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More than 100 people evacuated by rope from Winter Park Resort gondola after malfunction

By December 22, 2024 | updated 1 year ago

Winter Park, Colorado. File photo. Photo Credit: raclro (iStock).
Winter Park, Colorado. File photo. Photo Credit: raclro (iStock).
raclro

WINTER PARK — More than a hundred skiers and snowboarders on the Winter Park Resort gondola had to be evacuated from the cabins by rope after the lift shut down on Saturday.

A spokesperson for the resort said the gondola had an operation malfunction and stopped, as it is designed to do. The shutdown was first reported after noon, according to the spokesperson.

When the gondola stopped, it was determined that people had to be evacuated — this meant that around 150–175 people had to be rappelled down by rope, the spokesperson said.

After making sure that no one was in distress, ski patrollers climbed up the lift towers, shimmied to each of the gondola’s cabins and lowered the occupants’ equipment before helping people down one at a time, according to the spokesperson. There were no reported injuries.

Though it was unclear when the evacuation process started, patrollers were still evacuating people from gondola cabins four hours after the shutdown was reported, the spokesperson said.

The crane and replacement part needed to repair the lift arrived Sunday from Grand Junction, according to an update posted by the resort. This means the gondola will be down Sunday and there is no timeframe for its return to service.

The Colorado Tramway Safety Board, which oversees and licenses all chairlifts and gondolas in the state, arrived at Winter Park with Gondola manufacturer Leitner Poma on Saturday afternoon. According to the resort, both teams are working to determine what happened and help repair the lift as quickly as possible.

Once the repairs are completed, the safety board will need to inspect the gondola and approve it for reopening. Until then, the resort said its Arrow and Gemini lifts will service the Winter Park base area.

In addition to being peak ski season, the shutdown happened one day after the new Winter Park Express train that takes people from downtown Denver to the resort began service for the season.

For more stories like this, visit The Denver Gazette’s news partner, 9News.

denver-gazette

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