Big Sky Resort conducted a rope evacuation today after two chairs collided on the Shedhorn high speed quad. A witness wrote on Reddit that one loaded chair slid back into another loaded chair just uphill of the bottom station. Big Sky declined to specify the nature of the mechanical problem but said in a statement, “This morning, Shedhorn lift experienced a mechanical issue at approximately 11:40am. Lift maintenance, along with ski patrol, responded immediately and determined that a rope evacuation would be the quickest resolution to clear guests from the chairlift.”
Today was a powder day in Big Sky with 14 inches of new snow and it took until just after 2:00 pm to clear all riders from the lift. Some guests resorted to hiking out of the Shedhorn area due to its remote location. Because of the patrol resources needed for the lift evacuation, the Lone Peak Tram was also closed for a time.
Shedhorn is a 1991 Doppelmayr detachable quad with DS104 grips. The lift opened in its current location in 2018 as a relocation from the Andesite side of the resort. In its statement, Big Sky thanked lift staff and patrollers for their efforts today and noted “Lift maintenance is working to resolve the mechanical issue and intends to reopen the Shedhorn lift as soon as possible.”
Lift Blog 
How did that modern terminal get stuck with ds104 grips?
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The terminal is from 1991 but was rebuilt with a new skin when it got moved in 2018.
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so it looks shiny and new, but the most critical mechanical components are over three decades old 🤔
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Unfortunately that’s not totally an uncommon occurrence for a DS grip to not close properly on exit.
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In the last 6 years alone, I’ve seen DS grips on mid-80s detachables at Mont Ste Anne and Mont Sutton fail to properly attach to the rope on two occasions. Its not exactly news in the “belle province” considering how lax ropeway safety regulation is here.
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I saw it happen at Sutton too myself! Seems to be a regular problem because they handled it quickly like a pro and just left the lift running as if nothing happened
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I’ve worked at Blackcomb for 30 years with more than a few lifts with DS grips. In that time we have had a grip fail to attach exactly once. This was due to a crack in a fixed jaw. It is extremely rare in my experience.
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It’s probably because you guys refurbish the grips every single year, wow Big sky just refurbishes the grips when the lift is getting moved to a new location
This is the exact same reason why my dad hates all these old lifts from Big sky being put in at Sugarloaf. (He was a sugar loafer almost all his life before moving to Washington) Sugarloaf is about 500 ft higher than Sunday River and Sunday River is getting all these new lifts while Sugarloaf is getting old 26-year-old lifts from Big sky. So really it’s sad that Sugarloaf is getting all these crap used lifts when really Sunday River should be getting the crappy used lifts. Sugarloaf is the highest ski area in Maine and a new gondola would be a really great comeback right now, or a new six pack to replace super quad or double runner or whatever. It’s sort of stupid how Sugarloaf is not getting the treatment it deserves when really Sunday River should be getting all this.
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Uh, I’m pretty sure Big Sky Lift Maintenance does their NDT on grips on ALL of their lifts. It may even be required from the state of Montana.
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Exactly. Here’s a good idea when you’re refurbishing a lift without dated grips put in new grips that will not fail for the next two decades.
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All the grips were in fact refurbished when the lift was reinstalled. This was a case of human error, the grips are also removed from the line in 20% batches each year and properly NDT’d so every 5 years every grip is done, same with every other lift at Big Sky. The lift did stop properly and the safety devices worked as intended, but in this case of a “reset and go” scenario, humans making mistakes caused the accident. The former Swift Current 4 received a full refurbishment from Doppelmayr before being reinstalled, as will Six Shooter. (Side note Six Shooter was my favorite detachable at Big Sky before we removed it) Hope that adds some clarity.
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Yes, I know that, but even still, it’s kinda hard to believe that the highest ski area in Maine (& probably the best, Sugarloaf) is getting 3 decades old lifts while Sunday River is getting brand new lifts with heated seats & bubbles
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Luke- Which of those ski areas does the most skier days / generates the most revenue? Being the ‘highest’ doesn’t amount to much when they are counting beans…
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haha yeah what does the highest elevation have to do with receiving brand new lifts. Then why doesn’t Boyne give the lifts to Brighton instead because their elevation is double Sugarloaf
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As far as the differences between the lift upgrades that Sugarloaf and Sunday River have been receiving I think it comes down to two main factors.
1.The brand of Sugarloaf isn’t as high end as what Boyne is going for with Sunday River. Therefore, standard detachable lifts seem to fit the Sugarloaf culture a lot better. Boyne is saving a lot of money by relocating used lifts for these project, but that doesn’t mean they are installing “crap used lifts” like you claim. They are fully refurbishing every lift they relocate and picking the best ones which is why detachables like Crest 4 and Barker 4 were never relocated.
