How staff at Sask.‘s Mission Ridge Winter Park evacuate a chairlift during an emergency

Mission Ridge Outside Operations Manager Owen Smith belay's an evacuee from a chairlift as part of the ski hill's annual training. (DonovanMaess/CTVNews)

Fort Qu'Appelle, Sask. — The staff at Mission Ridge Winter Park in Fort Qu’Appelle, Sask. are prepared for something they hope never happens, having to fully evacuate their chairlift due to a mechanical failure.

“This is the worst-case scenario,” ski hill business manager Anders Svenson told CTV News. “It’s something you want to train for just in case.”

Hill employees receive the training annually.

Svenson says their chairlift nicknamed “Big John” has been at Mission Ridge for about 12 years. Never, has the lift failed to the point of needing to execute a full evacuation.

“We’ve been really close one time,” he said. “It is not something that happens frequently at all.”

“We’ve got backup systems for our backup systems to make sure that we can unload that chairlift without doing the evacuation,” Svenson added.

If it ever did need to happen, the staff are ready.

Svenson says the process is quite simple.

A highly trained staff member throws a belay rope over the line of the lift to the persons on the chair. They are then anchored to the ground by two other hill employees.

At the end of the rope, is a small chair, which the guest gets underneath them.

The person on the chair then wiggles off the chair, always counter-weighed by the staff member on the ground.

They are then gently lowered to the ground to safety.

“The [staff] doing this are people on our team who have been here literally [decades],” Svenson said. “They’ve got the professional training that we’ve taken and subsequently train our team to equip them to handle it.”

Mission Ridge can also evacuate multiple chairs at once.

“You can get it done quickly so the guests who are up there getting evacuated are looked after,” Svenson added.

And while staff are prepared, Svenson also has some reminders for skiers in the event an evacuation must take place.

“If something like that were to ever happen in real life, just [try] to stay calm,” he reiterated. “Keep your safety guard down and have faith in our teams to get you down safe.”

Other safety tips

Despite all the measures Mission Ridge has in place to keep guests safe, Ski Canada’s alpine safety code puts the responsibility of safety on the skier or boarder on the hill.

“Skiing does have its inherent dangers,” said local ski patrol director Wesley Pierce.

Pierce has been skiing for more than 20 years and has some reminders for riders – new and experienced.

“You want to be in control,” he said. “It’s very important and just like driving. You want to be in control so that you don’t hurt yourself or somebody else.”

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“Our body’s natural thing to do when we walk down a hill is to lean backwards,” Peirce said. “Whereas skiing, you need to lean forward downhill to put pressure on your skis. That’s why most people end up falling.”

Pierce says less than one per cent of guests end up at his first aid shack at the bottom of the hill.

However he still highly encourages those new to skiing and snowboarding to take a lesson to get the basics down before heading up the lift.

“[Our] instructors have years of experience and it’s going to help you a lot,” he said. “It’s going to help you create good habits to start with and make sure you have properly fitted equipment.”

Mission Ridge hosts several schools throughout the season every year.

Over the past few years, Pierce and his patrol team have implemented a “ski check” for students to prove they can stop and be in control to avoid obstacles on the hill.

“Since the implementation of the skill check, our incident rate has been cut by two-thirds,” he said. “That’s a big improvement.”

“Our goal is for people to come here and have fun,” Pierce added.