16 replies to this topic

[RibStaThiok]

This can be your favorite memory from working on them, or riding on them, or seeing something funny happen.

For me it would have to have been about 18 years ago at Snowbasin on the old Middle Bowl lift. It was chugging along at full speed about halfway up the mountain, the Lift Attendant applied the E-Brake for some reason while the person in the chair in front of me had been re-positioning himself in the chair. When the lift quickly stopped he slid forward and fell about 20 feet landing on his side, fortunitly in some deep powder. He managed to get out "Oh " as he fell, which I could not help but to crack up laughing, as well as my seatmate. There was a Ski Patrol guy on the lift a few chairs back who saw it happen and was able to radio for help. The guy ended up being ok, just a few bruised ribs and sore shoulder. He was very lucky as another 200 ft up the mountain he would have fallen into a rocky area.

This post has been edited by RibStaThio: 26 November 2007 - 05:10 PM

[skier691]

Favorite childhood lift memory, about 20+ years ago, we'd ride the 'Baldy' t-bar (Hall) at Mt. Frontenac, MN, but the fun was the steepness of the tow line, and witnessing the speed the ketchup packets would gain before being run over by the next guy.

[Snoqualmie guy]

Mine is last year on Sliver Fir. There we are next chair to the top and some guy at the bottom applied the E-brake. We sat there for at LEAST five minutes in a near blizzard while the top operator tried to phone the bottom to explain how to turn off the brake. I was very tempted to jump off but I didn't. Those lifties didn't last long.

[SkiBachelor]

I saw a lift operator load a person on the opposite side of the loading zone and then start the lift up. As you can imagine, the carrier went flying around the bullwheel and tripped the derail switches. Lift maintenance showed up trying to figure out why the lift wouldn't start and I presume the lift operator never told him about his %#$@ up we waited about 40 minutes at the bottom until the lift mechanic noticed that the breakfork switches were tripped and then he had to go get a ladder and replace them.

[Snoqualmie guy]

That would be both the lifties fault and the mechanics fault I would guess.

[liftmech]

I wouldn't blame the mechanic in that position, the lift op was trying to cover his @$$ and not owning up to the problem.

I always remember the anticipation of nearing the top on any one of several lifts in the Northwest: Crystal's chair 6, Alpental's chair 2, Stevens' 7th Heaven, and such. When I was a kid I didn't ride those upper lifts much and being able to do so was a treat in itself. Of course the skiing was always excellent in rose-coloured hindsight, but I remember the lift rides.

Another standout was riding Hyak's chair 1 at night. Chairs 2 and 3 had the lights on the towers, but for some reason chair 1 didn't. That made the lift ride quite interesting. It'd be pitch black over there on the east side, and one could hear the drive of chair 3 and the skiers on the main pitch. Come to think of it, the back side of chair 1 was the same; the lights were on Hidden Valley and away from the lift.

[Lift Kid]

Well, I have several.

Last winter at Wild Mountain, a couple of friends and myself were skiing the park. My friend gets up to the "high speed" rope tow. He goes up the hill about 10 feet. The tow stops and he just waits, hanging on. I was at the loading zone, and because I know how it works, I didn't grab the rope. So about a minute later, when the lifty up top hit the switch...my friend's arms were just about ripped off. I laughed my @$$ off! He was aching for a while. If you guys have ever ridden one of those, they start-up at full speed and full-force. And those things are pulling pretty dang fast.

About 3 years ago, I was skiing Buck Hill on a Friday night. I was riding the quad up, when I noticed a skier hanging from one of the chairs on the old Hall double. He was about halfway up, when I noticed the ski patrols gathering at the top. The ops were well aware of the problem, however, but were not able to stop the lift. That Hall moved decently fast at 465 FPM, and it had a seriously rough braking system. If the lifts did anything till he was lower to the ground, the guy would have been thrust off. Luckily the poor guy held on till he was at the top. I had to laugh though, as it isn't something you see everyday. I actually saw the guy after the patrol helped him down, and he too was laughing!

Last winter at Afton Alps, I was in line, again with my friends, for chair 6. That lift closes earlier than some of the others, so it has no lights for nighttime. My friend was loading and the lifty up top hit the emergency stop cord, and the bullwheel carriage moved so much at the bottom that the chair slammed into my friend and pushed him into the snow bank. Again, I could not help but laugh. He was fine, and laughed too!

[zeedotcom]

At Heavenly last year, after the one big dump that we got in the Tahoe area, I got a couple of laps down the front side. I got lost and wound up just lookers left of the Gondola (boulder field). I was riding up a couple of hours later with a buddy and was pointing out the general area where I rode. A random person in the cabin with us said "No way, you rode that? That doesn't seem possible."

"Yeah. I did. I went right through....Holy crap, those are my tracks. Those, the only set on this entire side. I guess I'm the only guy dumb enough to cross that ridge."

