East River Lift back up after temporary closure due to rare part failure

Control work taking place on the Banana and in Phoenix/Spellbound

By Alissa Johnson

Lift issues occured at Crested Butte Mountain Resort this week in East River. A rare part failure kept the lift down overnight, starting Monday, January 18, but the lift is back up and running.

“Yesterday’s issue was a failure to the component in the high voltage drive cabinet (the manufacturer has actually only seen this happen one other time) and nothing related to scheduled maintenance,” said Erica Mueller, the resort’s director of innovations and relations, by email.

Parts needed to be ordered from Grand Junction in order to make the repair, and ski patrol had to close down East River.

“Our lift maintenance team did an incredible job with responding to the mechanical/electrical fault, getting the rare parts from Grand Junction and working extremely hard to troubleshoot and fix the difficult to find issue.

“Ski patrol did a great job closing down the East River pod quickly and efficiently as well,” Mueller continued.

On Tuesday, ski patrol conducted control work, including hand charges, on the Banana. In addition to working on the west side, Mueller says they have been working in Phoenix/Spellbound as well.

In terms of openings, Mueller doesn’t expect new terrain to open up any time soon.

“It is all snow dependent and we need more snow,” Mueller said.