46 replies to this topic

[Kicking Horse]

What are some of things that scare the crap out of you on a lift?


Today I was riding the Timberline chair. after the 2nd tower the chair started to swing from side to side as if the cable was twisting. The other chair rider got really scared and asked me if it was normal. And i said no it's not. After the 3rd tower everything settled down. Idk what was up. And i don't know if that's normal or not for that lift. I don't ever remember it doing that.


(timerline @ winter park)

This post has been edited by Kicking Horse: 11 December 2005 - 06:29 PM

[SkiBachelor]

I've never really exeperienced anything scary while on a lift before but today at Brundage I noticed that the exit sheave at the lower station on the contennial triple chair was really loose. It was wobbling and inch side to side as the haul rope passed over it. I told the lift operator to have it checked out and he didn't even know what a sheave was. This might be normal but I have never seen this before.

[edmontonguy]

Twisting, i find is a rather common happening on older lifts. Most of the experiences i've had were on very fast doubles, and the twisting is probably a by product of loading procedure as usually the lift operator has to really man handle the chair into place. Most of the major swinging seems to stop fairly quickly but i think as you reach the middle of the unsupported span past the second tower the chair will start to twist mildy again as there are tortions on the rope caused by the chairs behind you. I don't know if that's the real reason but it's just an educated guess. On the Falcon Chair at Big White there is a section with 2 depression sheave trains in a row, and as it is an older Doppelmayr chair the sheaves give a very bumpy ride, what was interesting, was that the com line between the two towers was the right length to set up a wave and so the whole com line bounces fairly noticably over that section.

[floridaskier]

I was riding the Ruby HSQ at DV in the early morning with my brother and as we were accelerating out of the bottom terminal, something happened that made a loud rubbery squeak, like our chair got stuck on something for a second then jerked back forward. We swung forward a lot and then went on for an otherwise normal ride. It wasn't scary, just surprising, and it was over before I registered that something had happened. The lift operator looked up but didn't do anything, and nothing shut down the lift, so I guess it was no big deal

Another time, not a lift-related thing but a weather thing. Empire lift at DV in a pretty hard snow. It hadn't been windy on the ride up but on the breakover when we came even with the top, we got hit with a blast of wind coming straight down the line. We swung back pretty hard. Scary because we didn't expect it

[skiersage]

SkiBachelor, on Dec 11 2005, 09:44 PM, said:

I've never really exeperienced anything scary while on a lift before but today at Brundage I noticed that the exit sheave at the lower station on the contennial triple chair was really loose. It was wobbling and inch side to side as the haul rope passed over it. I told the lift operator to have it checked out and he didn't even know what a sheave was. This might be normal but I have never seen this before.

Cameron,
are you talking about the exit idler sheave? Because on ctec lifts, the idler sheave is on an extended axle and when the chair exits from coming around the bullwheel, the idler sheave is allowed to move laterally on its axle. and it most often will move about an inch and then go back to normal.

[SkiBachelor]

It very well could be a Garaventa CTEC thing since I don't ride a lot of thier fixed grip lifts. However, Riblet lifts have this same type of setup and I've never seen the sheave move like that before. The entry idler sheave wasn't moving though when I looked at it.

[Allan]

The guide sheaves on or Thiokol move sideways an inch or so when the chair leaves the bullwheel. It does do it on the incoming side, but not as nearly as pronounced. A picture, you can see the extended axle sticking out the right of the sheave. I really haven't had anything too scary riding lifts either.

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This post has been edited by Allan: 11 December 2005 - 08:18 PM

[poloxskier]

The wost experience I have had was on the falcon at Breck. It was due to weather, extremely high winds and on most towers we were banging into the tower guides. That was scary only because I was younger. When I was at Vail and rode the Riva Bahn for the first time I was suprised by how high the lift was off the ground. It wasnt really scary but it just kinda suprised me since it was very sudden.

[Jonni]

So far the scariest thing was being the top opp on our HSQ and seeing a chair not attach back to the haul rope properly on the departure side of the terminal, resulting in the chair getting thrown out on to the trail below. That was terrifying! Needless to say after almost breaking the stop button from hitting it so hard, we slowly evaced the lift under it's own power and all grips underwent inspection over the next two days. It happened during the week and the situation was kept really quiet to avoid bad press.

Next scariest thing would have to be seeing a parent push a kid off of the chair about 100 feet too early at the top station and have the kid fall while still being 30 feet above the ground. I still have bad dreams to this day after that happened. Other than that I haven't had anything really scary happen while riding a lift. The only thing this past weekend that put me on edge was while I was foreman of one of our triple chairs. Lift Maintenance came over and quietly told me, be prepared to couple up and run the auxilary because we are having random power fluxuations all over the mountain.

[vons]

I had a kid fall off t-rex at copper last year between towers 13-14 unfortunatly this is below a roll in the hill so up top we didn't even know, until the chair unloded and waved at us. The kid was O.K but man that was a wild day because Superbee also had a man fall out between towers 3-4 it just had ski patrole stressed out and managment tenced. Worst day operating I had was on Excelerator the wind was insaine and gusts were strong enough to stop the chairs as they moved around the contor not to mention having to slow or stop if a gust caught an incomeing chair and sent it sideways.
Running on Aux is no big if the power is out wack or nonexistant most of the quads can run for days on diesel. It may seem odd but it can be quite common depending on how good the power the utility provides in your area. Some resorts even run on diesel to move there peak electric load to off peak times and save money.