For some reason, this made me extreme, even though I'm really not. The guy just kept asking questions. It was really nice to see someone who was super excited about it though.

[Carl]

Jan. of '75. JH's Thunder Mueller Double (gee, I just happen to have the Lift's Name Plate, imagine that?)

NCAA Nat's, Downhill Training day. Lift was FULL of big boys, all Downhill Racers. A stop occured then
a rollback began, albeit a very slow rollback. I was going to bail (lots of folks did; thank goodness it was
a "powder day") if the lift accelerated, but it rolled back about 100 feet, slipping through the brakes. It finally
stopped and the word came up the line that an evac. was going to happen. I said good-bye to my riding partner
and told her to hold on tight as I let go and dropped to the soft slope below.

Years later, when working on that same lift I discussed the rollback with the current LM boys. It seems the terminal's
structure wasn't strong enough to transfer the bullwheel brake's clamping force to the side of the bullwheel. The structure
was flexing! An, the Kissling Gearbox did indeed have "rollback dogs" but, for some reason, they did not engage that
day in '75!

Then there was the time the Tram stopped and rolled back up at Tower 5.........

Carl

[iceberg210]

Either one of two

First it was late in the season at Snowbird although the snow was still really good. Nearing the end of the day I was over at the old Peruvian and was doing loops on the various runs right around there. I ran down thinking that maybe I'd get one more run before it closed but they had two sticks up across the entrance as I skied up to it. However the lift was still running and the guy ws just about to send the cone up so he signaled over to me sent me up on the chair before the cone and that is still to this day the only time I've ever gotten last chair. It was even cooler in that Peruvian was one of my favorite lifts of all time.

The other was at Alpental the one time that I've skied it. My dad had always told stories about how Utah was much tougher than where he learned to ski at Snoqualmie pass but that the one resort in the Pass that could rival and in some ways surpass the various steeps of Utah was Alpental. So one winter while visiting family up in Seattle we went skiing at Alpental and I was amazed. The lift ride that was really cool was when we (my dad and I) went up Edelwiess (the top chair) to go ski the runs up there. It was a great snow day with maybe ten inches or so on the ground of fresh powder. Riding up that chair was really cool because I felt like it showed to my dad that I could ski pretty much anything when I immediately went down upper International as soon as we got off the chair. Also the cool loading procedure and such made for a fun wonderful ride. I'm going to have to ski there again this year me thinks now that I live up here.

[Old Timer]

The "Jolly Green Giant" poma (that is platter lift) at Okemo, VT. After high school, I moved from Massachusetts to Ludlow, VT. to teach skiing at Okemo. I had never ridden a poma lift in my life. The Jolly Green had at least a 500 fpm. line speed. If you planned it right and knew the lift operator, preferably Steve Scales, you were able to launch off this thing and gain enough height to do a tip drop. Some of the patrolers and ski instructors would get just about horizional. Great way to do a binding check!!!!!!!! Ask me how I know.

[liftmech]

I've heard other stories like that. We have a platter like that but in this day and age I don't think one could get away with the things people used to. I recall a story my dad told me about running the Upper Poma at Hyak; the operators used to step down on the binding release at the same time they yanked the launch lanyard. The unsuspecting passenger would get tossed, ski-less, up the hill for a good bit.

[skierdude9450]

liftmech, on Dec 1 2007, 08:25 AM, said:

I've heard other stories like that. We have a platter like that but in this day and age I don't think one could get away with the things people used to. I recall a story my dad told me about running the Upper Poma at Hyak; the operators used to step down on the binding release at the same time they yanked the launch lanyard. The unsuspecting passenger would get tossed, ski-less, up the hill for a good bit.

That's horrible yet extremely funny!!!!!!!!!! I want to try that some time!



I have a nice lift story, and I think I've told it before on this forum, but I'll tell it again. One night a few years ago, I was skiing at Keystone. I was riding the River Run Gondola, and it was a normal lift ride until the gondola stopped suddenly near the top. We were stopped for probably a good 10 minutes, and then I heard a creaking at the top station, and then the gondola started to roll backwards. We went backwards a good 200 feet, and then there was a loud squeal at the top station as the gondola halted. All the meanwhile, I was just transfixed to the ominos glow of the top station. If you've ever ridden the gondola at night you'll know what I'm talking about and why I call it the "gondola from hell" when I'm night skiing. When I go night skiing this year, I'll try to get a picture of the stations. So we remained stopped about 4 towers from the top for another 5 minutes when the brakes released with a loud creak, and the gondola started to roll back again. By this time, I was starting to get a little nervous. The gondola had been stopped for a good 15 minutes and rolled back twice. I was just thinking, "I don't care if we roll all the way to the bottom, I just want to get off this damn gondola!" After another 5 minutes of being stopped, the brakes released, but this time it was a better sound. I heard the engine! This meant that we were going to start moving foward. So after 20 minutes of being stopped and two 100 foot rollbacks we finally started to move foward again. I later learned that it was a simple cadence chain spacing problem, and that there would have been major issues if the cabins reached the bottom station, so the had to roll the gondola back, detaching the cabins from the exit side of the terminal, and then re-space them. Anyway, it was an interesting experience and has contributed to why I can't wait for the new Doppelmayr-CTEC gondola.

