Six months after someone cut the cable supporting Squamish’s Sea-to-Sky Gondola, causing millions of dollars in damage, the attraction is back up and running.
Operators invited the public back on Valentine’s Day by offering half-price tickets for Family Day weekend.
“It’s finally here. It’s been a short and a long six months. It’s a pretty extraordinary moment for us,” said general manager Kirby Brown.
“The amount of work is hard to quantify, it was just so many hours of very delicate and dangerous work to get us to this point. The entire lift you’re riding on is new in terms of the rope and the cabins.”
The gondola’s 5.2-centimetre haul rope (cable) was deliberately sliced in the early morning hours of Aug. 10, 2019, somewhere in the top third of the gondola route, according to Technical Safety BC.
Brown said the facility was able to get up and running so quickly because the suppliers responsible for replacing the cable and gondola cabins “put us in the front of the line.”
He said the incident was a “devastating blow” financially, but that the company had pulled through with support from its ownership, bank and insurance company.
Squamish RCMP, meanwhile, are investigating the incident as a criminal act of vandalism.
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On Friday, Const. Ashley MacKay said police have continued to work with partners and agencies “both domestic and abroad” to fully analyze the incident.
“I can say that the complexity of this investigation is very onerous and time-consuming for investigators but remains a top priority for us,” said MacKay.
It remains unclear why someone targeted the popular attraction.