At the top of South Aspen Street, the old base of Lift 1A is surrounded by fencing. The Skiers Chalet buildings sit just downslope, waiting to be moved. Lift 1A, formally the Shadow Mountain lift, has carried skiers since the 1971-72 season. The Aspen Times reported that Sunday, March 29, 2026, was the last chance to ride it. In late July, SkiCo said crews would begin removing its chairs and haul rope that week.
That corner of town has had a chair since Lift One opened in the winter of 1946-47 and was later replaced by 1A. This winter it has none. When Aspen Mountain opens on Nov. 26, 2026, every way up the mountain starts at Gondola Plaza. The mountain now has one front door, and the morning, the parking plan and the December calendar all run through it.
The west side is a way down now, not a way up
The Aspen Daily News reported in July that Aspen Skiing Co. CEO Geoff Buchheister confirmed the end of 1A, and that the ski patrol locker room once based at the lift has moved to Gondola Plaza for now. The patrol is now based on the same side as everyone else.
You can still ski out to the west side. The construction sequencing agreement for the Lift One corridor requires Aman Aspen crews to keep a ski corridor open past their site the whole time they build. SkiCo vice president of mountain planning Mak Keeling told Aspen Journalism, in a story published by Aspen Public Radio, that the company intends to keep Schuss Gully open to get there "as conditions allow." Norway and Normandy will be closed.
So if you live near the Lift One corridor, your day is now lopsided. You can finish at the west base, provided Schuss Gully is open, but you can't start there. City of Aspen Community Development Director Ben Anderson told Aspen Journalism in the same story that "the entire area will have significant disruption" once the next building phases begin. Both lodging projects, Aman Aspen and the Chalet Alpina complex, could start shoring and excavation this year.
Nell Bell was built to take the extra skiers
If Lift 1A had come out with no other change, Gondola Plaza would have had one main way up, the Silver Queen Gondola. Nell Bell changes that. The new high-speed detachable quad starts at the base beside the gondola and runs to the top of Bell Mountain. It replaces two lifts at once: the Little Nell chair from 1986 and the Bell Mountain chair from 1957.
The figures SkiCo gave the Aspen Times during city review in late 2025 show how big a change this is:
| Little Nell + Bell Mountain | Nell Bell | |
|---|---|---|
| Time on the chair, base to Top of Bell | 21 minutes combined | 8 minutes |
| Hourly capacity | 1,360 on Little Nell, 900 on Bell Mountain | Up to 1,800 |
| Days run in 2024-25 | 28 on Little Nell, 2 on Bell Mountain | New for 2026-27 |
Last season, the second way up from Gondola Plaza barely operated: Bell Mountain ran twice and Little Nell ran 28 days. This season the second way up is a high-speed chair with about double Bell Mountain's hourly capacity. Keeling described it to the Aspen Times as "a logical alternative to the Silver Queen Gondola by getting guests to mid-mountain faster than any other way."
Top of Bell is the junction for Hero's, Ajax Express and the FIS lift. An eight-minute ride there puts most of the mountain's core within reach of the first chair. The Aspen Chamber Resort Association's winter release lists the rise at 2,656 vertical feet.
As of Oct. 22, the lift was nearly done. In an Aspen Times column, Lorenzo Semple wrote that the cable had been spliced and pulled taut that Monday and that chairs were already being hung. He passed along a rumor that the ride will be faster than the gondola. SkiCo's Aspen Mountain page calls Nell Bell "new this season" but hasn't published a date for its first day of operation. Opening day on Nov. 26 and Nell Bell's first day may not be the same day.
The early-season calendar runs through one base
One loading base matters most when the calendar fills up, and the first weeks of the season stack several big dates close together:
- Thursday, Nov. 26: Aspen Mountain opens, with the season scheduled through April 18, 2027.
- Thursday, Dec. 10, through Sunday, Dec. 13: Wintersköl's 75th year. ACRA says this year's event will add a drone show to mark both that milestone and Colorado's 150th.
- Friday, Dec. 11: An AVSC rail jam on Little Nell Run.
- Saturday, Dec. 12: Aspen Highlands opens. The Wintersköl torchlight parade and fireworks take place on Aspen Mountain that night.
- Saturday, Dec. 12, and Sunday, Dec. 13: For Aspen Snowmass's 80th anniversary, lift tickets are discounted to $80.
- Monday, Dec. 14: Anniversary tickets at the original 1946 price of $3.75. The anniversary page already shows them as sold out.
In past seasons, part of a busy weekend's crowd could load at 1A. This year, Wintersköl's final two days, the $80 tickets and Highlands opening day all fall in the same 48 hours, and every Aspen Mountain skier loads at the gondola or at Nell Bell. On Dec. 12 and 13, the new chair gets its first heavy test.
Getting to the plaza is now the first decision
When every ride starts in one place, the ski day starts with how you get there. RFTA lists the Galena Street shuttle as a fare-free, winter-only City of Aspen route between the Rio Grande Parking Garage and the Silver Queen Gondola. In mid-October it was still off its seasonal schedule, so check RFTA's page for its start date and hours. SkiCo's parking page lists the Rio Grande Parking Plaza as Aspen Mountain parking at $2 an hour or $12 a day, free on Sundays. SkiCo also rents seasonal and monthly gear storage at the base of Aspen Mountain.
West End skiers used to walk up South Aspen Street to a chair. Now that walk ends at a ski-out route, and the morning starts at the garage, the shuttle stop or a storage locker near the plaza.
How long it stays this way
The replacement lift on the west side will load farther downhill, near Dean Street, close to where the original Lift One started. Its base terminal is planned on top of a parking garage that has to be built first. The estimated schedule in the agreement finalized July 31 has SkiCo ordering the lift in fall 2028, installing it in 2029 and opening it in the winter of 2029-30. The estimate isn't binding, but the parties face steep fees for certain delays that hold up the new lift.
The Chalet Alpina plans also include restoring the original Lift One equipment, which crews have taken offsite for storage, and the Aspen Historical Society plans an Aspen Snowsports History Museum in the Skiers Chalet Lodge. Until those open, plan on at least three winters with every Aspen Mountain ride starting at Gondola Plaza, on the gondola or on Nell Bell.
The Lift One corridor will look very different by 2030, and these changes affect how homes on both sides of the mountain live day to day. If you'd like to talk through what that means for a property near either base, Mary Kate Farrell follows these projects closely and is glad to share what she's seeing. Let's Connect.
