Are Ski Lift Accidents on the Rise? A Look at This Year’s Catastrophic Failures
The cabin detachment at Western Canada’s Kicking Horse was the ninth serious North American ski lift malfunction this winter.
Photo credit: Brandon Shaw
When you get on a ski lift, the prospect of your chair falling off the line is a thing of nightmare fuel. But for those who’ve decided to ski or ride in North America this winter, catastrophic chairlift and gondola failures have seemingly surged at an alarming rate.
While lift accidents have historically been rare and isolated events, the 2024-25 season has seen several incidents make national headlines. And these failures haven’t been restricted to just one lift type, one company, or even one country.
So why have so many catastrophic lift failures happened in such a short period? In this video, we’ll go through each of the major incidents this year, what exactly caused them, and whether there really has been an uptick in accidents this year, or whether we’ve all been victims of recency bias. Let’s jump right into it.
Incident #1: Montana Snowbowl LaVelle Creek Chair
The first serious incident of the 2024-25 season happened at a resort that many of you have probably never heard of. In December 2024, Montana Snowbowl experienced a significant incident involving the LaVelle Creek double chairlift, a Riblet lift installed in 1984. On December 15, an empty chair collided with a lift operator during loading, causing it to swing excessively and subsequently dislodge from the haul rope, falling to the ground.
Fortunately, the chair was empty at the time and no injuries occurred. Lift service was temporarily halted for inspection, and after maintenance crews inspected the lift and ensured it was safe, the LaVelle chair was reopened later that same day.
But was the LaVelle lift’s failure an isolated incident? This event is part of a troubling pattern at Montana Snowbowl, where three separate chair detachment incidents have occurred in the past five years. In January 2020, a separate chair fell from that same double chairlift, necessitating a rope evacuation for the rest of the lift. More recently, in March 2023, a chair on the Snow Park double chairlift collided with a tower and broke apart, causing a child to fall, albeit with only very minor injuries.
All of these incidents occurred on Montana Snowbowl’s Riblet double chairs, and their age and construction seem to be causing ongoing operational challenges at the resort. We actually happened to be at Montana Snowbowl this past Monday; we saw a skier loading one of these Riblet chairs on the wrong side, and they had to stop the lift for approximately 30 seconds until the chair stabilized.
At a first glance, these recurring incidents raise questions about the maintenance practices and operational protocols at Montana Snowbowl in particular. That said, as we’ll discuss later in this piece, Montana Snowbowl is far from the only ski resort that’s had issues with Riblet chairlifts this past winter.
A cracked terminal sheave assembly, pictured above, caused the Winter Park Gondola to malfunction on December 21, 2024.
Source: Liftblog
Incident #2: Winter Park Gondola
But if it were just the locally-oriented Montana Snowbowl that saw its chairs falling apart, this season would have continued with a very different narrative. Only six days after that incident, another catastrophic lift failure occurred at a much-better-known resort, Colorado’s Winter Park.
A critical mechanical failure occurred on The Gondola when a tower component broke, causing an immediate shutdown and leaving 174 skiers and riders stranded on the lift. The specific issue involved a cracked terminal sheave assembly, a critical part of the gondola system responsible for guiding and supporting the haul rope as it moves through the lift terminals. This crack likely developed due to metal fatigue, stress over repeated cycles, or undetected manufacturing defects.
Once the crack reached the point where it could no longer properly support the rope, the gondola system triggered an automatic safety shutdown—but thankfully, this shutdown also meant nobody was injured. That being said, given the situation of the failure, ski patrol had to conduct a complex rope evacuation, requiring each stranded passenger to be safely lowered to the ground using harnesses. The entire process took approximately five hours.
The resort conducted an internal review and replaced the failed sheave assembly before reopening the gondola before the busy Christmas holiday, and luckily, there have been no issues since. Given the relatively young age of the lift, it’s not out of the question that this part failed due to a manufacturing defect, but concerns remain about the load demand on this high-volume, out-of-base lift and whether other similar components could be at risk in other gondolas of the same design.
