JEFFERSONVILLE, Vt. -
Skiers and snowboarders were left dangling in the air after one of the chair lifts derailed at Smugglers' Notch. No one was injured, but it took about an hour to get everyone down safely.
Smuggs was packed Monday full of riders, skiers, and working chair lifts... but Sunday, it was a different story. The day started off calm, but around two, the winds were whipping.
"The wind did pick up kind of suddenly and unexpectedly," Assistant Ski Patrol Director, Eli Moore said.
Those powerful gusts tore one of the cables off its tracks, and derailed the Madonna two chair lift.
"Nothing fell, no one came off the lift," Moore said.
But it left about 70 people hanging, between ten and 35 feet in the air. The lift shut off automatically.
"It only dropped about a couple of feet in that particular area and actually where the derail was, there was nobody on the chair at that time, which probably played a role into why it came off, because there was no weight on the chair," Moore said.
Andrezej Socha was skiing nearby the derailed lift. "I knew some people who were on it and it sounded like it kind of would have been fun," he said.
"Some people were a little scared, but everybody did great, everybody was a super good sport about it," Moore added.
Fun for some, but I'd say most people wouldn't want to see that happen again. Smuggs does monitor the weather and shuts lifts down from time to time because of wind, but a chair lift derailing is uncommon.
"This is the first rope evac that Smugglers' has had in 20 years," Moore said.
So while it clearly doesn't happen very often, Smugglers' Notch was prepared.
Fortunately for the skiers and riders who were stuck at the top, the temperatures weren't too terrible... they were in the mid 20's.
Eventually all of the lifts were closed though yesterday, because the wind was just so intense.
