Home »
Northstar Quad Chair closed for repair at KAR
Kimberley Alpine Resort (KAR) reports its main passenger lift, the Northstar Quad Chair, is currently being repaired and will be offline for about a week.
KAR noted on social media Jan. 2, “Unfortunately we’ve run into a problem with the Northstar Quad Chair. We had a full rebuild done on our gearbox less than two years ago, but we recently heard a strange noise coming out of it, so we stopped loading public this afternoon, our lift maintenance team investigated, and they found that we had a bearing failure in the gearbox. We therefore had to make the difficult decision to shut the chair down to prevent further damage.
“We have our team on this and industry experts are inbound to help us, but unfortunately this means that we will not be able to run the Northstar Quad Chair until it gets fixed. Our current best estimate is that this may take a week or more to get repaired. We understand this will be very challenging for many people living in and visiting the community, but please know we are already doing our best to get it up running safely as soon as possible.”
The resort said its plan is to get people skiing and riding in any way it can.
The Easter and Tamarack chairs are still running for anybody interested in skinning or walking up the Ridgeway Road.
“We ask that people only skin up Boundary and/or Ridgeway, not elsewhere on the mountain, so that we are not mixing up and down traffic. We estimate that it is about 300 metres up from the maintenance yard to where you can slide down to the Tamarack base. We hope to have a BBQ going at the top of the Easter Chair,” the resort outlined on Facebook.
Guest and visitors should also know: lift tickets will be sold at a reduced rate; the Owl T-Bar and Magic Carpet will be running regular hours today; skiing/riding will be free for season pass holders and KAR lift ticket holders at KAR’s sister RCR resorts of Fernie, Kicking Horse, and Nakiska until the NS Quad starts running again.
Please go straight to lift with your KAR season pass. KAR lift ticket holders please go to the ticket window to exchange your ticket before going to the lift line.
Please contact Guest Services with any ticket questions you might have, including if you have a pre-purchased ticket for any of the days affected by this shut down.
“Once again we apologize for this. Hopefully we will see you up on the backside, or at one of our sister resorts tomorrow,” KAR stated.
Kimberley Alpine Resort photo
e-KNOW
