BILLINGS — A Wyoming ski blogger discussed the safety modifications made this summer at Red Lodge Mountain pertaining to the Triple Chair Lift.
In March of 2025, 37-year-old Jeff Zinne was killed by accidental blunt force after being knocked from the lift due to erratic winds.
Watch this video to hear about the safety upgrades:
The Triple Chair never reopened last season following that incident, but Red Lodge Mountain announced on Friday that it will be operating when the mountain opens up in a couple of weeks after making safety changes.
Peter Landsman, a Wyoming ski blogger, spoke with MTN on Monday afternoon about those changes, which include the reinforcement of towers and haul ropes, as well as the installation of more wind speed monitors, called anemometers, on the lift.
"It's clear that they worked hard this summer to make sure that visitors are safe," Landsman said. "It sounds like they've added a lot of the anemometers down the line so you can see what the lift is doing, not just at the very top but also down the line both in direction and speed."
Landsman said that is especially important in this situation.
"It's a very long lift," Landsman said. "You can't see the whole line from either the bottom or the top."
Landsman said that lifts will often have the anemometers at either the top or bottom, and he added that it is encouraging that Red Lodge Mountain is adding additional anemometers in the middle of the lift.
According to the statement posted to Facebook by the Red Lodge leadership team, experts were involved in the safety changes.
“We involved independent experts, including professional weather forecasters and structural engineers, and have taken steps not only to repair, but also to add redundant safety measures to the triple chair," officials at the ski resort wrote.
Landsman said he is confident in the lift going forward, but he added that he was surprised that restraint bars for each chair weren't mentioned in the statement.
"I think in a perfect world, every ski resort operator would want as many of the chairs on their mountain to have restraint bars on as many of their chairs as possible,” Landsman said.
All lifts built today are required to have restraint bars, although adding them to the Triple Chair lift would have been expensive.
"I'm guessing they looked at it and they weren't able to do it for this year, but I wouldn't be surprised if at some point this lift gets restraint bars," Landsman said.
Landsman added that Zinne's death was a tragedy.
"This one was just such an unfortunate confluence of circumstances," Landsman said. "Mr. Zinne was in the wrong place at the wrong time."
MTN did speak with Jack Moore, Red Lodge Mountain marketing director, over the phone, and he said a resort official would be more prepared to speak to the safety upgrades next week.
