Stuart announces Big news from Big K!
Killington’s Superstar Express may be the most famous lift at the most famous ski resort in the East. The mountain has taller lifts (Skye Peak Express rises 1,525 vertical feet, to Superstar’s 1,173), and longer lifts (Superstar is just the 10th longest aerial lift in Killington’s fleet of 17). But there are no more prominent lifts. Superstar towers over the ski area’s approach road, an erector set line etched against a dive-bomber of a slope, 200 feet wide, all fall line. A fusillade of snowguns lines the hill, and crews run them aggressively and often. By Thanksgiving weekend the slope is deep enough to host batteries of World Cup racers. But the guns keep blowing all winter. By March, The Glacier, as it is locally known, is often as high as the Superstar Express’ chairs, 30 feet or more. On a good year, they ski into June.
The Superstar Glacier in April 2019. Photo by Stuart Winchester.
But the Superstar lift is a superstar in name only. The lift is old and tired, a first-generation detachable quad from the Yan company, whose
rattletrap high-speed machines proved so treacherous that they killed five people en route to bankrupting the organization (all remaining Yan high-speed lifts, including Superstar, were long ago retrofit with new components and are considered safe). And the lift’s prominent position, rising beside Killington’s brand-new K-1 baselodge and adjacent to the K-1 Gondola, can lead to long liftlines.
But a new Superstar is coming. After officially taking possession of Killington and Pico on Friday, the mountains’
new ownership group promised today to replace the aging quad with a high-speed six-pack for the 2025-26 ski season. Today’s press release did not specify a manufacturer, whether the new lift would follow the current Superstar line or sit in a modified configuration, or if the new chairs would feature heated seats, like recent megalift installations at Sunday River and Loon. Killington did confirm that the new lift will not have bubbles, like the nearby Snowdon six-pack. The announcement also did not indicate whether the new lift would actually move more passengers than the current high-speed quad, whose 3,000-skiers-per-hour capacity is significantly higher than that of an average detachable quad (2,400), and is actually equal to the nearby Snowdon six-pack, Killington’s only existing sixer.
The new lift is the headliner in a $30 million capital investment package that includes 1,000 new low-energy HKD tower and fan guns, replacement of all 116 30-year-old Skyeship Gondola cabins, and a mountain bike terrain expansion. Killington is already in the process of installing “about 500” new guns across Killington and Pico for the 2024-25 ski season, and expects to install the remainder next summer.
The Superstar upgrade will come with one potential casualty, as the lift replacement “will affect spring skiing this season,” according to today’s press release. The mountain will blow more snow in “the North Ridge and Canyon areas to offer late-spring skiing,” a quote attributed to Killington President and CEO Mike Solimano said. North Ridge is a collection of upper-mountain slopes where Killington traditionally offers early-season skiing, often accessed by riding the K-1 Gondola to the summit and traversing the mountaintop on a wooden walkway. Canyon is a longer, adjacent line whose terminal sits well above the mountain’s base area.[
Lift construction could also impact the 2025 Killington Cup. Mountain officials will wait for the new Superstar’s final construction timeline before deciding whether the race can proceed, Solimano said.
Killington’s new ownership group, led by businessmen Phill Gross and Michael Ferri (more on them
here), appear to be starting their tenure from a position of strength. Today’s announcement noted that they assumed “zero net debt” with the keys to Killington and Pico. By retaining Solimano (who appears to have been promoted from ‘president and general manager’ to ‘president and CEO’) and his management team, the new owners almost guarantee the operational excellence that calms these chaotic, temperamental mountains. Planning and approvals for the transformational pedestrian-oriented base village are well underway. And today’s announcement immediately fulfills ownership’s pledge to increase capital investment.
And with that, Park City-based POWDR exits the East (the company will remain a minority investor in Killington). The company still owns eight ski areas, but
intends to sell Mount Bachelor, Oregon; Silver Star, British Columbia; and Eldora, Colorado.
While Killington’s return to independence following four decades of conglomerate ownership somewhat scrambles the heretofore seemingly unstoppable ski-industry consolidation narrative, the ownership change may mean less in practice than it does in spirit: both Killington and Pico will remain on the Ikon Pass for the foreseeable future. And Killington is likely to remain the gravitational center of New England skiing, the busiest ski area in the East, a particle collector absorbing the mad energy of this crowded, frantic corner of America.
The Superstar upgrade is the latest in a series of crucial lift replacements across New England over the past half decade, as the previously-falling-behind region funnels megapass and Covid-era boom money into catching up with its western destination counterparts:
- Boyne Resorts has installed nine new lifts at its four New England properties since 2021, including Doppelmayr D-Line eight-packs at Sunday River and Loon, and replacement of crucial but dated-and-hated lifts at Sunday River (Barker, another old Yan, with a D-Line sixer), and Pleasant (the Summit “Express” triple with a rebuild detach quad).[/COLOR][/COLOR][/FONT]
- Vail has installed or relocated seven lifts across four New England properties since 2021, including new six-packs at Okemo, Stowe, and Mount Snow, and replacement of Attitash’s monster and monstrously problematic Summit Triple with a new high-speed quad.
- The Schaefer family added a new high-speed summit quad parallel to an existing fixed-grip quad at Berkshire East, and has replaced three 50-plus-year-old lifts at Catamount with new-used machines since purchasing the ski area in 2018.[/COLOR]
Several independents have replaced old, dysfunctional lifts with brand-new or refurbished machines, including Saddleback, Maine (replacing a six-decade-old pile-of-crap Mueller double chair with a new high-speed quad); Waterville Valley, New Hampshire (replacing a circa 1988 high-speed quad with a new MND six-pack); Magic, Vermont (tearing out the ancient Black triple and replacing it with Stratton’s low-hours, well-cared-for Snow Bowl fixed-grip quad); Bigrock, Maine (another antique Mueller double, this one making way for a fixed quad); Middlebury Snowbowl, Vermont (the Sheehan double making way for a new Skytrac fixed quad); and Sundown, Connecticut (replacing a 1977 triple chair with a Skytrac quad). Bretton Woods added a fabulous base-to-summit gondola in 2019, significantly boosting the mountain’s uphill capacity, and Cannon intends to upgrade its tram whenever the state-owned ski area can secure funding.
Killington’s last major lift upgrade prior to Superstar was the short North Ridge fixed-grip quad, which replaced a triple chair in 2019. In 2018, the mountain replaced the Snowdon fixed quad with a high-speed bubble six-pack, and moved the old lift to South Ridge.
Once Superstar goes, Killington will still spin one Yan high-speed lift, on the Snowshed Express line. The mountain also runs four fixed-grip Yan lifts (the Bear and Canyon quads, Sunrise triple, and Snowshed 1 double), which never posed systemic safety issues. Pico’s high-speed quads are also modified Yans, dating to 1987 (Golden Express), and 1988 (Summit Express).