A chair on Heavenly’s Comet Express lift slid backward into another chair following a grip failure on December 23, 2024.
Source: xamfed | Reddit
Incident #3: Heavenly Comet Express
But while neither of the first two incidents had anyone injured, a much more substantial failure occurred only two days later. At Lake Tahoe’s Heavenly resort, a serious chairlift collision occurred on December 23, 2024, when a chair on the Comet Express detachable quad lift slid backward into another chair. This circumstance resulted in a violent impact that sent multiple riders tumbling onto the snow below.
The failure at this Vail-owned mountain was traced to a detachable grip malfunction, a critical component that allows chairs to securely attach to and detach from the haul rope at the terminal. These grips rely on a precise clamping mechanism, and any failure—whether due to wear, improper tensioning, or a mechanical defect—can lead to a chair losing its grip and sliding uncontrolled. In this case, the grip failure caused the chair to slip down the cable at high speed, ultimately colliding with the chair behind it. The impact resulted in five skiers suffering injuries significant enough to require hospitalization, with some reportedly falling over 30 feet to the ground. Witnesses described a loud, jarring crash and chaotic moments as ski patrol rushed to secure the area and evacuate remaining riders.
This incident sent five people to the hospital, with some reportedly falling over 30 feet to the ground.
While the Comet Express is a detachable high-speed lift that might feel pretty modern on the surface, it was installed all the way back in 1988, making it one of the oldest detachable chairlifts still in operation in North America today. While the Comet lift has undergone modernizations over the years, its age meant that wear-related incidents could happen without proper maintenance. News of this accident was somewhat drowned out by a ski patrol strike going on at Vail-owned Park City, but the incident still raised public concerns about whether the detachable grips were nearing the end of their lifespan—and whether Heavenly’s owner, Vail Resorts, was doing enough to properly maintain other similar components across its aging lift fleet. As we’ll discuss later in this video, these concerns may have been well founded.
The snapped chairlift bail at Sun Valley on or around December 31, 2024.
Source: Teton Gravity Research Forum
Incident #4: Sun Valley Lookout Express
But before we move out of 2024, we have to cover the fourth and final publicly-known chairlift failure of what was an objectively terrible December for U.S. ski lift incidents. At Idaho’s Sun Valley resort, the Lookout Express high-speed quad chairlift suffered a bail failure at the end of the Christmas holiday period, prompting an immediate shutdown of the lift. While the resort has not officially confirmed the date and details of the incident, an anecdotal forum discussion claims that the failure occurred on December 31 at the very beginning of the day—and that passengers were loading the lift at the time the bail snapped. Thankfully, there’s no evidence to suggest that anyone was injured.
That said, a fracture in a chairlift bail is highly unusual. These U-shaped bars are responsible for securing the chair that skiers and riders sit on to the haul rope, and accordingly, they’re designed to withstand repeated stress over thousands of cycles. However, given that Lookout Express was installed in 1994, it is now 30 years old, meaning that just like Heavenly’s Comet Express, it’s one of the older high-speed detachable lifts still in operation. Over time, metal fatigue, corrosion, or stress fractures can weaken the integrity of lift components, especially if they are not inspected or replaced at appropriate intervals. While Sun Valley has not publicly disclosed whether the broken bail was an original component or a replacement, the fact that it failed suggests that either the part was past its safe operational lifespan or that it had an undetected defect. Following the incident, the lift underwent a thorough inspection and necessary repairs before reopening only a few days later, though this failure raises broader concerns about the longevity of older detachable lifts and whether similar failures could occur at other resorts operating lifts of this vintage.
A chair detached from Mission Ridge’s Chair 4 lift (pictured above) on January 1, 2025.
Incident #5: Mission Ridge Chair 4
Unfortunately for those hoping for better chairlift luck in 2025, the next major U.S. lift failure happened less than 24 hours after the new year started.
