Alta, Utah — In terms of April Fool’s Day pranks in the ski industry, Alta had one of the best ones. On April 1st, Alta announced that they would be replacing the Supreme chairlift with a new magic carpet. The prank was in lieu of the Big Griz and Little Griz, which are beloved enclosed conveyer lifts that just opened near Alta’s Albion base area.
On April 2nd, Alta Ski Area shockingly announced that they had canceled this project “due to overwhelming and immediate feedback from Alta skiers.” That’s a bummer, as I was hopeful that it would be converted to a waterslide during the offseason. However, Alta used this joke as a way to announce an official project they’ll be working on this offseason over at Supreme.
This summer, Alta plans to remove the Supreme chairlift. It will be reinstalled in a new alignment that removes the angle station, but it will feature similar locations for the base and top terminals.
Why they need to do such a project for a chairlift that’s not even a decade old can be traced back to one portion of the journey: the angle station. This bumpy section is best demonstrated by this guy who I went to college with.
Last June, Alta Ski Area explained why they needed to do this project. During a spring 2024 inspection of their chairlifts, it was discovered that the bumpy angle station led to fatigue of the chairs, the grips, and the angle station itself. As demonstrated by a certain New Hampshire ski resort in February, damage/fatigue to the chairlift can be a very bad thing.
Alta made the necessary repairs to operate it safely for the 2024-25 season. With the project recently being approved by the US Forest Service, work on the disassembling and reconstruction of the chairlift will occur during the 2025 offseason, with the goal of having it ready for the 2025-26 season. So it will be the same lift, just a different alignment and without the eight-degree angle station bend.
It’ll be interesting to see what changes this realignment brings to the ride up Supreme, but it’ll undoubtedly be a smoother journey.
Image/Video Credits: Alta Ski Area, NoBrakes69, Town of Alta
