Alterra Announces Mammoth and Deer Valley Lift Enhancements, Crystal Parking Investments in Updated Capital Plan

A ride up Mammoth’s Chair 1 (Broadway) in January 2021. This high-speed quad is on track to be replaced with a six-pack for the 2023-24 season.

On Monday, Alterra put out a press release detailing $344 million in major capital investments for five resorts in California, Colorado, Utah, and Washington. The company plans enhancements to lifts, lodges, and parking, among other areas.

The company announced several new projects with this release. California’s Mammoth will receive six-pack replacements for its Chair 1 (Broadway Express) and Chair 16 (Canyon Express) high-speed quads, both of which have been in service for over 25 years. Foundational work will start later this year, with the new six-place lifts planned for winter 2023-24 completions. The resort is also set to receive snowmaking upgrades that are intended to help with early-season resiliency.

Deer Valley is also set to see a major lift investment with the Little Burns Express, a new lift that will extend from the Snow Park base up to Little Baldy Peak. When complete, the new chair will provide the first single-ride connection between these two areas. Capacity for this lift has not been announced yet, but if past installations are any indication, it will likely be a high-speed quad. The new lift is on track to arrive next winter for the 2022-23 season.

Crystal Mountain is also set to receive considerable upgrades to its parking and base facilities. In addition to the increased lot space, the Washington resort will see a completely revamped skier services building, complete with retail, dining, and an expanded slopeside beach area. These upgrades are on track for 2023-24 completions.

The company also re-confirmed a series of initiatives that were announced last year. Palisades Tahoe’s long-anticipated Base-to-Base gondola, which will combine the California resort’s Olympic Valley and Alpine Meadows sides by lift, is on track for completion for the 2022-23 season. The 8-passenger gondola will boast two terminal stations at each base, a mid-station at KT-22, and a turning station with no entry/exit at Alpine Meadows. The first leg of Steamboat’s Big Blue Gondola, which will extend from the base to the newly-developed Greenhorn Ranch learning center, is also on track for 2022-23. And finally, Deer Valley’s completely remodeled Snow Park Lodge and base area will accompany the new Little Burns lift, while Mammoth will see a brand new Main Lodge to go along with the new six-packs.

Our Take

While a number of the projects announced in this press release are old news, several are of note.

The newly-announced Mammoth lifts are crucial for the California resort—both Chair 1 and 16 were originally slated for upgrades for the 2020-21 season, but their replacements were postponed due to COVID-19. Both lifts are aging quickly, and the expected capacity upgrade from the six-pack setups should benefit the popular Main Lodge and Canyon Lodge bases these lifts serve. While Mammoth has already been a leader in early-season terrain openings in recent years, the first few months of the season can still be quite variable, and these snowmaking upgrades should enable the resort to build a resilient base faster.

Anyone who’s visited Crystal in the past few years knows the resort is badly in need of additional parking (the resort had to implement a reservation system this year due to a lack of space), and the plan for this Seattle-area mountain looks to bring that. However, few details about the new parking setup have been announced at this point, so we’re not sure just how much new parking will be in store with this plan. Crystal does suffer from a few on-mountain chokepoints, and given that the additional parking will only bring more guests, we’d love to see these investments matched with an on-mountain capacity upgrade as well.

Deer Valley is a strangely laid out resort, and taking several lifts to get between mountain areas has always been part of their experience. The Little Burns lift should help remedy that, finally offering a direct route from the base to solid beginner, intermediate, and advanced terrain off Little Baldy Peak—and providing the first true beginner route to Little Baldy from upper-mountain areas (the current setup requires guests to take at least one intermediate trail). We expect the new lift to make the area more desirable to reach early in the morning and for beginners in general, spreading out crowds more efficiently throughout the mountain.

We already wrote about the remaining Palisades Tahoe, Deer Valley, Steamboat, and Mammoth projects in detail when they were announced last year; you can read our initial thoughts in detail here, as well as our deep dive into Palisades Tahoe’s gondola project here.

For detailed information on these resorts as they currently exist, see our Palisades Tahoe - Olympic Valley, Palisades Tahoe - Alpine Meadows, Deer Valley, Steamboat, Mammoth, and Crystal reviews.