On January 1, 2025, Chair 4 at Washington’s Mission Ridge suffered a mechanical failure that caused the haul rope to come out of alignment at a tower, leading to two empty chairs detaching from the cable. The incident occurred on the “light side” of the lift (the side without passengers), meaning no skiers or snowboarders were directly in the affected chairs when they fell. However, the lift was at capacity at the time, and several riders were left stranded in the air as ski patrol initiated a rope evacuation. Notably, Chair 4 is a Riblet double, utilizing the same lift design as the Montana Snowbowl chairlift that failed just weeks earlier.
So what caused the failure at Mission Ridge? The haul rope misalignment suggests that excessive wear and tear may have played a role, and a situation like this likely could have been prevented with better maintenance protocols. However, the pattern of failures on Riblet double chairlifts raises a larger question. Could there be inherent design flaws in these older chairs that make them more prone to detachment in high-stress situations? In this case, the force of the haul rope displacement was enough to shake these carriers loose—but a different chairlift design might have maintained its grip under the same circumstances.
Chair 4 reopened the following day after maintenance crews confirmed it was safe to operate—but as we’ll discuss later in this piece, perhaps they should have been keeping a closer eye on it.
A chair on Attitash’s Flying Bear lift detached from the cable on February 2, 2025, plummeting 20 feet to the ground and sending an occupant to the hospital.
Source: Fluffhead_Phan | Reddit
Incident #6: Attitash Flying Bear Lift
After five incidents over the course of less than three weeks, the North American ski world went nearly a month without another catastrophic accident. Unfortunately, some of the concerns that arose from the December Heavenly incident would come to fruition on February 2, 2025, when a catastrophic incident occurred at another Vail-owned resort, Attitash. On this date, a chair on the resort’s Flying Bear detachable quad lift detached from the haul rope and plummeted 20 feet to the snow below, with a skier still seated. The skier who fell was injured but survived, later being hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.
The incident was traced to a severely worn grip assembly, the critical mechanism responsible for securely attaching the chair to the moving haul rope—and a very similar component to the one that failed earlier that year at Heavenly. Unlike fixed-grip chairs, which are permanently attached to a haul rope, detachable grips rely on spring-loaded clamps that repeatedly engage and disengage as the chair enters and exits terminals. Over time, constant tension and metal fatigue can wear down these components, reducing their ability to maintain a firm grip on the rope. Investigators later revealed that the grips on Flying Bear were found to be heavily worn, suggesting they had not been replaced at appropriate intervals.
A closeup of the detached chair carrier and broken grip following the accident.
Source: Fluffhead_Phan | Reddit
The Flying Bear incident could not have come at a worse time for Attitash’s owner. Vail Resorts was already under fire for aggressive cost-cutting measures across its portfolio, with reports of stagnant revenue growth, corporate layoffs, and wage disputes with employees that culminated in the high-profile December ski patrol strike at Park City. Some industry insiders have speculated that budget constraints could be leading to deferred maintenance at Vail-owned resorts, though the company has vehemently denied any connection between financial challenges and lift safety. Still, with multiple serious lift failures this season, it’s becoming harder for Vail to avoid scrutiny over whether its cost-cutting measures have come at the expense of mountain operations and skier safety.
A chair detached from the Honey Pot Hoist double chairlift at Mount Bohemia on February 7, 2025; this was the third Riblet double chairlift to experience such an incident this season.
Source: Conor Smith | Facebook
Incident #7: Mount Bohemia Honey Pot Hoist Double Chair
The next two incidents weren’t as high profile, but notably, they were the third and fourth to involve Riblet double chairs this season. Just five days after the Attitash incident on February 7, 2025, a chair fell from the double lift at Mount Bohemia, Michigan. The chair detached from the rope at the end of the line following what was apparently a "bad unload" by snowboarders, causing the chair to swing and hit a lift tower. Nobody was riding the specific chair when it fell, and after the lift was stopped for approximately 20 minutes, it resumed operation for the remainder of the day.
