Steamboat announces new Gondola

The new Steamboat gondola will land in a public plaza by One Steamboat Place

Steamboat Springs could have a new people-mover gondola by early next ski season.

Steamboat Ski and Resort Corp. officials and Wildhorse Meadows de­­velopers confirmed at the end of April that they are close to finalizing a cost-sharing deal that would allow construction of a new, eight-passenger public gondola this fall. The goal is to open the gondola as soon as January 2010. It would link a remote parking lot and new luxury condominium hotel with the base of Steamboat Ski Area.

The fully enclosed gondola now poised to move forward comes with an estimated cost of $7 million.

Initial uphill capacity on the new gondola will be 1,800 riders an hour, with the ability to upgrade volume to 2,400 an hour with the later addition of more cabins. The trip will take three minutes.

In comparison, the existing Steamboat gondola has an uphill capacity of 2,800 per hour, and the new Christie Peak Express can carry 3,200 riders per hour. Ski Corp.’s fleet of shuttle vans transports 750 people per hour.

Fast climber

The gondola will be aided by a new technology developed in Europe that will help it climb more steeply immediately upon leaving the lower terminal. That will help it climb rapidly to the elevation of Mount Werner Circle before crossing the road and traversing a 150-foot-wide easement between The West condominiums and the Steamboat Grand Resort Hotel.

The new gondola cabins are likely to be built by a Swiss company, CWA Constructions. Al­­though they will closely resemble the cabins in the existing Steamboat gondola, at 192 centimeters, the new cabins will allow a 6-foot-tall person to stand up inside.

Some of the urgency at­­tached to ordering and installing the new gondola this year is attributable to the economic downturn, and the potential for reduced costs with highly motivated lift manufacturers in a competitive bidding environment. Both parties to the construction also acknowledged that the current availability of financing is a factor, but they declined to elaborate.

This is just another indication of what the future holds for Steamboat Springs, the third largest ski resort in Colorado. Steamboat is also famed for being family friendly, the home of Champagne Powder and one fo the few locations in the USA to offer lodging in full-service catered ski chalets.