[spunkyskier01]

scariest thing ever was hitting the tower on a riblet double chair, the halo wasnt on the tower for what ever reason. my freind lost his ski poles

[liftmech]

Scariest time I've prbably ever had on a lift was at Hyak on the old chair 1 (Dinosaur). About halfway up the front side there was a very long span, and if the lift stopped you'd bounce way down and then way back up. When you're eight years old that gets pretty intense.

[Lift Kid]

The scariest thing to ever happen to me was at Breckenridge over the summer. I was riding the Colorado Super Chair with my mountain bike. The lift stopped at the depression sheave assembly in the middle of the line. At first I thought it was a normal stop. Then after about 20 minutes the lift started again. I asked the operator what was wrong and he said that an alarm went off somewhere along the line. He said they had it all fixed. Also, at Buck Hill in Minnesota, I was in line for the main quad chair (a Hall Quad the year before Dopplmayr CTEC Upgraded the System) when an alarm went off. The lift stopped via Emergency Brake (heard brake close on Bull Wheel in Drive Station). Ice build Up cause an alarm to go off. I felt horrible for the operator. It was his first year at the hill. He, along with the maitenence manager had to climb up tower #4. The tower was the depression sheave tower pretty close to the base of the lift. It was just scary watching it all happen.

Oh yeah. I forgot about riding the Colorado Super Chair at Breckenridge when the afternoon thunder storm hit. The minute we lef the lower station, the operators phone rang and he stopped letting chairs board. About half way through the line, the lift sped up. It all happened so fast that it was actually kind of scary.(I have never even seen a lift that was going as fast as the super chair) My gosh, we got to the top quickly!!!

[edmontonguy]

About a year back while riding one of the two parallel t-bars at Rabbit Hill (local) one of the lifts had a problem with a compression assembly, these lifts stop VERY frequently as there are a lot of novice skiers using them so there are a lot of falls. This time i thought it was a regular stop until i heard a quad start up and head up the hill to the first depression tower. The cable must have jumped on the sheave as it didn't derail but had set off the sensor. Needless to say everyone got off the lift and either skiied down the line or hiked up the rest of the lift. They got out a ladder to inspect the sheave, but the lift was running a short time later so i assume it can't have been a major problem.

[ski9600]

Scariest ever for me was my first ever chairlift ride at Hyland Hills, MN. After 4 (at least) years riding ropes and t-bars I rode a double chair with my neighbor across the street who was at least 2 years older ( Mike Mapes) and a nordic jumper who faked pushing me out of the chair once we were up. It scarred me forever!

[ceo]

The two times that come to mind were both on the same very windy day at Cannon. It gets windy up there with some regularity, but this was about as bad as I've seen it. Last run up the tram, between Tower 3 and the summit terminal, the wind was blowing so hard it set up an oscillation in the track ropes, so that as we came off the tower, the car started juddering violently from side to side. I've ridden that thing a few times a year ever since it was built, and I'd never felt that before and hope never to again. The operator backed us up halfway onto Tower 3, where we sat for a minute until the ropes stopped whipping up and down, and then we showly crept up to the terminal. Tram didn't go much of anywhere after that; you know it's a mite breezy when they put the tram on wind hold.

So then, I swung by the bottom of the Cannonball Express summit quad. (which, despite its name, is fixed-grip; when they replaced the old Peabody Chair with a detachable quad, I thought it should continue to be the Peabody Chair, for consistency, but it's the Peabody Express. Nobody ever listens to me. Anyway.) The Cannonball was still running, and being the foolish sort I am, I got on it. Being not a complete idiot, I waited for some ballastcompany before getting on. Up at the top, it was still blowing a good clip, and we started swinging merrily. The summit operator had to stop the lift before we reached each tower (we were the only loaded chair on the line), wait for the swinging to die down a bit, and creep us past so we wouldn't hit the tower. Got off at the top and the lift ground to a halt behind me.

Only time I've seen it windier was once at Sugarloaf, when they had to put the Bateau T-bar on wind hold because you couldn't stand up at the top.

This post has been edited by ceo: 13 December 2005 - 06:21 PM

[Dawson]

Scariest on a lift - riding a chair here is Aus in very high cross-winds that pushed the cable out of the sheave liner centres 3/4 the way up the line. The sound of metal grip on 8 metal sheaves way enough to make me want to get off really fast!

Scariest I've seen on a lift - electricity tracing along the lift cable and arcing down the tower during a big electrical storm. Not much fun being near the drive when that is happening. And the lift was spinning!

[SidBurn]

I agree, riding the Timberline lift @ WP is always a terrifying experience, since it's always windy as hell. Hasn't WP ever heard of surface lifts?

[ssstturns]

Responses are all in the vein of something damaging happened to the lift. For me the worst thing I've experienced is not when the lift had a problem but rather when power to all lifts and the whole resort died. Like on a frigid storm skiing day just when we were near the top of the exposed ridge and way above the ground where jumping off would not have been much of an option. Having to sit on a chair while high storm winds and snow are freezing one to a piece of ice is a horrible experience. After about fifteen minutes waiting for a lift to start back up anyone in that kind of situation is wondering if they are going to freeze to death. It is surprising it hasn't happened more in the ski industry than it has.

dave

[liftmech]

Why is that surprising?