Despite evacuations of a gondola at Winter Park and a lift at Telluride last month, along with several recent incidents of people falling from chairlifts, accidents related to mechanical failures are exceedingly rare, according to the state agency that regulates and inspects ski resort lifts.

More than 180 people were evacuated from the Winter Park gondola on Dec. 21 when a metal beam on a lift tower broke. Three days later a small component failure on a lift at Telluride halted operation of the lift, according to the Colorado Passenger Tramway Safety Board. Some riders were evacuated while repairs were made; others unloaded the lift normally after it was repaired and resumed operation.

In addition, five riders, most of them snowboarders, have fallen from lifts since the beginning of the season in Colorado, but the tramway board said they don’t appear to have been caused by lift malfunctions. Normally at this point in a ski season, there have been three or four. In the 2014-15 season, there were eight.

Colorado resorts have averaged more than 13 million skier days annually since 2018.

The last fall resulting from a lift malfunction — rather than another cause — in Colorado occurred in December 2016 when a 40-year-old mother and two daughters fell from a lift at Granby Ranch after the chair they were riding slammed into a lift tower. The mother died from the fall.

That was the only fall in Colorado resulting from a lift malfunction in the past 39 years, according to the tramway board, and it was the first fatality related to lift malfunction in the U.S. since 1993.

Winter Park officials haven’t issued a formal statement about the gondola evacuation, but they did disseminate information in real-time via a resort blog. The broken component, called an evener beam, was repaired the next day and the lift resumed operation the day after.

“Representatives from the office of the Colorado Passenger Tramway Safety Board and the lift manufacturer were here throughout the investigation, repair and testing,” the blog stated in a post reporting the reopening of the lift. “They were here within hours of the incident and have been on-site over the last three days. Representatives from the (U.S. Forest Service) have also been on-site to review the process. A thorough inspection of the issue has been conducted, and representatives from the office of the Colorado Passenger Tramway Safety Board and lift manufacturer concur on the component failure.”

Colorado lifts are inspected by the tramway board two to four times annually, depending on hours in operation. The Winter Park gondola is inspected three times a year, most recently in October.

“The Colorado Passenger Tramway Safety Board currently believes the Dec. 21 incident at Winter Park Resort is isolated,” the board said in a statement, “but out of an abundance of caution, all lifts with similar evener beams are currently required to be inspected weekly until further notice while the board and lift manufacturer Leitner-Poma conduct additional analysis and testing. A report is expected to be finalized either at the board’s February or May quarterly meeting.”

Winter Park compensated those who were stuck on the gondola with two lift tickets and a $10 resort voucher.

In an email, Winter Park spokeswoman Jen Miller said lift maintenance teams check every lift daily before the resort opens, adding that the ski patrol holds “active lift evacuation trainings” at least twice a year.

“The trainings include on-the-ground work, practicing climbing the towers, hooking onto the cables, sliding down and entering the cabins and lowering guests to the ground,” Miller said. “We have volunteer ‘evacuees,’ too, so patrol can train with real people. The patrol also holds weekly and monthly refresher trainings and check-ins on evacuation procedures and other safety protocols.”

Tramway board inspectors are required to be professional engineers registered in the state. Currently, there are eight.

“Prior to licensing each year, every lift undergoes a visual and audible inspection of mechanical and electrical systems to verify the equipment is in proper working order and to verify the lift performance meets the applicable standards,” according to an email provided by tramway board spokesman Lee Rasizer. “A further unannounced inspection is performed on each lift each operating season that looks at the operation, training of lift operators, training of maintenance personnel, and training of ski patrol and evacuation procedures in the case a lift evacuation is required.”

Ski area officials are typically tight-lipped regarding lift falls and accidents. Regarding two falls at Breckenridge, three days apart on the Beaver Run SuperChair, the resort simply confirmed that two men fell and were transported to the Breckenridge Medical Center on Peak 9. The same was true in the Keystone incident, except that the “guest” was transported to St. Anthony Hospital in Lakewood.

According to the tramway board, one of the Breckenridge falls resulted in a broken clavicle and a “likely concussion” following a fall of 37 feet, while the other fall was about 30 feet. The tramway board said the Keystone incident, which occurred on the Ruby Lift, resulted in “serious injury.” In at least two of those incidents, the safety bar intended to prevent falls had not been lowered.

At Eldora on Nov. 8, a snowboarder fell from a chair after leaning forward to adjust a binding, the tramway board said. Last week, a snowboarder at Copper Mountain was “scooting forward to prepare to unload the lift,” according to the board, when the person slid from the chair after raising the restraint bar.

Colorado Ski Country USA, a trade association that represents most of the state’s resorts, has instructions on its website on how to ride lifts safely. In a statement, Ski Country chief executive Melanie Mills noted that those instructions include using restraint bars.

“Once seated on a lift, sit with your back against the backrest and lower the restraint bar after alerting your fellow lift passengers,” Mills said. “Riding a lift is not the time to adjust your gear or turn around to talk to someone in the chair behind you. Stay seated. Face forward. Bar down. As you approach the top lift terminal, raise the bar when the signage tells you to do so, not before.”