Resort baffled as balky lift again strands skiers

It's not exactly a curse, but Park City Mountain Resort has been plagued by mysterious gremlins in its chairlifts.

On Sunday, for the fourth time in two ski seasons, one of the resort's high-speed six-passenger chairlifts broke down, stranding skiers and snowboarders for several hours.

"It's a big bummer," spokeswoman Krista Parry said Wednesday. "Park City is one of the top five ski resorts in the country [as rated by Ski Magazine]. People don't come here to sit on chairlifts for a couple of hours."

The Payday chairlift came to a halt Sunday at 11:15 a.m. from apparent problems in the massive gearbox. Ski patrollers spent the next two hours and 40 minutes evacuating 283 passengers by rope.

Several weeks earlier, the gearbox froze up on the resort's Bonanza chairlift, stranding 175 until crews could rescue them. Bonanza also is a six-passenger lift manufactured in Salt Lake City by Doppelmayr CTEC.

Last year, Park City's Silverlode lift - also a six-passenger lift manufactured by Doppelmayr - had two such breakdowns, again from malfunctions in the gearbox.

No skiers or snowboarders were injured in the four mishaps.

Last summer, after the Silverlode problems, the resort tested its other chairlifts for similar problems.

"They passed with flying colors," Parry said. "These problems were completely unforeseen."

The malfunctions are indeed mysterious, said Jan Leonard, president of Doppelmayr's Salt Lake City operation. The gearboxes should last 20 years.

The Park City lifts were installed in the mid- to late '90s and were the first of their kind in Utah.

"We're still investigating the thing," Leonard said. "There is a design flaw or a materials issue - we're not sure. We'll just keep looking."

The Swiss company is the largest aerial-tram builder in the world. It's North American headquarters in Salt Lake City have built about 90 percent of the chairlifts in Utah, as well as a large number in the U.S. and Canada.

Leonard likened the gearbox to a car transmission. The gearboxes in question were manufactured by the Swiss company Kissling. Doppelmayr is now using gearboxes manufactured in the United States by Caterpillar for its high-speed six-passenger lifts.

"This is frustrating for Park City. It's potential revenue loss for them," Leonard said. "And we're just baffled."

At the close of this ski season, the resort plans to retrofit all of its six-passenger lifts with Caterpillar gearboxes, Parry said.

csmart@sltrib.com