Mt. Rose Ski Tahoe is undergoing a $7.5 million terrain expansion that includes a new express lift. They started their final stages of construction on the project on Wednesday.

The resort says this expansion is the largest single capital improvement project in the resort's history.

On Wednesday, a helicopter was seen working on the express lift, a key piece of the resort's Lakeside Zone that includes trail additions, existing run improvements and new skier traffic patterns.

Officials say all ski lifts have a timeline of when their lifespan ends, or when they may be too expensive to continue to run. After COVID-19 hit, the Lake View Express lift project took priority. Mike Pierce, the Marketing Director of Mt. Rose Ski Tahoe says, "it's a very fast process, these guys have got it dialed, they put in lifts all over the world."

Most of the materials to build the lift are imported from Colorado, with a total of 11 towers lining up the hill to complete the lift. Pierce explains how the building process is unfolding "There's crews ready to hook them up, there's crews on the hill, and they just drop it in place and it's a bolt on so it's pre-engineered and pre-ready to go." He also says the new lift will open up the backside of the Lake View chair, offering beginners a beautiful Lake View experience and new feel for the mountain they've never had before "The lift now unloads a couple towers higher than our former Lake View Triple, and that opened up what we call the Lakeside Trail. That Lakeside trail kind of goes into a big bowl which is on the backside of what we call the Wild Card run, which is sort of like skiing out of bounds but it's still in bounds."

Now they have two high speed lifts going straight out of their base area. Pierce mentions "The Lake View Triple was kind of one of those lifts we only ran on weekends, and most people never wanted to ride it because it had a ten-minute ride compared to the four-minute ride on Northwest."

Pierce says this new lift is great for anyone at any level, bringing them into a space where the crowd is spread out. As for beginners, they now can avoid going to the summit after they're done with the beginner chair. Pierce says, "You can come up get a great ski experience and it doesn't take all day."

The expansion is expected to open for the 2022-23 winter season.