Incident #8: Mission Ridge Chair 4 (Again)
Just a day later on February 8, 2025, a chair fell from the Chair 4 lift at Mission Ridge again. This time, the circumstances were quite similar to both the Mount Bohemia and Montana Snowbowl incidents: an empty chair detached from the haul rope after excessive swinging caused it to hit a lift tower. Luckily, there were no guests or staff in the vicinity, and no injuries were reported. Following a thorough inspection by the lift maintenance team that confirmed there was no damage to the haul rope, Chair 4 remained operational for the rest of the day.
Fortunately, all of this season’s Riblet double chair detachments have involved empty chairs, avoiding any injuries so far. However, the sheer number of these failures raises serious concerns about their safety—or, at the very least, the operational protocols used to maintain and operate them. As we discussed in the Montana Snowbowl section, similar incidents in past seasons have resulted in injuries when fully loaded chairs detached, proving that this isn’t just a theoretical risk. If excessive chair swing can cause these chairs to fall off the cable, resorts need to be taking proactive steps to prevent these situations from occurring in the first place—especially when passengers are on board.
On February 10, 2025, a gondola cabin detached from the cable at Kicking Horse after a hanger arm failure.
Source: Brandon Shaw
Incident #9: Kicking Horse Golden Eagle Gondola
But just a few days ago, the ski world was reminded that catastrophic lift failures were not exclusive to Vail Resorts, Riblet double chairs, or the United States. On March 10, 2025, a gondola cabin fell off the line at Western Canada’s Kicking Horse resort. The Golden Eagle Express, a 25-year-old gondola and the only lift providing access to over two-thirds of the resort’s terrain, suffered a catastrophic hanger arm failure, causing a cabin with eight passengers to detach and fall to the ground. Fortunately, the cabin was only a few feet from the ground, and there were no serious injuries reported among the occupants. However, the resort did have to spend hours rope evacuating other guests on the lift, and they ordered a full mountain closure following the incident to clean up the debris.
It’s hard to understate the importance of the Golden Eagle gondola in Kicking Horse’s lift fleet; this is a year-round, day-and-night lift and one of the longest and tallest gondolas in North America. Apparently, the lift was especially heavily loaded on the morning powder day of the incident. This is not the first time Kicking Horse’s gondola has had mechanical issues—prolonged stoppages and electrical problems have occurred in the past, with one incident in 2016 requiring helicopter-assisted evacuations.
This Kicking Horse gondola hanger arm pictured above failed, plummeting the rest of the cabin to the ground.
Source: Liftblog
While Resorts of the Canadian Rockies (RCR), Kicking Horse’s parent company, is not a publicly traded entity like Vail, it has a reputation for reinvesting very little into lift infrastructure. Over the past decade, RCR has replaced almost no lifts at its resorts, despite many of them aging beyond their expected lifespan. Its most infamous lift failure occurred at Mont-Sainte-Anne, where the L’Étoile Filante gondola experienced three significant failures between 2020 and 2022. After the third failure, the Quebec provincial government ordered the closure of the gondola for what was essentially the entire 2022-23 winter season. Now that catastrophic component failures have occurred on both of the gondolas RCR owns, several concerns have resurfaced about whether the company is deferring critical lift maintenance to cut costs, even as these incidents continue to happen and put skiers and riders at risk.
Given that the Golden Eagle Express is the only lift providing access to Kicking Horse’s upper terrain, this failure raises the real possibility that the resort will be forced to close the majority of its terrain for the rest of the season. This is much like what happened at Mont-Sainte-Anne a few years back—but to an even greater extent because of the sheer importance of this singular lift. If the hanger arm issue is found to be systemic, RCR may have no choice but to conduct an extensive inspection or full component replacement before the lift can safely reopen—something that could take weeks or even months. Given RCR’s history, it’s unclear whether the resort will be able to get the gondola operational again before the season ends, potentially leaving skiers and riders with only the lower-mountain terrain—which, at the time of this recording, is all that’s open today.
On February 10, 2025, a tragic wind-related incident occurred at Red Lodge, Montana when a rider was fatally ejected from the Triple Chair (pictured).