2. Both the D-Lines that were installed at Sunday River replaced critical lifts that were already detatchables. In order to make these projects high-impact they added lots of extra features. The upgrades at the Loaf either anchor a completely new pod or replaces an ancient Bvorig. Either way these projects are extremely impactful already without the extra features.
Besides, Sugarloaf has such an old rickety lift fleet that is very reliant on Bvorigs. Therefore any used detachables they receive from BS are huge upgrades over what they have
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To add some uninformed first hand details; we arrived at the lift and it had power but was stopped. The lift ops were waiting on lift maintenance who soon arrived. Maintainance went between the control room and the upper lift mechanical area a few times, finally resolving the stoppage with a loud “clang” from above. The lift appeared happy and was started to everyone’s cheers. Within seconds of starting there was a loud crash as the chairs collided. We missed the impact sequence but they ended up a little past the end of the terminal. The chair that had been stopped at the loading line, with one skier, appeared attached to the rope. The chair that had been stopped at the end of the terminal (leaving) with 3 people was resting against the single rider chair. It appears to have either begun moving and then slid back or to have not moved and had the following chair carried into it. Not sure in how these work but several spectators thought the partially attached chair may have caused the original lift stoppage. Most people hiked out, a few waited for patrol sled tows / rides. The person on the chair that was hit was tobogganed out but seemed mostly OK. The crowd at the bottom, including us, left before we saw any rope evacs. They handled it as well as could be expected. Other than this, it was a great pow day at Big Sky.
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From your description of events it’s a grip mis-attach situation, there is a grip gage switch right at the end of the coupling zone hence the initial stop with the loaded chair (chair that slid) being right at the very exit of the terminal. From the photos it’s quite obvious that the grip on the chair that slid is still open as the actuating lever is still down. Both manufactures provide clear procedures for such event and it appears from your description that the lift did activate safeties (stopped) required to prevent this incident…
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There have been a number of “reset and go” situations where lifts have stopped as designed but then humans restarted them with poor outcomes. Two recent ones:
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What do you think is the cause of these overlooks? Is it the pressure the lift mechanics feel when there is a lineup of skiers letting out collective sighs, or is it pressure from the resorts to get things spinning as soon as possible? Or is it just within the realm of human error, since the many successful fixes/resets never make the headlines like these incidents?
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From this situation and your (Peter’s) two other examples, could this be a case of crying wolf too many times? By that I mean too many false alarms that cause mechs or lift attendents to do a quick scan for issues instead of actually fully checking things? Not a critisism at all of the mechs or attendents, just a fact of human nature. Thoughts?
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Also happened at Disney early in the Skyliner operations.
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Peter was that you in the video that said “those two that are up there shouldn’t look back”? That voice sounds awfully familiar
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TLDR: Grip attachment failure
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lift ops had a tough day … Overhead patrol say Powder Seeker was delayed till about 1130.due to sheave change out, challenger had no power and thunder wolf was delayed till.about 10:30.
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Apparently the issues with Challenger and the lifts on the moonlight side (which would still be closed anyways to build Madison 8) were caused by a power surge. Not sure what the deal is with T-wolf but lift wise things seem like a mess at BS.
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Reset & Run?? A grip attachment/grip force fault on a Doppelmayr lift. The lift should be run in reverse and the grip that caused the fault run back into the terminal. The grip should be inspected. If the grip is in good working order the grip can be re-launched with no passengers in the carrier. As I stated in an earlier post, I am aware of several incidents of DS grips not closing properly on exit. Typically the lift stops and the grip can appear closed from a distance. If you don’t run the carrier back into the terminal your asking for trouble.
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From the photos it looks like the carrier in question may have stopped in the terminal (but in the area past the zone switches, which would have given an indication of a stalled chair) and was pushed out by the collision. In any case something was missed.
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a couple more heads for Boyne to chop……
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You think someone will get fired over this? Kind of a knee-jerk reaction from management if you ask me.
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Boyne has a long list of lift issues. They have some great new lifts that they’ve financed, but they are a very leveraged outfit. You can’t finance lift refurbishments so the majority of their lifts are kept going the best they can do. Hence, a lot of problems like this.
They have run at least two of their lifts till they failed mid season—old Challenger and the last gondola they had. Both catastrophic failures requiring rope evacs.
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They’ve also had some pretty high profile lift failures at their east coat resorts. The King Pine rollback and Spillway de-ropememt at Sugarloaf, and the top terminal collapsing on Spruce Peak at Sunday River.
I think the main problem is that Boyne did little to no lift investments for over a decade (the only ones they did were out of necessity). At this point it just seems that they are trying to play catchup and replace as many lifts as possible. They still have a long way to go.
