Gone with the winter

A complete ski lift has been dismantled and stolen by theives in the Czech Republic ski resort of Desna. It is currently unclear as to whether the lift will or has been sold for scrap, or if it will be rebuilt elsewhere. This is, to the best of our knowledge, the first time an entire ski lift has been stolen.

Police confirmed to the media that the incident took place last month after the end of the Czech ski season. The whole lift system was stolen, including 3 supporting pylons and 1KM of wire cable. Police have so far failed to find those responsible.

Total damaged is estimated at around the 200,000 crown mark, roughly £6,500.

Desna is a small resort, with just 3 lifts and goes from 760m to 960m. There are floodlights for night time skiing on one of the resort’s blue slopes, as well as several kilometres of cross country skiing. The resort was built back in 2006-07 with finance from the Regional Development Ministry of the Czech Republic and also a grant from the European Union.

Everyone seems to be at a loss as to how those involved were able to dismantle, let alone steal a complete ski lift system without anyone noticing.

The Desna website describes the resort as follows:

“It comprises four ski slopes serviced with a four-seat chair lift and two ski lifts, a car park, a service facility with a restaurant, a snack bar, accommodation, a ski school, a ski rental, a ski service and a water reservoir for artificial snowing. All ski slopes are artificially snowed with technical snow and regularly groomed with groomers.”

This is a story we’ll keep an eye on, purely because we would like to know how the people responsible were able to steal an entire ski lift!

skipad.co.uk
May 16, 2012
Source: PlanetSki