New Heavenly Gondola

Snow Life has become privy to some potentially game changing information that could transform the landscape of South Lake Tahoe’s Heavenly Mountain Resort and completely change the way tourists access the mountain. If rumors are to be believed, Heavenly is in the initial stages of proposing the construction of a second base area gondola, one that would connect two of the base areas, and transport skiers and riders safely up the mountain even on windy storm days!

The rumored new gondola proposal would begin in the Heavenly Village, near to where the current base gondola is located, and run one of two possible routes, jutting Eastward and connecting to the Boulder Base area on the Nevada side of the mountain. The most likely route would see the new gondola running a West to East route from downtown SLT or Stateline and up the side-country terrain colloquially known as “The Burn”, letting off at a top station adjacent to the Boulder Base parking lot. Another probable route would see the top station terminating at the conjunction of Boulder Chair and the new North Bowl Express.

The reason for this new gondola would be simple and effective: Heavenly is constantly troubled by storm closures, and the current gondola is the first lift to be shut down when storms roll in off the Pacific and batter the Sierra Nevada Mountains with winds that can often exceed 100mph. Heavenly has the unfortunate setup of being a Northern facing mountain, when more than 90% of the storms that enter the area blow in from West to East. Storms often shut down several lifts including Sky and Tamarack on the California side and occasionally Comet, Dipper, Olympic and North Bowl on the Nevada side. 

Two potential routes for the new Heavenly base to base gondola

See the original Heavenly Trail map on the Heavenly Mountain site HERE

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Base to base gondola at Heavenly

When storms shut down the Village Gondola, tourists staying in the area have little recourse but to either drive themselves to one of the other base areas, or battle often massive shuttle bus lines at the nearby transit center. 

Heavenly’s shuttle system is often strained on holidays and weekends, and their only solution to overcrowding and parking issues in recent years has been to institute a “reservation only” parking system at the California Base, when one might think it prudent to build a parking structure of some sort, instead of gouging the tourists even more to park at a surface lot that has existed for decades. 

This gondola, if built, would almost completely remedy having to shuttle village tourists to and from Cal Base, and create a direct artery to the Nevada side of the resort from downtown that (if designed correctly) would be adverse to most storms and high winds. 

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Boulder Lodge and base area

While, if implemented, this is almost certain to piss off Tahoe Locals and Carson Valley locals that frequent the resort, it would be a big step in the right direction to appeasing the growing number of tourists that visit Heavenly Mountain Resort each year. 
The unfortunate side effect would be that the usually quiet Boulder Base would be transformed into a bustling mountain hub, and the wind sheltered Nevada side would be constantly busy, even on storm days. 

Heavenly officials have long mulled building a crossover lift from the California side to the Nevada side that would be low angle enough to be sheltered from the storm winds, as California’s Sky Chair is one of the first to get shut down on storm days, and effectively severs the resort in two as there is no other way to access Nevada side lifts or trails once it’s closed. This hypothesized “J-lift” as it was coined, has seemingly taken a back seat to this possible new mountain access gondola. 

Long Overdue Lift Upgrades

Despite record skier numbers and increased profits, Vail Corporation has been reluctant to perform many lift upgrades at its mountains in recent years, and is falling further and further behind competitor Alterra (Ikon Pass) when it comes to lift infrastructure capability at their ski resorts. Heavenly is a prime example of that, having been acquired by Vail Corp in 2002, it wasn’t long after that an intuitive and well thought out “Master Development Plan” was presented, stating that inside of just 10 short years a plethora of upgrades were to be implemented including this huge list which is a direct quote from Heavenly’s Wikipedia Page which was only recently amended a few years ago, as it has become very clear that most of these plans have long since been abandoned.

-“Future lift upgrades include the upgrade of the Galaxy double chair to a high speed detachable quad, the upgrade of the North Bowl triple chair to a high speed detachable quad, the replacement of the Patsy’s and Groove triple chairs with a single high speed detachable quad, a high speed detachable lift to replace the Aerial Tram that will terminate at the future Powderbowl Lodge, the extension and conversion of the Mott Canyon double chair to a fixed grip quad that will terminate at the top of Dipper Express, the construction of a fixed grip quad between the base of Sky Express and the top of the Gondola, the reinstallation of the Wells Fargo chair, accessing abandoned terrain on the Nevada side, and the upgrading of Sky Express from a high speed detachable quad to a high speed detachable six-pack.” ~Source: Wikipedia

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Where is the money going?

To read such a staggering list of potential upgrades, all of which make perfect sense and would alleviate much of Heavenly’s overcrowding issues, begs the question: Where is all the money going? And why has only one of these proposed upgrades ever taken place in the last 22 years since the Vail Acquisition? 

Building a second gondola at Heavenly would make a lot of sense, and go a long way towards improving the experience for most tourists. But will it actually happen? Why spend money and upgrade your mountain, when you can just get by with the same old status quo. 

I guess these things will remain to be seen, but Vail actually spending some money as apposed to adding more charges sure would be a welcome change. 

If the Gondy does get made, remember you heard it here first! And if you want tons more unique and insightful ski town journalism, be sure to follow Snow Life on Facebook and Instagram!

Have a great Spring Skiing Season!! ~ZP