This is a post which originally appeared in the Real Life in Jackson, Wyoming blog about the recent chairlift accident in Sugarloaf. A friend emailed me and said my original post/rant wasn't quite accurate so I reblogged about the issue but thought it would be of interest in the Ski Europe Now main blog so here are the blog posts. Enjoy.
My friend Philthy has been sending me articles about the Sugarloaf chairlift derailment this past Tuesday, and apparently the cable was off the shiv wheels on the tower and two mechanics tried to realign the cable without success. After such failure, the mechanics decided to not run the lift at normal speed and instead run it at slow speed to unload the skiers. Of course, the cable deroped itself and several folks went to the hospital. All I can say is what the f*ck were those mechanics thinking? Any sort of partial deropement or derailment is cause for an immediate stop, total lockdown of the lift, and emergency evacuation of the lift by the patrol. I cannot believe those numbskulls actually keep the lift running under those conditions. Jesus. Remind me to never ski at Sugarloaf. Our lifts have these breakable tabs that cause the lift to stop if the cable falls off the shiv wheels and the lift cannot be run until that tab is fixed; you can't bypass it. Doesn't sound like this was the case with Sugarloaf.
This is the second post about the matter:
I received an e-mail from my friend Philthy about the recent chairlift incident at Sugarloaf and he said my original post/rant on the matter was inaccurate. According to him, the chair was stopped as soon as the mechanic noticed the misalingment of the cable and sheave wheels; the mechanic tried to make repairs but was unable to fix it; then a decision was made to run the chair at half-speed to unload the chair despite the fact the misalignment was not fixed. All I can say is they still screwed up big time. At the first hint of chairlift problems, the mechanics should have contacted patrol and patrol should have told the lift operator to stop running the lift, lock the control panel down, cut the power, and prepare for a chair evacuation. Given the situation, running the chair with people on it at any speed was a huge mistake. Heads should roll over this.
Obviously I am not getting the entire story but given what I know, somebody screwed up bigtime.
