Colorado gondola reopens after piece broke, lifts evacuated in Winter Park

Winter Park's gondola reopened after breaking over the weekend. The popular Colorado ski resort had to shut down the gondola on Saturday after a malfunction and the approximately 175 passengers on it had to evacuate the lifts by climbing down ropes.

The gondola experienced what the resort described as a "mechanical issue" at Tower 1 around 12:15 p.m. on Saturday. Video taken by guests at the resort showed people climbing down the ropes that were used by ski patrol and other staff. Crews from the resort, the Colorado Tramway Safety Board and the gondola's manufacturer worked to investigate the malfunction and repair it through Sunday.

At 1:15 p.m. Monday, Winter Park Resort said in a statement, "all final testing and inspection is complete, and the Gondola is now open to the public."

Skiers were eager to get back on the lift after the two-day closure and several young skiers were seen getting onto the gondola right after it reopened.

Cody Reeves, who was stuck on the Gondola on Saturday, said he's ready to jump back on even after hanging out in one of the cabs for around 3 hours.  

"We were almost at the top and then it just stopped," Reeves said. "Then we saw a bunch of ski patrol coming down and starting to talk to each kind of us."

" We're like 'Oh, man!' We're already we're literally talking about that movie Frozen or whatever it with the people on the ski lifts and like 5 minutes before that."

Reeves said he didn't even consider the risk he could have been until he was out of the cab and saw the crack in the part. He said he's got full confidence in the repair and he's glad he got off the gondola without incident, along with the other 173 people who were rescued safely.

"It kind of looks like it was going to fall apart and the wires were going to the cables were going to go flying,"  Reeves said.  "But I didn't even really think about anything like that until after I saw the pictures of what it actually happened. "

The new part was installed by crews after it was retrieved from Grand Junction, and crews checked the entire Gondola line cab by cab, tower by tower, and confirmed by the Colorado Tramway Safety Board. The lift normally moves around 3,600 people per hour between its 75 cars.

"Winter Park Ski Patrol are an incredible group," Derek Petrie, who was at Winter Park during the malfunction, told CBS News Colorado. "They worked quickly and with a calm professionalism to get dozens of people down the mountain. Heroes!"

The Colorado Tramway Safety Board will continue investigating the incident, which Winter Park Resort says stemmed from a component failure, and release its findings at a later date.