Crystal Mountain to auction off chairs destroyed in massive avalanche

Crystal Mountain says it plans to auction off the chairs destroyed by a massive avalanche Monday when the Ski Patrol brought down far more snow than planned in an intentionally triggered slide.

But it’ll be awhile.

General Manager John Kircher said in a statement on Wednesday that even though the demand is overwhelming, they won’t be getting rid of the chairs anytime soon. “We are still dealing with the aftermath of this loss.”

The avalanche happened at 4:45 p.m. Monday after the resort had closed, said marketing director Tiana Enger.

Ski Patrollers threw a 40-pound explosive on unstable snow as a safety precaution on a slope known as the Throne in the High Campbell basin. That set off a 30 feet deep slide that hit the High Campbell chairlift, knocking the lower terminal off its foundation and toppled one of about 10 towers, Enger said.

“That got a bigger result than any of us anticipated,” Enger said. “Luckily no one was injured.”

The resort was planning to replace the aging lift at some point soon, and will now put a new lift in its place this summer.

“It is what it is. We were going to do it anyway, so it just moved it up on the list,” Enger said.

The High Campbell lift carried skiers about 1,000 feet to an elevation of 6,872 feet at the top. The terrain around the lift will remain closed for the remainder of the season.

“There’s not much we can do now. This spring we’ll wait for the snow to melt and start to clean it up. It’s a pretty amazing sight to see. The pictures don’t really do it justice,” she said.

If you want to get on the list for a High Campbell chair, you can email the main office at Crystal Mountain: mainoffice@skicrystal.com.

“You know there’s a lot of people who want a piece of that history. We’ve had the lift here since 1980. We will likely announce in the next 24 hours how we want to auction it off,” she said.