Staff at a Colorado ski resort had to rescue more than 170 skiers and snowboarders from a lift after it broke down mid-ride up a mountain.
174 people using the ski lift at the Winter Park Resort in Winter Park became stuck just after 12 p.m. local time on Saturday, Dec. 21, according to The Guardian and The Colorado Sun.
Resort spokesperson Jen Miller told The Colorado Sun that the machine stopped automatically after it detected a crack in a structural piece of the lift. She referred to the crack as an “operational malfunction.”
Ski patrollers quickly got to work rescuing each person by entering the individual gondolas from the top of the cabin and lowering them down to the ground using a rope with a seat. The passengers’ equipment also was taken out of each cabin and lowered to the ground, Miller told the Associated Press.
“Ski patrol has trained extensively for this,” she told The Colorado Sun, noting that this is the first time the ski lift — which opened in December 2018 — had been evacuated. “It’s a very rare thing to have to evacuate a lift at all.”
A ski lift (stock image).
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The evacuations began at around 1 p.m., local affiliate station Fox 31 reported, and members of the ski patrol continued working until everyone had made it safely to the ground at 6 p.m. No one was injured, the outlets reported.
Videos shared on social media by bystanders and skiers stuck inside the cabins show the lift at a standstill as the local ski patrol entered each cabin and used the ropes to lower passengers dozens of feet to the ground.
One TikTok video shows the beginning of the incident, when a resort employee called out to a cabin full of skiers and snowboarders from the ground to ask if anyone was injured.
“Ski patrol has started a lift evacuation,” the employee yelled out to the skiers, before asking if there were any injured, elderly or disabled guests in the cabin.
“Is everyone feeling good?” one member of the ski patrol can be heard telling the gondola passengers in another TikTok video, before beginning to escort them to the ground. “We’re slowly gonna lower each one of you out. We’re gonna leave gear and take the gear out at the very end.”
The outlets reported that Winter Park Resort has since closed that particular lift and workers began replacing the section that was cracked on Sunday. State regulators including the Colorado Tramway Safety Board and the U.S.-based manufacturer Leitner Poma are set to inspect the lift once it has reopened as well as investigate what caused the crack, per Fox 31.
Miller told The Colorado Sun that the crack was “part of the malfunction,” and said the cause is still being investigated. “We are working with the Colorado Passenger Tramway Safety Board, the manufacturer, all of the authorities,” she said.
“The gondola did what it was designed to do and once the malfunction happened, it stopped,” she added.
Winter Park Resort did not immediately reply to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
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Miller noted that Winter Park — a more than 3,000-acre resort operated by Alterra Mountain Company — still has 21 operational ski lifts, and the park did not have an estimate as to when the construction would be completed.
“It’s a bummer for sure,” she told The Colorado Sun. “But malfunctions do happen, and our teams are trained. It’s not an overnight fix. We’re not sure how long it’s going to take to fix it.”
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