Email from WMR today:
Dear Friends and Guests,
We have had a bit of a run with a couple of our chairlifts recently. Thank you to all of you who have been very patient and supportive of our team throughout. We appreciate that support and will continue to work hard for you. That said, we know it is not OK to repeatedly ask for patience and support — that is not lost on us at all.
In the interest of transparency, I want to address a couple of specific issues.
Regarding yesterday's evacuation events, we made the decision to evacuate Chair 4 out of a great deal of concern for the safety of those on the chair. The issue itself was related to the braking mechanisms. From a desire to establish a better baseline from which to operate that chair came the decision to not run that chair today. We will work with the manufacturer's engineers and have that chair open again, and I expect that will happen very soon.
Chair 4 is a brand-new piece of machinery and so I can assure you there are no deferred maintenance issues of any kind. It is a relatively complex chairlift that was manufactured and installed by an industry leader during one of the most difficult years (labor shortage, supply chain issues, etc.) in anyone's memory in the chairlift construction industry. The difficulties of the lift installation season are well documented as some very big household resort names have experienced many of the same things we have. These challenges hampered the comprehensive support and training our manufacturer is accustomed to providing upon opening a chair. However, they are committed to providing that support and two of their engineers are on their way here as I type this note. This should mitigate many of the issues and challenges we have faced thus far with that chair.
There is also the ongoing concern about Chair 2 and the challenges we have faced with that chairlift this year. We fully expect to have that chairlift operational again tomorrow (Friday). That chairlift is in need of a comprehensive mechanical upgrade which we plan to complete this summer. It is not the kind of project that can be undertaken during the season. That lift will run throughout this season but has and will continue to require a great deal of time and energy on the part of our lift mechanics.
That leads me to our lift mechanics. I will not stand for or listen to any questions about their abilities. They are excellent at their jobs. They take a great deal of pride in providing lift access to all of you. As such, they take it personally when things go wrong. That team was dealt a tough hand of cards this season, but they are pros and continue to work their tails off on your behalf.
There are many factors that led into all of the above — some known and many unknown. Nobody at this resort was more aware of those factors than I was. We have had to make a number of difficult decisions this season and I will stand behind all of those decisions and the teams that have had to implement them. That is all to say: If you are looking for a place to point a finger, I'm your guy. Not our lift mechanics, not our guest service staff, not our ski patrol or lift operations team or anyone else.
You are the best ski community there is, and this is not the kind of note I want to be sending to you midseason. On the positive side, the skiing has been fun, we have a lot of it left and we will continue to make it the best possible experience for you.
Sincerely,
Nick Polumbus
President, Whitefish Mountain Resort