Strong winds force Mount Sima to shut early Saturday

Key takeaways: 

• The bunny hill stayed open, but the chairlift was shut down.
• Mount Sima Ski Hill was closed down too. 

Closing down of hills as solid winds hit them: 

The chairlift at a famous Whitehorse ski hill shut early Saturday afternoon due to severe wind circumstances at the top of the mountain.

Jonathan Lindsay, the functions manager of Mount Sima, told this problem usually occurs once a year. 

“We did see some increased wind gusts in the morning, and we checked our top climate reports hourly,” Lindsay stated. Source – cbc.ca

At approximately 4 a.m. on Friday, Lindsay told the climate report reached 101 km/h wind gusts. 

The whole day, it was no less than 70 to 80 km/h.

On Saturday, the wind picked up about noon, and it went nearly immediately from 30 km/h to 80 km/h.

Also read: Constant blizzards prompt state of emergency in Clyde River, Nunavut

“At that time, we just can’t safely put individuals on the chair,” stated Lindsay. Source – cbc.ca

“When the chair begins swinging, we run the danger of chairs running into the towers or individuals not being able to offload safely.” Source – cbc.ca

At 2 p.m., the chairlift was closed down, shutting the entrance to the mountain, but the bunny hill stayed open until 4 p.m.

The shutdown was successful, and no skiers ought to be evacuated, Lindsay stated, contrary to some posts on social media.

However, the team is trained for that case if need be, as Mount Sima workers were just taught evacuations the previous week.

“We put members of the patrol and lift operations team on the chair, and then we go through training scenario of having to take somebody off of the chair just in point. But we haven’t had to take any members of the public off,” stated Lindsay. Source – cbc.ca