Posted By:

Maggie aka "The Turninator"

Last Updated: 07/28/2026

Honoring History. Building the Future.

In 1953, Sugar Bowl’s original Magic Carpet became the first gondola in the western United States and only the second in North America. More than seventy years later, that remarkable journey across Van Norden Meadow is entering its fourth chapter.

Like every lift, a gondola has a lifespan. After more than forty years of service, the 1983 Emerald Gondola had reached the end of its operational life. Rather than simply replacing the machinery, Sugar Bowl is rebuilding the entire system in a way that honors its history while making it more accessible, reliable, and ready for generations to come.

Construction began the morning after Closing Day on April 6. Since then, crews have been moving quickly to prepare for a planned late 2026 opening.

Construction Is Moving Fast

The construction site is changing almost daily. Four of the new gondola towers are already standing. The machinery for the highway-side gondola terminal is complete and the foundations for the village terminal have been poured. The cabins have arrived. Every week brings another visible milestone.

The Towers Are Going Up

Although the new gondola will follow the same familiar route over the train tracks, each of the seven towers are being replaced. Four are already standing, with the remaining three scheduled to go up over the coming weeks.

Because portions of the alignment cross both sensitive wetlands and the historic railroad, crews waited until the meadow had naturally dried before removing the old structures and beginning work in those areas.

Precision in Motion

“Once the concrete footings are complete, tower installation moves remarkably fast.” explains Sugar Bowl’s Director of Lifts, Erik Shellman. “Large tower sections are preassembled onsite then lifted into place by crane using carefully choreographed procedures.”

The Highway Terminal Ready for Its Next Chapter

On the Highway 40 side, one of the biggest milestones of the project is already complete. The Doppelmayr team has finished installing the structural steel, drive machinery, and enclosure for the new terminal, which houses the electric motor that will power the lift. With that work complete, crews have shifted their focus to the Village side terminal, where the next phase is already underway.

“We’re on schedule over on the highway side,” says Doppelmayr Site Superintendent Hamish Dewar. “We just finished craning with the 300-ton crane, putting up the bulk of the structural steel, the drive machinery and the enclosure. We’ve now mobilized over to the Village side and are beginning to set the structural steel there.”

The Highway Building Around the Lift

Because the new eight-passenger cabins are significantly larger than the previous four-passenger cabins, the lift itself has grown as well. “To account for the larger gondola cabins, the line gauge has gotten wider,” explains Dewar. “We’ll need much bigger terminals, and a bigger building over at the parking lot to accommodate that.”

The building surrounding the new machinery on the highway side is the next phase of construction. Designed by BCV Architecture to reflect Sugar Bowl’s classic mid-century mountain architecture, the building includes each of the previous three generations of the Village Gondola on permanent display, alongside salvaged redwood from the historic terminals that has been thoughtfully repurposed throughout the building.

Updating the Village Terminal

The Village Terminal sits at the heart of Sugar Bowl’s snowbound Village, connecting guests directly to Disney Express and the historic Village Lodge.

Rather than replacing the building, Sugar Bowl chose to preserve as much of the original structure as possible while adapting it to accommodate the new gondola system.

Village Terminal Building: Designed to Feel Familiar

The north side of the building, which houses the gondola machinery, has been taken back to the studs to make room for significantly larger modern lift equipment. The south side of the building remains intact, preserving the look and feel guests have known for decades.

While the mechanical systems are entirely new, the rebuilt portion of the terminal has been carefully designed to feel remarkably familiar. The goal has always been to preserve the character guests love while creating a building that is more accessible, easier to use, and ready for the next generation.

“One of the things that makes Sugar Bowl so special is that arriving here has always felt like part of the adventure,” says CEO Bridget Legnavsky. “We wanted to preserve that feeling while making the experience better for everyone. The new gondola stays true to our history, but it’s also fully ADA accessible and built to serve generations of guests well into the future.”

The Last Cabin Celebration

Some closing weekends are about saying goodbye to winter. This one was about looking ahead. The final weekend of the 2025-26 season celebrated the Emerald Gondola’s remarkable legacy while welcoming the next generation of the Village Gondola.

The Sugar Bowl community gathered for the Last Cabin celebration to honor more than four decades of memories aboard the Emerald Gondola. The weekend culminated with one final ride into the Village by former Sugar Bowl CEO Rob Kautz, who helped install the 1983 gondola, and longtime lead gondola mechanic Joe Mello. “I’ve spent almost fifty years working on this gondola,” says Mello. “I’ve watched kids ride it for the first time and then come back years later with children of their own.”

From Emerald to Onyx

Today, the next generation has already arrived. The new eight-passenger Onyx cabins are onsite, carefully wrapped and waiting to be installed.

When they begin carrying guests across Van Norden Meadow, they’ll do much more than replace the Emerald Gondola. The new system will offer larger eight-passenger cabins that reduce wait times during busy arrival and departure periods, more reliable operation during classic Sierra storms, and a fully ADA-accessible experience that opens the snowbound Village to more guests than ever before. The redesigned terminals will also allow luggage carts, linen carts, and other equipment to move smoothly on and off the gondola without slowing the system, making daily resort operations more efficient behind the scenes.

Building on Seventy-Three Years of History

This is the fourth generation of Sugar Bowl’s Village Gondola. Each version has faithfully served its era before making way for the next. The goal has never been to change what makes arriving at Sugar Bowl special. It’s to preserve that experience while ensuring it remains accessible, reliable, and ready for the future.

As Bridget Legnavsky puts it: “Every generation has cared for this gondola so the next generation could experience arriving at Sugar Bowl the same way they did. That’s exactly what we’re doing now.”

Construction remains on schedule for a planned late 2026 opening, and we’ll continue sharing updates as this exciting project moves toward completion.