Aspen Proposes Handful of New Lifts Including Resort Interconnect
According to a plan submitted late last year, several new lifts may be coming to Aspen Highlands, Colorado, and to the four-resort Aspen Snowmass group sometime in the future, including an aerial tramway connecting one mountain to another.
As reported by Aspen Journalism, the 2025 Aspen Highlands Master Development Plan (MDP) paints a possible—not ironclad—picture of the ski resort’s future. It’s under review by the U.S. Forest Service, a process that, according to the outlet, should be done by early this summer.
Acceptance of the plan won’t green light the new Aspen Highlands lifts and improvements.
The U.S. Forest Service notes on its website that specific projects in an MDP still require “a more in-depth, site-specific evaluation” before they move into an environmental review and/or analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
Above all, MDPs let ski areas on National Forest System lands “articulate their long-range vision” and help the Forest Service anticipate future use, the webpage said.
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New Lifts Eyed for Aspen Highlands
The latest Highlands MDP detailed multiple lifts, some of which serve as upgrades.
The first, called the Maroon Bells Gondola, would replace the existing Exhibition Lift. That lift climbs out of the Highlands Village and reaches the mid-mountain Merry-Go-Round restaurant.
The planned gondola would come in two stages, with the first stage closely following the Exhibitions Lift’s current path, terminating near the Merry-Go-Round restaurant at a mid-station where skiers could load or disembark. Then, the Maroon Bells Gondola would continue higher to the Cloud Nine Alpine Bistro.
“This replacement will make the journey from the base area to Cloud Nine only require one lift ride which will facilitate quicker guest access to the upper mountain,” the MDP reads.
Aspen Ski Co.
The MDP also notes that the gondola would make Cloud Nine a better destination for foot passengers and summer activities like hiking.
The MDP includes a new alignment, the Apple Strudel lift, as well. Meant to increase lift redundancy, the detachable quad would start where the Apple Strudel and Nugget trails meet, just above the Golden Barrel trail. The lift would end near the Maroon Bells Gondola mid-station, close to the top of the existing Exhibition Lift.
The final lift improvement would make the existing lower mountain Thunderbowl Lift—now a triple—into a detachable quad. The move, the MDP said, would “reduce lift lines and provide a better experience for guests utilizing the race training area on Goldenhorn.”
Alongside the lifts, the MDP, which is over 100 pages long, discusses many more projects like forest health initiatives and restaurant expansions.
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A Tramway Between Resorts?
Less specific but nonetheless noted in the MDP was “some form of aerial tramway” linking resorts together, a concept the document said that Aspen Skiing Company has been exploring for decades.
Around Aspen, there are four separate resorts: Snowmass, Aspen Highlands, Aspen Mountain, and Buttermilk. The MDP said an aerial tramway that connected “Aspen Highlands to Aspen Mountain, to Buttermilk and/or to nodes on the valley floor” would be “a tremendous challenge” but “may prove feasible in the nearer term.”
Aspen Skiing Company wanted the U.S. Forest Service and Pitkin County—where the resorts are located—to be aware of this thinking “without engaging in any formal approval or disapproval analysis” through the current MDP.
The idea, if executed, could make the Aspen area resemble a European resort in the Alps, with tramways connecting mountains and urban areas.