Incident #10: Red Lodge Triple Chair
But while the Kicking Horse incident happened mere days ago, it unfortunately wasn’t the last serious lift malfunction of the season so far. Just a few hours later also on March 10, a tragic accident occurred at Red Lodge Mountain in Montana, when 37-year-old snowboarder Jeff Zinne fell from the resort’s Triple Chair lift. Zinne was later airlifted to a hospital in Billings for treatment, but sadly, he passed away from his injuries on Wednesday morning.
This time around, it doesn’t seem that there was any sort of mechanical issue with the lift. According to Liftblog, the incident may have been wind related, though the exact cause remains unclear. An internal investigation is still underway, and full details have yet to be released. However, one glaring concern is that this 40-year-old lift lacks safety bars, raising questions about passenger security in high winds—and whether the resort should have been operating the lift in such extreme conditions in the first place. Especially with a fatality now involved, this incident calls into serious question whether chairlift safety laws are out of date.
Comparing this season to the two before it, the evidence suggests that this year has indeed been especially bad for major North American lift incidents.
Has the 2024-25 Season Been A Lift Safety Outlier?
All these incidents raise an important question: has the 2024-25 season been an outlier for serious chairlift failures, or are we just experiencing a case of recency bias? Comparing this season to the two before it, the evidence suggests that this year has indeed been especially bad.
To play devil’s advocate, lift failures happen nearly every season, and many of the incidents in 2022-23 and 2023-24 occurred at smaller, locally-oriented resorts that received less national attention. This could mean that the increase in awareness this year is partially due to greater media coverage rather than a surge in actual failures.
That said, media attention alone doesn’t explain the sharp rise in both the number of people affected and the severity of casualties this season. On top of the Red Lodge fatality, the Heavenly chair collision on Comet Express hospitalized five skiers, while the Flying Bear detachment at Attitash incident hospitalized another—far exceeding the injury counts of previous years. In fact, before the Heavenly incident, the last major mechanical failure to cause hospitalization-level injuries was at Camelback, Pennsylvania in March 2021—and following that incident, the resort decided to fully replace the chairlift rather than ever operating it again. The last widely reported wind-related operational failure of this magnitude arguably took place at Willamette Pass, Oregon, in early 2023. And the last fatality to come from a mechanical or operational failure in North America occurred in 2016, at Granby Ranch, Colorado.
Final Thoughts
So make no mistake about it, lift accidents remain relatively rare in the grand scheme of skiing and riding. However, the sheer number of catastrophic lift failures this year calls into serious question the state of maintenance and investment in North America’s aging ski infrastructure. While some of these incidents could be categorized as freak accidents, the majority of this year’s failures show clear signs of deferred maintenance, aging infrastructure, or outright mechanical neglect.
The pattern of failure also points to a deeper issue—many of this year’s failures have occurred at older lifts or at resorts owned by companies with a history of delaying lift investments. The Flying Bear lift at Attitash was later found to have worn-down grips, the Golden Eagle Express at Kicking Horse is perennially overworked and has had previous issues, the Comet Express at Heavenly is over 35 years old at this point, and the Riblet double chairlifts have widely-known issues with excess force. These incidents suggest that many resorts, particularly those owned by large corporations like Vail Resorts and Resorts of Canadian Rockies (RCR), are pushing the limits on how long they can operate aging infrastructure without making significant investments in safety upgrades—and perhaps even more disappointingly, routine maintenance.
While lift accidents remain relatively rare in the grand scheme of skiing, the escalating number of serious failures this season should be a wake-up call for the industry. Without proactive maintenance and timely lift replacements, we could be heading toward even more dangerous incidents in the coming years. It’s clear that resorts can no longer afford to defer maintenance on aging infrastructure—otherwise, more skiers and riders will find themselves victims of increasingly unreliable and hazardous lift systems across the continent.
If you’d like to support Jeff Zinne’s family in this difficult time, consider donating to their GoFundMe here.
