are planning on bringing additional pro- duction lines into the new facility,” says Schmitz. “That’s mainly business we are moving from Europe to the U.S. for North American projects.” There’s no sign of any slowdown in the Beehive State with projects in the pipeline at many Utah mountains and the Winter Olympics returning in 2034. “There’s a lot of work in Utah,” says Man- ley, who has projects lined up at Park City and Snowbasin for 2025. “We’re working on a few others,” he adds. Schmitz shared similar sentiments. “Looking ahead to next year, there is a lot LIFT CONSTRUCTION SURVEY 2024
of Utah business,” she says. “There are a lot of upgrades planned but also big proj- ects like Deer Valley and Wasatch Peaks that are new ski areas or portions of new ski areas. Those don’t happen often.” Simpler Lifts Carry On In a high-inflation, high-interest-rate environment, many operators turned to fixed-grip chairlifts as economical people movers. Resorts installed 21 new fixed-grip triples and quads in 2024, nearly half of the total mix. Roughly 40 percent of those feature loading convey- ors, designed to reduce mis-loads and increase throughput. “The industry went through this phase of detachable, detachable, detach- able, but a lot of people have realized that fixed grips are a very efficient way to deliv- er people to the top of the mountain,” says Skylling at Skytrac, which installs exclu- sively fixed-grip lifts. “They’ve really come back into their own.” Surface lifts level out. While aeri- al lift manufacturers have stayed busy post-Covid, the conveyor and tow busi- ness was down about 34 percent year- over-year. SunKid remained the market leader, installing 26 new lifts through its U.S. subsidiary Star Lifts. “The Covid
boom is over, but the lack of snow in the East and in the Midwest didn’t help us either,” says Star Lifts USA president Conor Rowan. “When you look back at pre-Covid numbers, we’re right about where we were. This is back to normal.” Despite selling fewer lifts, he was upbeat about one thing: this is the first year SunKid delivered all latest-gener- ation Type N conveyors in the North American market. Many of them went to independent ski areas and fewer to large conglomerates. “Mom-and-pop ski areas were 90 percent of our sales this year,” says Rowan. “A lot of new custom- ers that had not purchased any product from us before.” MND Group supplied two conveyor lifts this year, and is in the process of test- ing a new line of detachable ropeways called Orizon that it plans to introduce to the North American market. Of the four Team Service Carpets/ Planet Movers installations, two were built for a municipal tubing and learn-to ski and ride operation in Salt Lake City. Both Partek and Magic Carpet Ski Lifts reported no new installations in 2024 and have exited the new lift market, though they’ll continue supporting exist- ing equipment. That leaves just a handful of firms selling lifts in North America.
Above: Team Service Carpet/Planet Mover installed a conveyor at Gateway Parks, Eaglewood, Utah. Right: MND conveyor lift installation at Christmas Mountain Village, Wis. Behind: Star Lifts SunKid conveyor with gallery at Belleayre Mountain, NY.
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