By next winter the Bretton Woods ski resort hopes to have the state’s first eight-passenger gondola operating, to be followed by a new mountaintop restaurant.
Chris Ellms, the director of ski operations, described the project to the Bethlehem Planning Board Wednesday night.
He said the gondola will have 36 of those eight-passenger cabins, and “it will be a five-minute ride and go about 6,000 feet.”
It will start near the main lodge and end near the top of Fabyan’s Express Triple chairlift.
The 11,000 square feet restaurant will be nearby, tucked just below the ridgeline. The resort hopes it will attract weddings and meetings.
“What we are proposing is it is not all about skiing, it is what the resort is about which is four seasons,” Ellms said.
The restaurant would open in the summer of 2019. However, the resort is still seeking state and local permits.
Many ski resorts are trying to boost profits by increasing off-season business, said Jessyca Keeler, the executive director of Ski New Hampshire, a trade group.