More than 170 skiers and snowboarders experienced the stuff of nightmares on Sunday when they were stranded for several hours on a ski lift whose structure had cracked, the Colorado Sun reported. A gondola lift at Winter Park Resort—located about 70 miles west of Denver, Colorado—was halted on Saturday just after noon after technicians discovered the crack. Over the course of about five hours, ski patrollers climbed into each gondola and lowered the riders’ equipment to the ground. They then used swinging ropes with seats attached to them to lower the 174 riders. No injuries were reported during the evacuation, which wrapped up around 6 p.m. Videos posted to social media showed the surreal rescues, which apparently used a belay system similar to the kind used in rock climbing. Officials were still investigating on Sunday to try to determine what had caused the structure to crack. The ski lift’s system detected the malfunction and automatically stopped, according to the resort. In the meantime, the resort’s other 21 lifts remained open.
COLORADO: A cracked ski lift at Colorado's Winter Park Resort left 174 skiers stranded. Riders were lowered by ropes over 5 hours after the lift auto-stopped. The cause is under investigation. pic.twitter.com/QY1knqxwm5
— KolHaolam (@KolHaolam) December 23, 2024
Read it at The Colorado Sun
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