Whitehorse ski hill chairlift benched again

Staff at Whitehorse's Mount Sima ski hill have parked the chairlift againdue to another problem to plague the lift.

The chairlift has been experiencing electrical surges, but no one's exactly sure why, outdoor operations manager Jodie McCutcheon said Friday.

"It's not quitting or knocking out or anything like that. It's just surging," McCutcheon told CBC News.

"It's not making us feel very confident with people on the chair and it doing that. So until we can identify the problem further, I think it's best if we just go to the T-bar again."

Mount Simaremained open on Friday, and McCutcheon said there is a 25 per cent discount off lifttickets.

But some skiers and snowboarders have become frustrated with the recent string of problems with Mount Sima's chairlift.

"I'm always amped to go, but a lot of the time I'll call the information line and there's something like, 'It's too cold' or 'Something else is broken again,' and then you wait for six weeks for it to be fixed and it doesn't," said Whitehorse snowboarder Nick Guillen.

"It's kind of annoying and inconvenient. I'd never buy a season's pass; five-day, maybe, but nothing bigger than that."

When Mount Sima opened for the season on Dec. 4, more than 100 people had to be rescued from the chairlift when it suddenly stopped and would not restart.

Officials with the Great Northern Ski Society, the non-profit group that runs Mount Sima, said a circuit-board failure prevented both the main electrical motor and the diesel backup power from running.

A new electrical cable was installed by Dec. 17, but staff chose not to operate it that day because it was too cold for people to take the long ride up.

There was also a problem with the chairlift late Thursday, but it had been fixed.