This is the most recent mishap involving falling or malfunctioning lifts at North American resorts this season.
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A gondola carrying eight people dislodged from its cable at B.C.’s Kicking Horse Mountain Resort at 9:20 a.m. this morning (March 10). Thankfully the cabin had just left the base terminal and not very high in the air when it fell. Ski patrol and first responders were dispatched to the scene, and no serious injuries have been reported. Patrol and mountain ops are working to unload all gondola passengers along the 3,500-vertical-foot lift.
KHMR reported that it will keep the Golden Eagle Express gondola closed until further notice while they investigate the incident, and have shut down the mountain for the day.
At Kicking Horse, the resort’s singular gondola is the main access to the mountain, and the only way to get to the summit. The only other base lifts are a quad and double that serve the lower slopes, leaving the entire two-third of the mountain—including five alpine bowls and hike-to terrain—inaccessible.
“A full inspection has been initiated to determinate and analyze root causes,” the resort shared in an Instagram post. “Teams from the manufacturer and relevant authorities have been called in to further assist.”
According to Liftblog, a hangar arm—a metal piece that connects the carrier to the main cable—sheered off, causing the cabin to fall to the ground. This happened on a powder day after a storm dropped nearly 10 inches on the slopes.
In addition to serving as the mountain’s main lift all winter, the Golden Eagle, built in 2000 by Leitner-Poma, also runs in the evening to ferry diners to the resort’s Eagle’s Eye restaurant, and in the summer for mountaintop hiking and sightseeing. It has the distinction of being one of the continent’s longest and highest gondolas at 3,500 feet long and 55 cabins.
This morning’s incident is the latest in a string of ski lift mishaps that have been in the headlines all season, including Christmastime malfunctions that led to mid-air evacuations at Colorado’s Winter Park and Telluride, and chairlifts falling off their cables at Attitash, N.H. and Heavenly, California.
There’s been no word on when Kicking Horse’s gondola will be up and running again, but locals are concerned that it could have a major impact on the rest of the season. Resorts of the Canadian Rockies, which owns Kicking Horse, went through a similar issue at another one of its ski area’s—Quebec’s Mont-Sainte-Anne—in December of 2022. It took until this season for the resort to get its gondola back online.