Family reaches resolution after death of snowboarder at Red Lodge during high winds in 2025

“Jeff sustained severe injuries as a result of this impact before ultimately falling to the ground,” the press release stated.

He died two days later on March 12, 2025. The press release said the involved parties are moving forward with a commitment to honoring the local husband and dad’s memory and improving safety at the resort.

“Since the tragic events of 2025, Red Lodge Mountain has taken steps to reinforce certain lift towers and to add additional anemometers along the chairlift involved in these events,” the press release stated. “All parties recognize the profound loss suffered and the lasting impact of this tragedy. It is their hope that this resolution allows space for healing and a focus on the future, while never forgetting what was lost.”

The three-paragraph statement said no further details would be shared and implied no guilt on the part of Red Lodge. Furthermore, the case charging negligence of Red Lodge was never filed. It isn’t clear what prompted the issuing of the press release on July 20, though it wished "to clarify the circumstances of the incident" from a year and a half ago. 

Claims arising from the death were settled before entering litigation on or around April 17, 2026. That’s according to another lawsuit related to a complicated insurance dispute filed around the incident. It offers additional details around the charges made by the Zinne family against Red Lodge Mountain and related parties before the resolution was reached. 

The complaint alleged that Red Lodge knew of the dangerous winds on March 10, 2025. Many lifts were put on hold that day until the Triple Chair Lift was the only one left operating. That lift, built in 1973, had struggled in recent days, the complaint stated.

“They knew it had recently deroped — multiple times in the 10 days before. They knew a wind gust earlier that morning had blown a chair into Tower 19,” attorney Joe Cook wrote in a March document that has been made publicly available in the insurance dispute.

Yet Red Lodge Mountain kept the lift running anyways. An updated April document by Cook described a full evacuation of the lift in January 2025 due to “operational irregularities” and also noted structural fatigue, bearing wear and cracking on towers.

“Defendants chose a monitor vs. repair or replace strategy,” Cook stated.

The complaint further alleged that Red Lodge Mountain had deferred repair or replacement of fatigued components and actively maintained a policy that would discourage early shutdowns of the resort because of refund costs.

No other wind gusts were recorded as high all week, with employees monitoring the wind effects between towers that day. The complaint stated that the monitoring was needed to keep the lift running that day. After Zinne was loaded up as a single rider on Triple Chair around 11:45 a.m., a high velocity gust hit the chairs. It proceeded to detach the rope, like the press release stated, with a piece of the ski lift collapsing and hitting Zinne.

The complaint noted a lack of comprehensive real-time wind monitoring across spans of the lift, though the press release seemed to attest to Red Lodge working to correct that since the incident. The press release did not imply any guilt from Red Lodge Mountain.

Fatal accidents on ski lifts are fairly rare. Since 1973 to 2024, the National Ski Areas Association reported 16 fatalities from nine mechanical ski lift malfunctions.