SAM Magazine—Turin, N.Y., Feb. 27, 2024—A deropement on Snow Ridge Ski Resort’s North Chair—one of three such incidents hitting U.S. ski areas last week—came down to a single inch of movement at the base of a chairlift tower that had previously been damaged in a freak storm in August 2023.
Brian Head Resort, courtesy of Zack S.
Nick Mir, general manager of the upstate New York ski area, said the incident—in which two chairs fell off the old Hall lift and four others collided near Tower 6—resulted in no injuries, with only a single lift-operations employee needing to be evacuated from the lift. The deropement occurred at just after 9 a.m. on Feb. 24, during opening operations.
In a public statement, Mir said the root of the problem was traced to an Aug. 7, 2023, tornado that shifted the foundations of the North Chair’s towers 5 and 6.
“We had an engineer examine the damage and come up with a solution to realign the towers and recreate the soil conditions around the foundation as efficiently as possible,” explained Mir. The foundations were put back in their original positions, and the repair crew was able to “achieve perfect alignment of the haul cable across the sheave wheels.”
The repaired chairlift was inspected and passed by the New York State Department of Labor on Feb. 16, and the North Chair ran without incidence for four days during the Presidents’ Day holiday week.
However, on Saturday morning the safety circuit was lost during startup; the deropement occurred while the safety was in bypass mode in order for the mountain’s lift operations crew to troubleshoot the problem, Mir said.
Upon arrival at tower 6, “It only took seconds for me to spot the issue, which was another shift in the cement foundation,” said Mir. “A one-inch gap between the cement and the frozen ground showed that it had twisted in the ground, with the only explanation being a frost heave undoubtedly caused by rain and temperatures in the mid-40’s the two days prior, and temperatures abruptly dropping below zero the night before.”
The North Chair is currently shut down and will undergo repairs in order for it to resume operation next season. Mir told SAM that the shutdown will have no impact on capacity for the rest of the current season, since it is redundant with Snow Ridge’s main Ridge Runner Chair. “We have enough other lifts operating to keep things from getting crowded and still anticipate zero to very minimal wait times for all lifts,” he said.
Sunday River, Brian Head Also Suffer Deropements
A separate deropement incident took place around mid-morning on Feb. 22 at Maine’s Sunday River, when an unspecified “mechanical issue” caused lift operators to shut down the Aurora quad with passengers still on board. More than 200 skiers had to be rope evacuated by Sunday River’s ski patrol—a process that took more than two hours to complete.
By 1:46 p.m., all guests were safely evacuated from the chairlift and a supplemental inspection of all operations and procedures was completed,” according to a statement provided by Sunday River’s director of marketing, Luc Burns.
The Aurora chairlift has an uphill capacity of 284 individuals and, at the time of the shutdown, was 85 percent loaded, Burns said, noting that the lift had been inspected and passed all safety checks earlier in the morning of the incident.
“We are pleased to report that the Aurora Quad has reopened to the public this morning, Feb. 27, at 9 a.m., after all work and inspections were completed,” said Burns, adding, “We don’t have any additional comment or information on the specific nature of the problem.”
A “mechanical issue” was also the reported cause of a Feb. 25 lift shutdown at the Brian Head Resort in Utah. The Giant Steps Express chairlift was shut down around noon on Sunday, compelling the rope evacuation of about 180 skiers.
“Mountain operations teams quickly responded and safely evacuated all guests without incident or injury in less than two hours,” said Amber Palmer, the resort’s marketing manager.
The lift reopened on Feb. 27, but a spokesperson for Brian Head was unable to provide more details about the cause of the problem or repairs made.
Report by Bob Curley
