Hudson Bay Mountain suffered a five-figure loss after its chairlift stopped working for the majority of last week.
“It’s affected our business quite dramatically and the reason for that is that we had the best snow in probably about three years,” said Chrissy Chapman, resort services manager.
She would not comment on the exact dollar amount she believes they lost in the nine days the lift was non-operational.
“The snow kept coming and with the chair being down, the locals really love that side of the mountain. It’s just longer runs, if you’re an intermediate skier, you really want to be on that side,” she said.
The chairlift that been non-operational since a power outage that forced the mountain to close on Friday, Jan. 30, is the main method of transportation to many of the more advanced runs on the mountain.
All of last week, crews (Frank, Damien and Brandon) and mechanics from Bulkley Valley Electric worked furiously to get the two-kilometre chairlift working again.
It was finally up and running again at noon last Saturday.
According to Frank McBride, manager of hills and trails, there were several problems with the lift.
“We had a bit of a surge when the power went out last week and it affected several components of the chairlift; one of them being a milliamp meter and couple of limit switches which are all part of the safety system,” said McBride.
“It’s kind of part of the brain of the safety system. When it’s not working, nothing works, which was the case . . . It’s a pretty key component.”
The mountain ended up borrowing a milliamp meter from Apex Mountain to get the lift operational again and will return it when the new part arrives so that business is not disrupted again.
The new part is worth $11,000 and they ordered roughly $3,000 worth of switches as well.
“This was an expensive loss for us,” said Chapman.
“Season ticket holders were so awesome. Some people understood and some people didn’t. There was nothing we could have done faster or better.
“We thank the community for our patience, this was completely out of our hands.”