But the story doesn't end here. The next run up I took Summit Express thinking, "There's no way in hell I'm riding that gondola again tonight!" But that still didn't mean I got better luck. At almost exactly the same place on the line, except on Summit Express, the lift pulled a full emergency stop from 1100 fpm in less than 150 feet. I think that was the first time I had experienced an emergency stop on a detachable chairlift, and I was shocked! I just thought, I better call it a night before the lift breaks down. The rebound on the line from the stop bounced the cable probably 10 feet up and down. (It was at a relatively long span between towers.) But the lift continued on after a minute and all was well.

So I got to the bottom and Summit Express was closed because it was after 8, so I decided that I'd take one last run on the gondola. It was a normal ride, and when we passed tower 23 where the gondola stopped the last time, I said, "Yes! We made it!" That jinxed the gondola, and two towers later right near the top the gondola stopped again!!!!!!! "Aw !" I said. Another 5 minutes went by and it started again. So within that night, in three rides, the lifts stopped all within 100 feet of each other. I await the D-CTEC gondola.

[Skiing#1]

My favorite memory...five years ago, by the time, there was snowy day, my daughter and I stood and looked over our shoulders when the fixed grip lift, three pack...the chair came. A lift operator didn't brush the snow off the chair, so I quickly brushed it off, and sat down too fast. Oops, I lost my balance, and I fall off the chair about 3 feet. My daughter was on the chair, and she laughed so hard at me. I couldn't get up because of deep snow, the lift operator digged and lifted me up. The lift operator held my breasts LOL. I sat with a little girl on the different chair, and that girl laughed at me. My daughter looked back over to look at me and she still laughed. I blushed!!!

A different story, I don't know how to transfer the picture from the video which I filmed VHS tape. I wanted to share you the part of the video. I can explain. The double chair fixed grip lift, I was behind a little boy and a male adult, the chair moved toward to them, and the left arm of the chair hit the little boy's back, he almost fall, and the adult grabbed him back on the chair safely. He was so lucky.

At the top of Crest Express Lift at Brighton, I filmed several people got off, lost balance, sat on unload area, the chairs went over them. It made me laugh. I was surprised the lift operator didn't stop the lift.

This post has been edited by Skiing#1: 07 December 2007 - 04:28 PM

[Snoqualmie guy]

Last year the lifties could never remember to flip the seats down at the opening of the day. So I'm standing and this triple chair comes flying around the bullwheel and I flip it down and somehow got on the lift at the same time. I saw a girl once who didn't put the chair down and just happened to sit on the steel bars underneath.

[Phoenix]

My favorite memory is my first trip to Squaw when I was nine. I was skiing with my dad while my six year-old brother was with my mother. It was the first time I rode a triple (Super Squaw--YAN; now Squaw One Express) and my little brother had trouble boarding because the chair was too high (the liftie cussed up a storm at my mother because she did not help him board good enough, nevermind it would have been nice for him to slow down the lift--the liftie's attitude was typical for Squaw in those days). To this day, I never have forgotten the attitude of that liftie during that day at Squaw.

The best part is that later in the afternoon I took my dad to a lift that did not have a line (he was a low-intermediate skier while I was an upper intermediate skier) and, after boarding, we referred to the trail map to see what lift we boarded.

It turned out I chose Headwall. When my dad saw the black diamond, he said, "Oh $&*!, this ought to be interesting!" It took us about 45 minutes or so to get down the run and he, for some reason, said he would choose the lifts that we rode for the rest of the day. One has to remember that this was during the mid 70s and the lifts only had names posted and not ability levels.

We still laugh about it some 30 years later.

This post has been edited by Phoenix: 07 December 2007 - 10:05 PM

[chasl]

Old Timer, on Nov 29 2007, 07:57 PM, said:

The "Jolly Green Giant" poma (that is platter lift) at Okemo, VT. After high school, I moved from Massachusetts to Ludlow, VT. to teach skiing at Okemo. I had never ridden a poma lift in my life. The Jolly Green had at least a 500 fpm. line speed. If you planned it right and knew the lift operator, preferably Steve Scales, you were able to launch off this thing and gain enough height to do a tip drop. Some of the patrolers and ski instructors would get just about horizional. Great way to do a binding check!!!!!!!! Ask me how I know.

Better yet, race training mornings on a really cold morning and the sticks were frozen, some of us were light enough to go well beyound the first tower before the stick let loose, very intereting if you happened to be backwards at the time.