Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Gondola re-opening a welcome surprise

Excalibur was inspected same day ice-jacking broke tower in two

While the opening of the Peak 2 Peak Gondola will likely be the highlight of the season, the reopening of the lower section of the Excalibur Gondola on Dec. 24 was no less significant.

The lift was closed on Dec. 16 when a tower broke into two pieces, the result of ice-jacking — ice building up and expanding in the tower. Twelve people were injured in the initial jolt, mostly when two cabins struck the ground in the Benchlands area. All were treated and released by the Whistler Health Care Centre on the same day. The upper section of the lift was reopened a few days later from Base II.

With the help of Doppelmayr, the manufacturer of the lift, the tower was repaired last week and cleared by the B.C. Safety Authority to reopen on Christmas Eve.

“I think it was an amazing effort to turn it around as fast as we did,” said Doug Forseth, senior vice president of operations for Whistler Blackcomb. “That was a combination of factors, that the damage was not too extensive to any of the components and to the guys and girls on our maintenance groups working diligently and putting in many hours to get it reestablished and opened. They worked very, very hard, and I’m proud of what they did and how much effort they gave it.”

Both the bottom and top sections of Tower 4 were reused in the repair, with some modifications. About half a centimetre was cut from the bottom pipe where the flange plate broke away, once it was determined by ultrasonic sound testing that there was no damage. A new flange plate was welded into place to reconnect to the top piece of the tower. Every inch of the haul rope was inspected to ensure that it was undamaged. Some of the shim assemblies on the tower needed to be replaced, and those parts were shipped from the Doppelmayr factory in Quebec.

Forseth says the accident has resulted in Doppelmayr making recommendations for all of its lift towers. The company has directed resorts to drill holes of up to half an inch into their towers that would allow any excess water to drain out, and resorts are being asked to check the holes once a year to ensure that they are free of obstructions.

Whistler Blackcomb’s fix for Tower 4 also removed a hole that was originally placed near the flange to pour in concrete, and may have been responsible for water getting into the tower.

The damaged gondola cabins are still offline and waiting for repairs.

The incident happened at roughly 2:30 p.m. Dec. 16, when people were downloading from Blackcomb. Some 53 people were on the lower section of the gondola, all of whom were evacuated in under three hours by Whistler Fire Services or rope belay systems. The injuries ranged from bumps and bruises to a fractured vertebrae.

Forseth says that lift maintenance did inspect the Excalibur Gondola just before the accident, after an off-duty lift maintenance worker reported that there was something wrong with the tower earlier in the day.

“Lift maintenance dispatched a mechanic there around 1 p.m. or so and he climbed and looked at the tower… (he) didn’t see any issues (with the tower) and the ladder that connected the upper and lower tower was completely normal,” said Forseth.

“He didn’t have the tools he needed to adjust the line so he went to his shop to get his tools, then slowed the lift down to look at the rope alignment. He realigned that and it was running fine, so he climbed down and headed back to Base II. When he got to the spot where the road crossed the (gondola) line, the lift was stopped.”

Forseth said that realignments do happen, and that the tower may only have been listing a degree or two before Tower 4 broke off.

“The ladder seemed just fine, so he didn’t notice that anything was amiss,” said Forseth. “When a tower starts to turn you would expect to see something on the ladder first... He was close to being on the tower when it came apart.”

The Dec. 24 re-opening couldn’t have come at a better time, with the Tube Park opening for the first time on Christmas Day, and the biggest crowds of the season in the days following.

The B.C. Safety Authority investigation into the accident is expected to take several more weeks to complete.

The cause is thought to be ice-jacking, a process that occurs when ice expands in a closed space such as a pipe or bottle. One estimate suggests that the flange on Tower 4 was under 800 tonnes of pressure as temperatures dropped more than 20 degrees below zero in the days before the accident.

Another case of ice-jacking on a lift tower was reported in 2006 when a lift at Silver Mountain, Idaho burst overnight. Following that incident, Doppelmayr sent out an advisory to other resorts to check pipes for water by banging on the side.

Because the Excalibur’s Tower 4 was partially filled with concrete there was no easy test for water. The lift was inspected and certified by the B.C. Safety Authority in October.