One of the French Alps’ more unusual ski lifts is disappearing.
Peisey-Vallandry Ski Resort is replacing its iconic Lonzagne basket lift, an open-air system that has linked the village of Peisey with the ski resort since 1983, with a modern 10-passenger gondola scheduled to open for the Christmas 2026 holidays. Affectionately known as the Lobster Pots, Yoghurt pots or the Cage, the unique lift took its last spin back in April 2025.
The old lift was not a traditional chairlift and it certainly was not a conventional gondola. Passengers stood inside small metal baskets suspended from the cable, exposed to the mountain air as they traveled between the village and the slopes above.
Peisey-Vallandry itself describes the carriers as the lift’s iconic baskets. After more than four decades of service, construction on their replacement began this summer.
Four People Standing in an Open-Air Basket
Built in 1983, the Lonzagne was a pulsed lift rather than a continuously circulating gondola.
Official planning documents for the replacement describe the old system as four groups of six baskets, with each basket carrying four people. That meant as many as 24 passengers traveled together in each group. The system could move a maximum of 536 passengers per hour in each direction.
The approximately half-mile route climbed nearly 1,000 vertical feet between Peisey and the resort. Unlike an enclosed gondola cabin, the baskets offered essentially no protection from winter weather.
That quirky design was part of what made Lonzagne memorable, but the lift had reached the point where replacement made more sense than continuing to operate 1980s infrastructure.
A 10-Passenger Gondola Takes Its Place
The replacement at Peisey-Vallandry will be dramatically more conventional.
The new Lonzagne gondola will feature enclosed cabins with seating for 10 passengers. Peisey-Vallandry says the trip will take about 3 minutes, 20 seconds and the system will be capable of carrying as many as 900 passengers per hour.
That is an increase of roughly 68% over the old lift’s documented maximum capacity of 536 passengers per hour.
The resort also points to improved comfort and accessibility as major benefits. Those differences should be particularly noticeable in bad weather, when passengers will no longer be making the trip while standing inside an exposed metal basket.
Construction began during summer 2026. While the lift is unavailable, Peisey-Vallandry is using shuttle buses to maintain the connection between Peisey Village and the resort.
The gondola is scheduled to enter service during the Christmas 2026 holiday period.
An Important Connection Into Paradiski
Lonzagne new lift provides transportation from the traditional village of Peisey up toward Plan Peisey and the larger Les Arcs and Peisey-Vallandry lift network. From there, skiers can access the Vanoise Express, the massive cable car linking Les Arcs and Peisey-Vallandry with La Plagne. Together, those mountains form the Paradiski ski domain.
Open-Air Basket Lifts Are Becoming Increasingly Rare
Only a handful of basket lifts still operating in the French Alps. Lonzagne was particularly distinctive because its four-person carriers were essentially cages designed for standing passengers rather than conventional seated cabins.
Its retirement marks the replacement of another piece of old-school lift infrastructure at a time when resorts across Europe are replacing aging systems with higher-capacity solutions.
Unofficial Networks recently covered Verbier’s retirement of its 56-year-old Savoleyres gondola, another long-serving Alpine lift being replaced with newer technology.
At Peisey-Vallandry, the tradeoff is easy to understand. The new gondola will be faster, carry substantially more people and keep passengers out of the wind and snow.
But it will be difficult to match the character of standing in a metal basket while floating nearly 1,000 vertical feet above a French Alpine village.
