Industry News
In a statement on Facebook yesterday, Montana Snowbowl reported that “an incident” required them to “temporarily halt lift service.”
“Earlier today, an incident occurred on LaValle chairlift that required us to temporarily halt lift service. We are grateful to report that no injuries occurred. Our maintenance department was able to inspect the lift and ensure it was safe to operate. LaValle was then reopened to the public for the remainder of the afternoon.
Otherwise, we had a great early season ski day at the Bowl today. We were able to open up Paradise, Second Thought, and Spartan Headwall with some help from our snowmakers and our new snowmaking equipment! We will be closed Monday through Thursday this week, reopening Friday December 20th.”– Montana Snowbowl Facebook Statement
Peter Landsman at LiftBlog reports that the incident involved a chair falling from the chairlift to the ground in the loading zone, with a photo of the incident. Thankfully, nobody was on the chair, and nobody was injured.
On the blog: Chair Falls from Lift at @MontanaSnowbowl https://t.co/jBKg8EBr2I
— Lift Blog (@liftblog) December 16, 2024
Montana Snowbowl opened for the season on Friday, December 13, just two days prior.
The ski area has been plagued with health and safety incidents recently. In 2020, skiers had to be evacuated from the Lavelle lift after a chair detached from the haul rope as it went around the bullwheel, and in March 2023, a toddler was thrown from the SnowPark chairlift following a malfunction. A falling tree sadly killed a worker in the summer of 2023, and in April 2023, a 66-year-old man was hit and killed by a drunk driver in a resort parking lot.
