Deer Valley ski patrollers had to evacuate skiers from the Carpenter Express chairlift on Friday due to a mechanical failure. Photo: Twitter @_sophieupark

PARK CITY, Utah — At 2:38 p.m. on Friday, Deer Valley’s Carpenter Express Chairlift experienced a mechanical failure. The Mountain Operations Team was unable to get the chairlift moving again and implemented lift evacuation procedures by 3:15 p.m.

Deer Valley staff members from ski patrol, mountain operations, lift maintenance, lift operations, mountain hosts and ski school responded to the incident and evacuated 167 skiers by 5:20 p.m.

“We sincerely apologize to our guests who were impacted by the chairlift failure today and thank them for trusting us to make the best decision for their safety by implementing our evacuation procedures. To our staff that was involved in getting everyone off the chairlift safely, your efforts today were heroic. Your dedication, experience, and training for situations like this were apparent in your gallant effort today. We cannot thank you enough for all you did today and every day,” said Emily Summers, Deer Valley Communications Manager, in a statement.

Was wrapping up a killer powder day @Deer_Valley when ski patrol started evacuating skiers from Carpenter Express chair lift after a mechanical failure. This was about an hour after the lift initially stopped running.

Hope everyone is safe. What a way to spend Christmas Eve. pic.twitter.com/MoUQLUYgZx
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— Sophie Park (she/her) (@_sophieupark) December 25, 2021

The Carpenter Express chairlift is located at Deer Valley’s Snow Park Base and transports skiers to Snow Park area ski runs and provides access to ski runs connecting to the mid-mountain area at Silver Lake.

Deer Valley’s Lift Maintenance team will be onsite through the night to make necessary repairs and will resume operations of the Carpenter Express chairlift tomorrow.

The status of all the chairlifts is communicated daily on deervalley.com.