Skilifts.org / SORT Forum

Today @ WP they had to shut every lift down to a lighting storm. How often does that happen @ a ski area during the winter?????

I've had it happen once in four years in the winter. I've had it in the summer to with co-workers out working on the line. The static in the air blew five fuses before I could get them to the bottom.

wow, thats pretty crazy. I dunno how often that happens here in california

haha...at vail it was dumping all day, no lightning though. it actually happens in colorado quite often, although mostly in the spring time. ive been at both copper and loveland when they shut down all of the chairs. it is usually called 'thunder-snow.'
This post has been edited by coskibum: 27 November 2003 - 12:02 PM

Lightning sucks. It destroyed half of the cable position switches on Super Bee this summer. I saw an article last week, actually, on the 'thundersnow' phenomenon. Apparently there are some high-caliber meteorologists studying it this winter.

You think that's bad... One year we had a REALLY bad lightning year... wrecked the drive controls in Paradise, Motherlode, Silverlode and blew the door off the main electrical panel on Red... But it's so old, all it did was wreck the 600v breaker :)

that must have been fun to fix up

we had lightening destroy some of our prox switches on Wasatch this summer as well. And if I remember the electrical dudes were whining because some stuff on Sultan got fried.

If lightning struck a lift while you were riding it, would you be fried?

What happened to Sultan over the summer? Is that part of the reason that it's not open on opening day this year, or is that just because it's never open on opening day ever?

I'm guessing they don't open it on opening day. Many resorts don't open to full capacity or run a lift that already has another lift that goes up tot he same spot.

Unless it's a close (or direct hit) the lightning probably wouldn't hurt you.