2026

Not sure if WindSeeker is in the crosshairs yet for removal but it is now apparently closed for the season according to the official site.

Wouldn’t surprise me! That ride is never open.

I highly doubt it's in the crosshairs. Almost zero thumbprint, minimal staff to operate, and pretty popular when it is open.

They are already redirecting staff and closing lots of attractions on the daily. When we were there Sunday (busy!) blue train on Gemini was closed due to staff, not any mechanical problems. Many attractions never opened (Skyride, etc.) for the same reason.

On one hand, I love the retro open cabins of Skyride, as well as it being a very old school detachable lift what with the buckets having to be pushed around the turn during loading, since the comparably old school lifts on the ski side have all long since vanished into history.

On the other hand, I wonder if there's ever been consideration to have Skyride refurbished and modernized, particularly to have the cabins move automatically through the station once detached from the haul rope, which would potentially free up some ride op slots. I also imagine modernized parts would probably be able to have a higher wind tolerance, though that admittedly might not affect the park's approach to it.

My longshot/Kickstarter stretch goal idea would be to modernize it and extend it back to the Frontier Lift station as a single continuous ride, keeping the second Skyride station as a mid-station. Basically figuring if you're going to lose the historic charm by modernizing to a point, you may as well make it extra useful as a transport ride.

I don't know that anyone builds modern systems other than Doppelmayr. Those have gondolas that disengage from the wire and move around the stations with drive tires. I've only been on two... Crystal Mountain in Washington, and the WDW Skyliner. They're really elegant systems, and presumably very expensive. They're designed for volume that CP does not have.

Im pretty sure there’s like 4 coasters in the way of the sky ride path to frontiertown at this point. What about a round trip where you only need one person to push the cars around the return station.

Speaking of "round-trip", what is the issue with present SkyRide that prevents riders from remaining on for a round-trip?

There's a handful of other lift/ropeway/etc. manufacturers out there, but Doppelmayr is pretty much the gold standard for sure. This hypothetical wouldn't have to necessarily be jumping to a Skyliner-level system, as they've definitely done installations for lower capacity/non-traditional situations so to speak.

Best examples off the top of my head, Mad River Glen in Vermont has one of the only single chairs left in the US, which was originally built in 1948 and rebuilt from the ground up in 2007, but keeping the historical elements and mostly replacing the bits you don't necessarily notice. I believe the current chairs are all reproductions of the 1948 chairs for instance, and the towers are the original lattice towers.

Conversely, they've also been rebuilding the small tramways at Pipestem and Hawk's Nest state parks in WV, and from reading a few articles talking about them from a lift engineering POV, there's little tweaks that were pointed out as basically "this is a clever workaround to make the engineering work within the constraints of a state park budget", so there's also a precedent for them being able to be flexible in that regards. It's actually really fascinating the nuances that go into all the different installations that you don't really think about.

Do you think it's possible to put in a new lift system that uses all three existing stations?

I think doing that would require removing the existing Von Roll lift and possibly removing and replacing the station near Corkscrew. I'm not sure the existing station has room to support the infrastructure necessary to have people get on and off from both of the other stations.

Also, it likely wouldn’t happen anytime soon, given the financial situation this year and the focus in the Snake River/Millennium Island area in the years ahead.

That said though, I would not be opposed to the idea of converting to a Doppelmayr system if it meant reviving the Frontier Lift.

Oh this is totally just a hypothetical that I don't expect to happen anytime soon, mainly just thinking about it coming out of the conversation about ride staffing and about which rides might be getting harder to keep up mechanically. Also helps that I was just at Mad River Glen for the foliage last weekend, so the refurbed single chair is relatively fresh on my mind.

I agree that if any of the stations needed a complete rebuild for this concept, it would have to be the one near Corkscrew. I'm thinking the midstation for this idea would need to be on a curve not dissimilar to the Skyliner's Riviera station, though not necessarily as sharp, just however much it would need to meet the alignment towards Frontier Town. You could probably scoot it closer towards the front just about to where the little Halloweekends stage usually is without needing to change much on the front half, given how broadly the towers are spaced.

Frontier Lift is the defunct ride i miss the most.

Honorable mention to WWL.

Its kinda friggin hilarious this sky ride discussion is not happening on one of the 18 sky ride threads created almost weekly.

Before another thread is created:

The 2026 speculation has been so quiet you could hear a mouse fart. Which i suspect is an indication that there might be nothing. I dont ever remember us not getting anything new in any given year, even if its a small addition like a reataurant or a cosmetic refresh of an area. I wonder if the company-wide financial results combined with the fact that we got TT2 and Siren's Curse effectively in the same year might make this a first? Maybe they'll do something trivial and market it as "New for 2026." They could at least add a couple new flats to the Boardwalk and have a meaningful addition on the cheap.

I was thinking the same thing. I am a bit concerned that they haven’t announced any capital improvement at all. After back to back coaster installers, I certainly don’t expect a major improvement. But the lack of any improvement announcement has me concerned.

After twister in 2002 and dragster in 2003, there were still improvements to the park in 2004 with Lighthouse Point cabins and a new splash area in Soak City amongst others.

A funnel water slide for CP shores (which will require an upcharge), renovated bathrooms by Slingshot and a new Lemon Chill Stand featuring 5 new flavors including Kiwi, Grape, Raspberry, Watermelon, and Pineapple. You can purchase the all season pass for Lemon Chill also for a low fee of just $99. ;) j/k We'll probably just get the Starlight Experience 2.0 along the Frontier Trail.

After announcing and then not opening new water slides... actually, wait, not even really "new" in the sense of an added attraction, just replacing slides that had reached EOL, perhaps it's better that they don't make an announcement about smaller "quality of life" improvements.

Q3 2025 results came out today and did not look good for the chain as a whole although they did say the top parks still did very well (at or near record).

One thing that amazed me and I don't think is a good sign is that 2026 season pass average price was up 5% (probably due to people going from gold to prestige since they lowered the price on prestige to the point where it was about the same as what gold plus all park cost last year), but here is the kicker... Unit sales of season passes were DOWN 3%.

That they literally gave away all of the parks for nothing and still somehow managed to sell less passes than the year before through the end of the quarter is an indication of something bad - either people are simply tapped out and don't want to spend any extra money right now or that people simply aren't seeing the value in your product despite the low cost. Neither really bodes well for next season.

They also mentioned that despite strong July and August attendance, the trend moderated in September. Hmmm. Maybe the knee jerk decision to charge for the same old mazes did not go over well.

I have heard some anecdotal evidence that cleanliness and operations at the legacy Six parks has improved this season. Hopefully that takes root and helps things improve going forward.

They mentioned working with Travis Kelce on modernizing branding. Maybe those commercials with Taylor and him riding coasters will come to fruition after all. :)

I think our gift for 2026 is having one of the parks that is (all but) guaranteed to continue to stay open and operate.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/tier-Dih9xI

Wish this was a video about CP!

"If this park succeeds other parks might just have to pony up"

CP will just add another over priced restaurant.. LOL

Looks freaking cool though!