Every write-up about the Sky Cab gondola since August has led with the same detail: the cabins nicknamed Skittles, in service since 2005, are getting replaced with a faster, roomier system. That's the headline. It's also the least useful part of the story if you actually ride this thing to get from Base Village to the Mall.
The detail worth knowing sits three paragraphs deeper in the council coverage, in the gap between what Snowmass Village worried about in February and what it actually approved in August. That gap tells you when your commute changes, for how long, and what you'll be using instead of a gondola while it's gone.
What the town and SkiCo actually signed off on
The Sky Cab connects Lot 1 in Snowmass Base Village to the Timbermill Property on Daly Lane, right next to the Snowmass Mall. Built by Leitner in 2005, it's a pulse gondola, meaning cabins travel in linked groups rather than continuously, which caps how many people it can move. The replacement is a detachable gondola, the kind that keeps circulating so cabins can load and unload without the whole system pausing.
The project carries a $10 million price tag, split evenly between the Town of Snowmass Village and Aspen Skiing Company. Here's what that money buys.
| Current Sky Cab (Skittles) | Replacement gondola | |
|---|---|---|
| Built | 2005 | Targeted 2027 |
| Design | Pulse gondola | Detachable gondola |
| Capacity | About 510 riders per hour | 1,000 riders per hour |
| Cabins | 12 | 12 |
| Cabin colors | Multi-color, including blue | Same palette, purple instead of blue |
| Accessibility | Fixed benches | Lift-up benches for ADA access, bike space |
The capacity jump is the number SkiCo's Mak Keeling led with when he briefed council, and it's the one that matters for anyone standing at the base platform on a busy Saturday. Nearly doubling throughput means shorter lines at the exact pinch point where Base Village dumps foot traffic toward the Mall.
The color change is smaller but tells you something about how seriously the town takes the nickname. There's no blue Skittle in a standard bag, so the new cabins swap blue for purple to keep the branding accurate. SkiCo's marketing team worked with town staff specifically to preserve the Skittles identity on the new equipment, according to council reporting from early August. Nobody had to do that. They did it anyway.
The February concern and the August schedule
In February, when Town Manager Clint Kinney first floated a summer 2027 construction window, Council Member Cecily DeAngelo raised a concern that construction could overlap with peak business season and a scheduled closure at Aspen/Pitkin County Airport. Both disruptions could affect the same shoulder-to-peak stretch that Base Village businesses depend on.
The August update provided a more specific construction schedule.
The old gondola stays running through June and July, the town's two busiest summer months, according to Snowmass Village Transportation Director Sam Guarino. Construction begins in August 2027, with a target reopening at Thanksgiving.
"As far as guests are concerned, they will think it is exactly the same," Keeling told council, describing how closely the new alignment mirrors the old one.
That's the guest experience he's talking about, once it's finished. The resident experience during the four months in between is a different story, and it's the one worth planning around now, less than a year before it starts.
What replaces the gondola while it's gone
During the closure, there's no lift running the Fanny Hill corridor between Base Village and the Mall. Guarino laid out two things filling that gap:
- Adjusted transit service, either through updated existing bus routes or a new route created specifically for the closure window
- The Benedict Trail, a walking connection between the two ends
Guarino told council he believes transit and the trail together can move people "close to as efficiently" as the gondola did. That's a reasonable claim for someone planning a transit schedule. It's a different question for a family with strollers, or anyone who picked a Base Village address specifically because the gondola made a car optional for a Mall coffee run.
The Benedict Trail works for plenty of people plenty of the time. It is not a gondola. If your daily routine runs through that corridor, August through Thanksgiving 2027 is worth circling now, even though it starts in less than a year, because that's the stretch where you'll be walking a trail or catching a bus instead of riding a three-minute lift.
Who's actually paying, and for what
The $10 million splits evenly, $5 million from the town and $5 million from SkiCo. There's a second financial detail tucked into the same agreement that's easy to miss: SkiCo will now cover the gondola's operating costs year-round, both summer and winter. Currently, the company only funds winter operations, and the town picks up summer hours when SkiCo has staff available.
That shift saves the town roughly $160,000 a year, according to town staff figures presented at the February meeting. In exchange, growth in the town's Transportation Mitigation Fee, the per-skier-visit charge levied on SkiCo that raised $2.4 million in 2025 for the bus system, slows down. It still rises, just tied to the Consumer Price Index instead of its previous growth rate.
None of that changes what you pay to ride. It does mean the deal bundles a capacity upgrade with a quieter renegotiation of who funds day-to-day operations, which is the kind of thing that shows up in a council packet and nowhere else.
What happens to the old cabins
Two ski resorts have already expressed interest in the retiring Skittles cabins, according to council discussion, and Council Member Susan Marolt raised the idea of an auction similar to how Aspen Mountain sold off chairs from its recently replaced Nell and Bell lifts. Nothing is decided. But if you've ridden this gondola enough winters to have a favorite cabin color, there's a real chance you could eventually own a piece of it instead of just remembering it.
What this actually means if you live here
Nothing changes this winter, or next winter, or the one after that. The gondola runs as it always has through the 2026-27 season. The disruption is scheduled for August through Thanksgiving 2027. The old gondola is expected to stay open through June and July, when Base Village businesses do their best trade.
For residents who track how this town makes decisions, the August schedule is worth noting, though the update doesn't establish that DeAngelo's February concern shaped it.
If you're the kind of resident who just wants to know when to expect a longer walk to the Mall, mark August 2027. Bring good shoes.
Fiona Hagist has lived in the Roaring Fork Valley long enough to remember when Skittles was the new lift, and she keeps close track of the infrastructure decisions that shape daily life here, not just the ones that show up in a listing description. If you're weighing a move within Snowmass Village, curious what a Base Village address is actually worth given what's changing around it, or just want a second opinion on the market from someone who lives ten minutes away, Fiona Hagist offers a free home valuation and always answers the phone herself.
