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Steamboat Springs — Steamboat Ski and Resort Corp. officials are optimistic the Storm Peak Express chairlift will be up and running today.

A faulty gear connection caused the high-speed quad to break down Friday morning, stranding 65 skiers at various points along its length. Ski patrollers rescued the stranded riders using ropes and harnesses.

After isolating the cause of the breakdown, ski area officials located the parts Friday and Saturday needed to fix the lift. One of the parts - a gear connector - was picked up Saturday at Big Mountain Ski Resort in Whitefish, Mont. On short notice, Steamboat Springs resident Bob Maddox, who owns Mountain Flight Services, piloted a King Air twin turbo prop to Glacier Park International Airport to retrieve the part, said Andy Wirth, vice president of sales and marketing for Ski Corp.

"It's a very specialized part and hard to come by because this doesn't happen very often," said Doug Allen, vice president of mountain operations for Ski Corp. Big Mountain "had recently rebuilt a similar gearbox and had the part in stock."

The part arrived in Steamboat early Saturday evening, and Ski Corp. crews were on hand to pick it up and take it to the ski area to begin the repairs. Allen said he was hopeful the lift would be operational Saturday night or today.

The lift stopped working when a connector between two of the lift's gears malfunctioned, Allen said. All the lift's gears are routed through the same gearbox, so one malfunctioning gear connector can shut down an entire lift, he said.

"It appears (the gear) wore out prematurely," Allen said. "It is impossible for us to speculate right now exactly what happened."

Storm Peak Express was installed in 1992 and has since been rebuilt "once or twice," Allen said.

As many as eight Ski Patrol crews worked different sections of Storm Peak Express to evacuate the 65 stranded skiers and snowboarders. The last riders were rescued a little more than three hours after the lift stopped operating. Allen said the rescue operation didn't begin until it was determined there was no other way to get the riders down.

"It actually took us about an hour to troubleshoot the problem because we wanted to make darn sure that that was our last resort," he said.

No injuries were reported as a result of the lift breakdown. Stranded riders were given a free lunch and a one-day lift ticket.

Saturday's skiers and snowboarders didn't seem too displaced by the shutdown lift and were able to navigate the mountain from other lifts, Allen said.

"It hasn't been too bad," he said. "We've got more ridership on Pony (Express), so we know people are utilizing that."