Plans for Spirit Mountain’s restoration project moved along as the Duluth City Council approved an agreement for a new chairlift on February 10.

The plan calls for one new lift to replace two existing lifts, which are aging. Spirit’s Summit lift is the original, installed 50 years ago on the property. The other lift set to be replaced, The Gandy, was installed 49 years ago.

Maintenance is an issue for equipment this old. Staff at Spirit Mountain say that parts for the lifts are hard to come by. Another big issue is the cost of operating and maintaining two lifts, especially if they aren’t in use.

“We rarely run all four of our lifts unless we’re super, super busy,” explained Ann Glumac, Spirit Mountain’s executive director, “So, we still have all the maintenance costs of the two lifts and the ongoing safety checks and all that kind of stuff, even if we’re not using them. And there’s no sense in continuing to pay for that year after year.”

The new lift is set to take four people per chair as opposed to three on the Summit and Gandy. The contract for the new lift is with Leitner-Poma of America, and totals a little over $3.4 million. This is money that comes from the $26 million fund established for the restoration of Spirit, which will also go to pay for the restoration of the Upper Chalet.

Spirit Mountain plans for the new lift to be installed in time for the 2025-2026 ski season.