitated by him). Ouch.
I tend to agree. This does not appear to be a professionally-run operation. I mean, it looks like they need to spend ~$20M right now to replace Lift 7, Oak Street, and Sunshine just get the place somewhat up to par. Not to mention the gondola situation and other 90’s-era lifts whose time will come sooner rather than later. This guy needs to sell to a well-capitalized group that can invest in the lift system immediately and repair the relationship with the town.
The worst part is that Telluride’s owner is a billionaire who has the money to invest heavily into the resort. Running a ski resort is in no way an easy business, but investing heavily by billionaire owners has worked out pretty well at similar mountains, Taos and Whitefish, both of which have seen significant growth over the past 5-10 years. Powder Mountain is also an example of a successful billionaire owner
Its not easy to run a ski resort, but it’s not difficult for a billionaire owner to reinvest SOME money at his resort.
Lift Blog 
Here is telluride’s public MDP if anybody wants to take a peek for any reason- https://www.tellurideskiresort.com/uploaded/documents/telluride%20ski%20resort_2016%20master%20development%20plan_final_opt%20(1).pdf
Lift expansion plans are mostly on pages 89-92. Also page 122 has a map of what it will all look like.
Also, should help fill in some gaps in the spreadsheet. Page 45 includes statistics on all of the current lifts.
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I get a 404 code when I try to open it. Is there a working version?
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Click to access tsg_2017_master_development_plan.pdf
Summary:
Palmyra Basin Lift – Will not go up to the peak, just serve the basin, 1200 capacity so probably a fixed-grip double or triple
Gold Hill Summit Surface Lift – Bottom at the top of Revelation and going up along the ridge
Gold Hill Lift Additional Chairs – Boost capacity from 1500 to 2200, may have already occurred
Plunge Lift Replacement – Detachable (presumably quad) with 2400 capacity
Sunshine Express Replacement – Either a detachable quad with a capacity of 2400 or a gondola with a mid-station at Town Hall/Village Market to extend the free gondola network, which would be great
Coonskin Lift Replacement – Now called Lift 7, would be a fixed-grip triple with a capacity of 1200
North Meadows Area Conveyor Lift – An additional Magic Carpet on Meadows
Free Gondola Capacity Upgrades – Additional cabins to boost capacity
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I find telluride’s gondola system and the fact that it’s free so cool.
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When did the CTEC gondolas get new Doppelmayr grips and terminal equipment? I’m guessing they were AKs before? The Chondola still runs the AKs though
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I know this isn’t lift related, but is there any in-bounds terrain in North America that truly compares to the Gold Hill chutes, Palmyra Peak, and Black Iron Bowl in terms of intensity and steepness? Seems like there are many trails here where if you fall it’s highly likely that you’d die. Albeit I am judging this from videos and pictures since I have never been, but it doesn’t seem like there’s any other true “no fall zones” inbounds in North America. Only things that I can think of being somewhat near this level are Baldy chutes at Alta, North Summit, Big Couloir, Headwaters hike-to at Big Sky, Steep Gullies at A-basin, and assorted trails at Taos and Crested Butte, and hike-to stuff at Jackson Hole. I’m probably missing stuff in Canada but was wondering other people’s thoughts on this
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There is definitely a lot of ski runs in North America that have truly no fall zones or falling outs you in a sticky situation. Some examples of these zones are Gemstone Bowls, Secret Bowl, and Saudan couloir zones on Blackcomb, Glacier Bowl at Whistler, the hike to terrain at Kicking Horse, and some of the chutes at Alyeska. There is also zones like Delirium Dive at Banff Sunshine but those are considered free ride zones so it’s a given that it is a no fall zone.
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You got most of the comparable stuff. East Wall at A-Basin, Fantasy at Solitude, the King at Crystal, and the Ridge at Bridger Bowl all probably deserve a mention too. Gold Hill’s a bit less technical and more cliffy than others like the Headwaters, but similar ballpark. A lot of the chutes like Gold Hill 9 aren’t really that bad, it’s more of the intimidation factor on the hike. Then there are some like Gold Hill 2 that are nearly unskiable in most conditions.
