WINTER PARK, Colo. — When a gondola at Winter Park Resort malfunctioned Saturday, ski patrol had to jump into action quickly to rescue more than 150 people stuck on the lift.
Videos circulated on social media over the weekend showing ski patrolers giving thorough instructions as visitors of all ages were lowered onto the ground.
"Every chairlift’s different. The gondola in particular presents its own challenges because we have to descend the haul rope to every cabin and then we have to open the doors, and a patroler has to descend into that cabin and lower all the guests to the ground," Colin Karge of Winter Park Ski Patrol said.
Karge is one of the team members who helped rescue skiers and snowboarders on Saturday afternoon. He credits his thorough training with helping him respond effectively to the urgent call for help.
"You go to a CPR class and you want to have that be muscle memory, so that's why you have to recertify every two years. So we do the same thing with lift evacuation, even though we don't use it very often. We want it to be muscle memory when you get up there because it could be cold, windy, it's high," Karge said.
Winter Park Resort spokesperson Jenn Miller emphasized the urgent need for ski patrol to finish the rescue operation before it got dark and temperatures dropped.
"We evacuated 174 people and they had to be lowered one by one out of every single car, and there's about 75 cars on the gondola," Miller said. "We started evacuation procedures at about 1 p.m.... and the bulk of the people were off by 5 p.m. but again, darkness started to come in, and so that slowed it down just a little bit, but everyone was off by 6 p.m."
Karge described a "pretty large crew" who jumped into action for the direct rescue, along with helping support other areas on the resort.
"We had first year patrolers come in on their day off just to help run the mountain," Karge said. "We had other patrolers come in on their day off and get suited up and help us do everything and we had some younger, newer people step up and do what they needed to do also, so I appreciate everybody on our team."
Miller said an investigation is underway to look into what happened with the CPTSB and Leitner-Poma — the manufacturer of the gondola. As far as when the gondola will reopen, the new part was installed on Sunday afternoon and tests performed during the evening, but Miller shared there is no exact date yet.
Saturday's gondola malfunction was not what the resort anticipated in kicking off the busy holiday week, but as Miller emphasized, the all-hands-on-deck response ensured there were no reported injuries with everyone evacuating safely.
"It's not something anyone wants — we don’t want it, the passengers don’t want it, it’s like they would much rather be out skiing," Miller said. "We totally understand tha. We did hand out vouchers to everyone who was evacuated to get two days of lift tickets to use this season or next."
On Monday, officials from the Colorado Passenger Tramway Safety Board (CPTSB) said a total of 182 passengers were evacuated from the gondola, the majority by rope. No injuries were reported. Additionally, Leitner-Poma replaced the failed component with a new one and the gondola reopened at 1:11 p.m.
"The Board has been in contact with Colorado ski areas to ensure that lifts with similar equipment designs are not affected," CPTSB officials said. "No further issues have been found resulting from these immediate inspections; however, these areas are being instructed to perform frequent follow-up inspections until further notice."
Officials said they were continuing to work with the resort and manufacturer to determine the cause of the Winter Park gondola incident. The last inspection of the gondola was conducted in October 2024. It receives three inspections per year, according to a spokesperson with the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies.
Editor's note on Dec. 23, 2024: This story has been updated with new information about the number of rescued from the Colorado Passenger Tramway Safety Board.