The chair lift at Mount Sima is now set to open for business on Friday.

The hill announced last week that the lift would reopen today.

Earlier this week, however, the date was delayed a day.

Craig Hougen, president of the Great Northern Ski Society (which oversees the hill's operations), said the new electrical cable for the chair lift had been delayed and did not arrive until yesterday. Mount Sima management wants a minimum 36 hours for testing.

"The point is that we want 36 hours for testing. We're going to install the cable (Wednesday) morning. In theory, we could open on Thursday, but it won't give us the time for testing that we want,” Hougen said.

He said the number of hours was arbitrary.

Most important, he added, was doing it right.

"We want to thoroughly test it before we start. I don't think we need anywhere near that much time, but we're going to err on the side of caution,” Hougen said.

"We've already been running it with a cable around the existing cable. But when we put the cable in, just out of prudence, we're going to run it for a couple of days, we're going to test it in every type of configuration, and then we're going to open (the chair lift) on Friday.”

The new posted hours for kicking off the Christmas holiday will be: today, tow rope and t-bar only; Dec. 17–Jan. 2 (except Christmas Day), full operations – including the chair lift.

On Dec. 4, Mount Sima's opening day for the 2010/2011 season, skiers and snowboarders had to be evacuated from the chair lift for the first time in the hill's 17-year history. The electrical cable connecting two control panels shorted two circuit boards, which then automatically engaged all safety systems tied into the lift.

One of those safety systems also prevented the backup diesel motor to start.

"It's kind of behind us now, we're looking forward,” Hougen said. "We're talking about Christmas and we're talking about spring camps and kids camps and all that kind of stuff. It's behind us. We've learned a few things, but it's behind us, and the guys are not really thinking about the past any more.”

He added, "We want to start looking forward, get the lift up and running and talk about Christmas.”