Whistler sure seems to be having fun with its lift towers lately. On Sunday December 6, 2009, the Big Red Express lift was stopped and 100 people were evacuated after “a device on one of the towers fell off,” according to a story on The Province.
Here’s what Dave Brownlie, president of the Whistler-Blackcomb ski resort said:
“We had lift maintenance personnel inspect the situation,” Brownlie told The Province. “They determined that it was then safe to run the people off the line. . . He described the broken part as “a compression mechanism” that is installed on some towers to keep pressure on the top of the cable as it passes over rollers on the tower.
This is just the latest in a series of lift problems at the mountain over the past year. A drive motor failure on the Peak 2 Peak last April caused an unscheduled closure, a “broken bolt” stopped Blackcomb’s Harmony lift last February, and a “partial lift tower collapse” on Whistler Blackcomb’s Excalibur Gondola in December of 2008 resulted in several minor injuries.
Maybe this is what happens when the company that runs the resort is flailing. Good thing those Olympics are right around the corner.
[Link: The Province]
