Going up: Tahoe gondola roundup
Not only are gondolas fun to ride in, but they can revolutionize a ski resort by providing ways for non-skiers and beginners to get up the mountain safely and comfortably to more snow and better views. Here are Tahoe ski resorts’ enclosed people movers and what they’ve to serve their customers better:
Sugar Bowl’s Village Gondola
Sugar Bowl is known as Tahoe’s first ski resort, built in 1939, and has still been independently owned for more than 80 years. Along with bringing downhill skiing to Tahoe and its ties to Walt Disney and Austrian ski culture, it also built the first chairlift in the State of California…and the first gondola in the west.
Built in 1953 and originally known as “the Magic Carpet”, Sugar Bowl decreased the amount of time it took to get up the mountain from 30 minutes to 7. It reportedly cost around $250,000 to build it at that time, and materials (especially steel) were hard to find because of the Korean War.
Offering peaceful aerial views through the Sierra Nevada range up to its Village (a base area having America’s only snowbound hotel), the gondola was rebuilt by CTEC in 1983 with the addition of 50 new cabins. It travels at 800 feet per minute and can move a thousand passengers per hour.
Heavenly Mountain Resort’s Village Gondola
Celebrating its 70th anniversary this winter, Heavenly Mountain Resort has well-known ski industry pioneers who also transformed the ease and accessibility of Tahoe’s slopes. Before it built the Heavenly Village Gondola, the South Lake Tahoe resort originally had the tram—a 25-person transporter that was installed on the California base 60 years ago. The tram was rebuilt in 1986 to double its carrying capacity from 25 to 50, along with improving the ability to move several hundred people up the mountain in an hour.
The Village Gondola was built in 2000, starting from the Heavenly Village in the middle of town 9,136 feet up to the middle of the mountain where there is a day lodge, several chairlifts that lead to the top, and summer/winter activities. An Observation Deck and gift shop are available to stop at.
Heavenly Gondola Maintenance Team Lead Rafael Lizaola says that the tram and gondola serve different functions, and you can get a whole lot more people up the hill with a gondola.
“We have 135 carriers on this lift that can take 535 people per hour up the mountain,” Lizaola says. He explains that the tram just offers a different way to get up the mountain and accessing the famous Gunbarrel run; it appeals more to locals, and the California base has more parking. However, a lot of Heavenly’s guests stay at Stateline, making the gondola a great way to get up above all the action and get gorgeous panoramic views of the lake.
“Gondolas are starting to get popular for sure, there are a whole lot more of them at ski resorts now. They keep people out of the weather as they move people up the mountain,” he says. He believes that the gondola cost around $10 million to build in 2000, so he can’t imagine what it costs now. However, being in his 21st year at the resort, Lizaola said the gondola was instrumental in how it made them able to expand its summer operations, by making sightseeing, hiking trails, a mountain coaster, restaurant, summer tubing hill, and two other chairlifts more accessible to those who only come to Tahoe in the warmer months.
“The gondola made it a year-round operation up here,” Lizaola says. “Ski resorts are definitely going for more gondolas these days; in general, they’re pretty fast and have the opportunity to create more revenue for the mountain.”
Northstar California’s Chondola
Known for its family-friendly ski slopes, village, and world-class mountain biking trails in the summer, this 50-year-old resort built its first Big Springs Express gondola in 1985. The gondola was renovated in 2015, and the six-person cabins travel at five meters per second, getting skiers to the top in 5-6 minutes. It leads to Northstar’s mid-mountain where the Big Springs day lodge has food, beverages, and other services. You can see the halfpipe from here and it’s also the base for several chairlifts leading to higher up the mountain.
It’s also where the Zephyr Lodge and Tahoe Mountain Club’s Schaffer’s Camp lie…and speaking of the Zephyr Lodge, the Taho Zephyr Express leading up to it was built as a “Chondola” in 2006. A Chondola is a hybrid lift with chairlifts and gondola cabins on the same rope, and the one at Northstar is one of the few remaining in the US.
