Month: July 2019

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74 Employees from Vail stuck at Eagle Bahn Gondola- now evacuated.

Eagle Bahn gondola. Photo from LiftBlog. 74 Employees from Vail stuck at Eagle Bahn Gondola- now evacuated.

74 Employees from Vail stuck at Eagle Bahn Gondola- now evacuated.

The Eagle Bahn gondola in Vail Mountain broke down Wednesday morning at 8.35 AM with employees going up to Eagle Nest.

From Vail Daily

Vail Resorts employees going to Eagle’s Nest had to be evacuated on Wednesday morning when the Eagle Bahn gondola stopped. The employees were evacuated safely by Vail Ski Patrol.

Vail's Eagle Bahn gondola evaluation. Photo from Michael Shellenberger. Vail Daily.
Vail’s Eagle Bahn gondola evaluation. Photo from Michael Shellenberger. Vail Daily.

The gondola was not open to the public at that time and was only uploading the employees to get to work in the morning. The gondola and all Epic Discovery activities were closed for the day.

The company states that whatever has caused the gondola to stop will be fixed before re-opening. The Eagle Bahn Gondola was not opened today 4th July, but instead Gondola One out of Vail Village will be open for access via shuttle and hiking from Mid Vail to Eagle’s Nest for the Epic Discovery Activities, on-mountain dining and dinner at the Game Creek Restaurant. There will not be bike hauling availability.

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Was the past one a great ski season? Enjoy it for now!

Norbert, Nico and Eva playing at Squaw Valley. Alterra Resorts. Was the past one a great ski season? Enjoy it for now!

Was the past one a great ski season? Enjoy it for now!

From Bloomberg Business

This past winter’s weird weather patterns delivered record snowfalls. There are now five North American ski resorts still open and even Mammoth is planning to use its chairlifts in August.

Peak 6 in Breckenridge, CO. Photo Andrew Maguire. Vail Resorts. Was the past one a great ski season? Enjoy it for now!
Peak 6 in Breckenridge, CO. Photo Andrew Maguire. Vail Resorts. Was the past one a great ski season? Enjoy it for now!

The ski industry – a business of $8.4 million in North America has gone from being really bad, to have a good year even when there is a fallout of climate change.

It was a record year for skier days in the US – as the National Ski Areas Association published there was an 11% increase in skier days from the prior year reaching 59 million skier days in the US.

Both Alterra and Vail Resorts have taken advantage of this. From November through April, Vail received 13.7 million skier days – a 20% year on year. Total revenue increased 14.5 percent to $1.8 billion.

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A Day Trip to Valle Nevado from Santiago City

A Day Trip to Valle Nevado from Santiago City. Photo: Valle Nevado on a beautiful night.

A Day Trip to Valle Nevado from Santiago City

HURRAY!!!!! Finally the wait for winter has finished. Valle Nevado is OPEN!

Report by Chino Martinez – Professional Skier

Saturday 29th June, 2019

After weeks of waiting for our best part of the year  – YES! ‘WINTER” has arrived!

As a ski fanatic living during the winter in Santiago City, what I do all day is look up at the mountains and check how much snow accumulation there is on top!

From Santiago you can see the top of all the ski areas, and at this time of the season, we all get nervous about when we are going to start skiing and where, first!.

From the city to the ski areas you can drive up early morning in one hour or less, if you do so before hitting traffic jams. You will need a 4WD car with winter tyres and/or chains onboard.

I received a phone call from Pablo on Friday evening telling me to get ready as we were going to go up the next morning and were all set, 4WD truck, chains, cameras, drone, filmaker- we were ready to go!

6:45 am on the Saturday and we were ready to go.

Ready to depart from Santiago - a ski adventure awaits! Photo: Chino Martinez. A Day Trip to Valle Nevado from Santiago City.
Ready to depart from Santiago – a ski adventure awaits! Photo: Chino Martinez. A Day Trip to Valle Nevado from Santiago City.

We’ve started our trip to Valle Nevado with Pablo, the driver, Xavier, the film-maker, Roberta the TV show presenter and myself – the skier.

The road up was not in good shape as we had a storm the night before during all night and lots of rain came down the city. It was at 1.500 m of altitude that we started to see some snow.

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