Big Sky is honestly probably one of their best off resorts as far as lifts go. The rest of the portfolio still has a massive fleet of old fixed grips from defunct companies like Riblet, Bvorig, and Yan.
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Not so sure we can point blame at Boyne for the Spruce peak, King Pine or Spillway incidents in Maine. Boyne was the operator of those resorts during that time. Not the owner. The lack of investment came from the mid 90s to mid 2010’s when Sugarloaf/Sunday River fell under the ASC bubble and then CNL Lifestyles. Boyne just recently purchased those 2 properties which is why we are seeing investment as of recent.
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Yes, but as the operator I’d assume they would be in charge of the maintenance on those lifts. The fact that the lifts were old was definitely not Boyne’s fault, but they should be maintaining older lifts to a safe level at the bare minimum.
Also, Boyne went through lack of investment phase with their owned resorts (including BS, and their Michigan resorts) from the mid 2000’s to the mid 2010’s so they are definitely playing catchup everywhere, regardless of the ownership history.
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And Spruce Peak was the result of an act of God (weather).
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The operator can only work with the budget that the owner provides. It tends to happen that the more distanced the owner is from the operation (both location and involvement), the more budget squeeze tends to happen when owners just look at numbers instead of bullwheels.
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The owner/operator relationship in those situations is not as simple/black-and-white as you make it out to be. Plenty of quote-unquote “operators” make capex investments.
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It’s because these refurbished lifts use a lot of the old equipment, just scrap them at the end of their service life.
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If the grip did slide back, could be related to missing or broken snap ring on slide guide rod bushing. This is a known issue that has caused previous incidents, Doppelmayr issued a bulletin relating to it.
See attached from BC.
Safety Order: Above surface passenger ropeway detachable grip rebuild, inspection and servicing procedures | TSBC (technicalsafetybc.ca)
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meanwhile I witnessed the same thing happen at Mt Sutton and they just readjusted the chairs by hand and kept the lift running like normal 👍
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Are you sure you didn’t witness chairs stacking in the terminal? That is fairly common. Very different from a loaded chair making it out on the line with the grip open.
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It was at the end of the terminal but on it’s way out. Almost seemed like the grip didn’t close and it just got caught at the end of the guidage. I didn’t pay attention too closely to it but perhaps it was different but they were able to push all the chairs back into the terminal and send them back down to the bottom where they fixed the spacing at the lower terminal
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It certainly did not require a rope evac. Stop loading, remove offending chairs to the ground, run people off on electric while monitoring coupling areas for additional problems then perform inspections, make any needed adjustments and re-open. Or at least get those two chairs off and try and move forward before calling for ropes.
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I’m not one to second-guess decisions made by another crew at a different mountain when I wasn’t there, but I tend to agree with you.
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I am skiing here at big today and they’ve got a small generator at the base of Shedhorn powering something. Anyone have any guesses? I would assume it’s there as a result of Wednesday’s events.
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Educated guess- it’s unrelated. The incident we’re all commenting on was mechanical in nature, not electrical (and no, I don’t have inside information but it’s pretty obvious to me). They may have lost power to that location and need to run the control battery chargers or power supply. It’s likely just coincidental that it happened this week.
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Shedhorn’s one of the many lifts at Big Sky without line power at the return. That generator’s always been there, it’s just not usually running all day.
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@ The Skiers: yes that is true, but when the Sugarloafers find out that Sunday River is getting brand new lifts & the loaf is getting 30 years old lifts, they are going to be really angry because yes, Sugarloaf has 40 year old borvig lifts, but it makes no sense to replace a 30 to 40 year old lift with a 30 to 20 year old lift like what is happening w/ T-line quad. Yes I know lifts are refurbished when they are reused, I’ve studied ropeways for 3 years, but that is just an excuse so the lift doesn’t need to be scrapped. This is the outcome of “new, but refurbished lifts” stuff breaking. It doesn’t matter if the lift is refurbished, it still has a higher chance of breaking down. I say replace the lifts at the end of their life & scrap them. I get swift current but Ramcharger at BS didn’t need to be replaced for the next 7 years. I get one lift being refurbished & maybe being used a another part of the resort, but shipping across the country, ultimately, it might cost more to get it there & install it than getting a whole new lift. I would just avoid it all together if I were Stephen. Also I get one lift being installed at a ski resort but upgrading the skewers are with all used lifts is just an outrage. This is going to make people very angry and right angry letters to Stephen or who knows, but a resort shouldn’t be getting an upgrade with all used lifts
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Where did you study ropeways for three years?
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I meant upgrading the sugar loafers with with all used lifts is an outrage
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@ The skier: also, saving money = going cheap and installing lifts that are more likely to break down because of their age.
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