The newest gondola on Northstar’s slopes is the Northstar Highlands Gondola. Built in 2009, this lift was constructed as part of the Ritz-Carlton development, giving its guests ski-in and ski-out access to Northstar’s slopes.
Palisades Tahoe’s Base to Base Gondola
Known mostly for hosting the 1960 Olympics, not very many people may know that Palisades Tahoe is also the first ski resort in North America to be home to a tram, Funitel, and gondola.
The Aerial Tram was the first enclosed transporter to be built—constructed in 1968 in what was originally called the “Cable Car”, the tram carries 85 with ski equipment or 110 people without. It connects the Village at Palisades with High Camp, where a museum, restaurant, ski runs, and hiking trails await.
In 1998, Palisades Tahoe built the Funitel, which is a combination of French words “funiculaire” and “téléphérique.” With a carrying capacity of 28 people per cabin, the Funitel is different from a gondola in that it is attached to two cables instead of one, giving them more stability in heavier winter storms. Traveling at a speed of up to 20 feet per second, the Funitel can get 4,000 people up to the Gold Coast Lodge per hour.
Palisades Tahoe’s newest lift is its Base to Base Gondola, built in 2022 to connect Palisades and Alpine. The building of this lift was no easy feat—33 lift towers and four terminals hold the Base to Base Gondola up and over the peaks…including traveling over the resort’s famed KT-22. The 16-minute ride covering 2.4 miles cost a pretty penny to build ($65 million) but the main reason Palisades wanted it was to relieve traffic between the two base areas (and call itself the largest resort in California) after Alterra Mountain Company acquired both resorts. Since the Base to Base Gondola has been in service (and it put a parking reservation system in place), a Palisades spokesperson said that around 53,000 vehicles stayed off the roads last season.
Homewood Mountain Resort’s Gondola Coming in the 2026/27
Even though Homewood Mountain Resort was closed last season as its owners worked with the TRPA (Tahoe Regional Planning Agency) to revise its 2011 Master Plan, Homewood will be available to the public for skiing and snowboarding this winter with a tentative opening date of December 12, 2025.
There’s been a lot of talk of access over the last three years with the nonprofit Keep Homewood Public forming to make sure the mountain stays available to everyone despite it being privately owned, but the one thing both parties can agree on is the need for a gondola. Currently it takes close to 10 minutes to get up the Madden Chair, which is torture for skiers and riders on a powder day looking at all that fresh snow in an era of instant gratification.
On January 22, 2025, the TRPA and Placer County gave Homewood the vote of approval on all of the amendments made to the Homewood Master Plan, giving the resort the green light to start planning future Master Plan developments including the gondola. Homewood VP/GM Andy Buckley says that replacing the gondola will not only get people to its mid-mountain more comfortably and faster, but it will give beginners and first-timers access to better terrain with unparalleled views.
“It’s important because we’re so close to the lake, it’s quite difficult to make snow which can make the lower area hard to access,” Buckley says. In other words, improving snowmaking systems at higher elevations gives beginners better learning terrain with the views that more advanced skiers and riders already enjoy.
And while a gondola is a lot more expensive than a chairlift (Buckley says each cabin is similar in cost to a Porsche), it’s worth it in considering Homewood’s long term goals.
“Non-skiers will use it in the future. There’s no destination there to begin with; when we build a mid-mountain lodge it will allow people to get there (expected to start construction in 2029),” says Buckley.
The gondola components and its cabins are currently being stored indoors in Reno, and each cabin holds up to eight people. The transport system can carry up to 1500-2400 people per hour depending on run speed with all cabins online. The new gondola will more than triple the current upload capacity of the old Madden lift.
“Imagine sitting on the deck of the lodge looking out to the lake and watching your kids learn how to ski. It’s a piece of Homewood that’s often lost because the real experience is up above. The gondola gives us that connection.”
Homewood’s plan is to start installing the gondola in May 2026.
Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the Winter 2025/26 edition of Tahoe Magazine.
