page_title: Whistler Blackcomb
section_title: Harmony Express grip failure, February 18, 2009
hierarchical_section_title: Whistler Blackcomb / Incidents / Harmony Express grip failure, February 18, 2009
caption_attribution_description: English: Detail of chairlift crossarm end showing haul rope, sheave train, cable catchers and brittle bar on a Doppelmayr lift
context_page_description: Whistler Blackcomb is a ski resort located in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada. By many measures it is the largest ski resort in North America and has the greatest uphill lift capacity. It features the Peak 2 Peak Gondola for moving between Whistler and Blackcomb mountains at the top. With all of this capacity, Whistler Blackcomb is also often the busiest ski resort, often surpassing 2 million visitors a year.
  Whistler was originally conceived as part of a bid to win the 1968 Winter Olympics. Although the bid failed, construction started anyway and the resort opened for the first time in January 1966. Blackcomb mountain, originally a separate entity, opened for business in December 1980. The two resorts underwent a period of intense rivalry through the 1980s and 90s, with constant upgrades and improvements that were unseen at other resorts. By the mid-1990s the area was repeatedly named the best resort in many skiing magazines. Intrawest, the BC real estate firm that developed Blackcomb, purchased Whistler in 1997 and fully merged their operations in 2003.
context_section_description: The lift operations team on Whistler's Harmony Express had been experiencing some problems with the lift during the day on Wednesday 18 February 2009. That night, a grooming machine operator found a chair had fallen from the lift at tower 11.
  At the tops of the lift towers are a series of wheels known as sheaves, or sheave trains as there are almost always more than one in a row. Towers typically have two sheave trains, one for the uphill-moving side of the cable loop, and one for the downhill side. Upon inspection the next morning, maintenance crews discovered that the sheave train on the downhill side of tower 11 had failed, and that the sheave had turned into the path of a chair and forced it off the cable. The cause was later determined to be a failed bolt, and all of the bolts were replaced.
  The lift reopened on Sunday, February 22, 2009. The affected chair No. 37 was temporarily removed from operation; it has since been replaced.
caption: Four sheaves make up this lift tower's uphill sheave train. A similar train is off-frame to the left, guiding the cable as it returns downhill.
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