Myles, Delirium can be sketchy, but there are a lot of safe routes down. Most of it isn’t a no fall zone. At Sunshine, Wild West is much more intimidating.
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Not sure what lift this was up here but here’s a vintage photo https://mountainscholar.org/bitstream/handle/11124/9221/R1043.jpg?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
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Looks like one of the Gorrono lifts.
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There is a really cool funicular connecting Bear Creek condos to the slopes. Not sure if that makes it in here because it’s private, but in case you didn’t know.
great blog Peter, thanks for all the info!
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I think as far as lift upgrades and replacements go for Telluride in the next few years, this would be my plan:
2025- Coonskin ( lift 7) replacement- fixed triple should suffice as mostly a real estate dev lift and not too long.
Either 2025 or 2026- Sunshine Replacement- Was built in 1986 so more than 38 years old… Maintenence problems and overall age deem it necessary. Could see a low capacity 6 pack with gondola every 3 or 4 chairs with mid station in Mountain village. or just full gondola since over 10,000 feet long.
2026- Village express replacement- Very long lines on peak day since one of most popular pods on mountain and existing high speed quad already maxed out on capacity. I think a 6 pack d line would be perfect here.
As a side note: I know the free gondola system replacement is now starting to be discussed among Telluride Ski Co and Mountain village as it was built in 1996 and has such high run hours. I think they are estimating a 2028 start date at the very earliest but will probably take multiple years and will use d line technology.
Even though nothing has been discussed about Oak Street Lift, i could see this either being upgraded with a low capacity fixed triple, or being removed entirely near the end of the decade since it is pretty old and may not be worth it to keep maintaining and since it’s not a hugely important lift.
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I would use the current Village Express HSQ to replace Coonskin. Chair 7 is almost 5000 feet long and is fall line so has a way more sensible alignment for skiing than the gondola (which is mostly side hill and starts and ends in bad spots). Having Coonskin go detach kills two birds with one stone also since it services most of the Oak Street terrain and gets you to Plunge.
Chair 4 should go HSS, I’d prefer UNI-G. Chair 10 should be a gondola.
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I can see your point but there are other factors to be considered such as community and logistical hesitations. I also think that although sunshine is pretty old and aged significantly, there really arent significant lines unlike village express. So while I agree that they both should be replaced, I think Village is more important since often there are long lines especially during peak seasons.
Does anyone else agree or disagree with this?
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I’m really startled by the age of this lift fleet, especially considering Telluride’s reputation as a luxury resort.
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Telluride has the oldest lift fleet of any destination resort in the West. Add to that significant deferred maintenance and you have a recipe for problems going forward. The ski area owner is quite old, lives in California, doesn’t ski, and has an adversarial relationship with the community (precipitated by him). Ouch.
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Mammoth definitely has an argument for oldest destination lift fleet as well: https://liftblog.com/mammoth-mountain-ca/
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There are older ones in California.
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I tend to agree. This does not appear to be a professionally-run operation. I mean, it looks like they need to spend ~$20M right now to replace Lift 7, Oak Street, and Sunshine just get the place somewhat up to par. Not to mention the gondola situation and other 90’s-era lifts whose time will come sooner rather than later. This guy needs to sell to a well-capitalized group that can invest in the lift system immediately and repair the relationship with the town.
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The worst part is that Telluride’s owner is a billionaire who has the money to invest heavily into the resort. Running a ski resort is in no way an easy business, but investing heavily by billionaire owners has worked out pretty well at similar mountains, Taos and Whitefish, both of which have seen significant growth over the past 5-10 years. Powder Mountain is also an example of a successful billionaire owner
Its not easy to run a ski resort, but it’s not difficult for a billionaire owner to reinvest SOME money at his resort.
Anyway Telluride would fit right in with RCR
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