Your Most Memorable Chairlift Ride

[dbostedo]

Now wondering if I’m really going to drive 8 hrs to Timberline. Lol.
Thinking I should just go to Maine, where there’s no one to hear your screams instead of someone there to ignore them...

Eh... the lifts are brand new. I'm sure they'll be harder to fall off of.

 

[James]

Eh... the lifts are brand new. I'm sure they'll be harder to fall off of.

Most of them jumped.
Lets hope the attendants are new also.

 

[JFB]

Now imagine riding it with 223 DHs.

Yeah, one was Roca Jack so that makes sense. I was riding telemark in 18" of heavy fresh. But so worth it.

 

[James]

It was actually a poma, not a chair, lift, but..... Portillo, Chile has 3 pomas with six side-by-side spots on each. They each rise about 1000 vertical feet from a dead stop at the bottom to a full stop at the top in what feels like 6 seconds. OK, it might have taken 8 seconds. I rode each several times. The start was easy but the about the only way to get off safely was to drop off 20 ft from the full stop at the top. Good times.

So you’re riding up a pull lift with 6 people side by side? Like some water skiing demo?
How do you get on??

 

[NZRob]

My most memorable was some time in the 90's sitting on a stationary chair for about 15 excruciating minutes while skiers/instructors/patrollers scrambled to get underneath a kid dangling about 20-25 feet by his jacket from the chair in front..... all ended well on a large tarp with a pile of lift tower padding underneath.

 

[JFB]

You got the picture. 6 skiers of various skill levels side by side, except you missed the "really fast" part. The best way I found was to hop off about 5 yards (meters in Chile) before the stop point. It's kinda difficult to get off a stopped poma with your skis pointing up a black diamond run in 18" of pow. And getting on.... it stops at the top and bottom and runs backward to re-set for the next riders. You can find video on the interwebz.

 

[JFB]

And watching one of those vids, I realized that they "only" haul 5 riders at a time. I must be getting old.

 

[Doug Briggs]

You got the picture. 6 skiers of various skill levels side by side, except you missed the "really fast" part. The best way I found was to hop off about 5 yards (meters in Chile) before the stop point. It's kinda difficult to get off a stopped poma with your skis pointing up a black diamond run in 18" of pow. And getting on.... it stops at the top and bottom and runs backward to re-set for the next riders. You can find video on the interwebz.

It operates like a gondola. There are two sides of the lift. One goes up and the other comes down. You load while it is stationary. Then someone pulls the handle and off you fly. Hopefully flying up the hill. Not onto your ass! As I said, imagine doing this with 6 racers on DHs. The upside (no pun intended) is that DHers tend to have some skills. The downside they are on long boards and tend to be kind of cocky and fun loving jokesters.

 

[Doug Briggs]

Yeah, one was Roca Jack so that makes sense. I was riding telemark in 18" of heavy fresh. But so worth it.

Without a doubt. I was there training DH.

 

[dbostedo]

So you’re riding up a pull lift with 6 people side by side? Like some water skiing demo?
How do you get on??

Somewhere out there, there's a video of a whole set of people sliding backwards and falling on a powder day off one, but I couldn't find that one.

 

[bbinder]

There are instruction cards in the hotel rooms giving pointers on riding these lifts. The lift is actually kind of cool once you get used to it. The most disconcerting thing is that when the lift stops at the top it slides backwards about 6-10 feet before actually becoming stationary. We found that it was best if you coordinated with the other riders on getting off the lift - it seems to work best when the outside riders peel off at the same time and then work your way inwards. And JFB probably didn’t realize that if someone got off early (or fell), the whole balance gets thrown off and makes it more likely that everyone will fall.

 

[Doug Briggs]

I'm grateful to have gotten there once in my life. Pisco sours, outdoor pool, disco in the basement, high stakes poker games (not including me, but fun to watch), staying in the Octogon. The only downside was Elvis died the year I was there. The waiters told us but we thought they were kidding us at first. They, too, were saddened at his passing.

 

[scott43]

One of my more memorable chairlift moments..I wasn't actually on the lift yet..a girl in front of me was messing with her phone while getting ready for getting on a fixed-grip double. The attendant told her to pay attention and she just kinda gave him cut-eye. So the lift comes around, dude holds the chair, yells heads-up, phone-girl was too cool for school and thought she could mail it in..she dug her tips in and got flipped face-first into the ground 3' in front of the mat. Liftie dude had precognition, knew this was going to happen and hit the Stop button before her face had bounced off the ice/snow. I giggled...I admit it..

 

[JFB]

There are instruction cards in the hotel rooms giving pointers on riding these lifts. The lift is actually kind of cool once you get used to it. The most disconcerting thing is that when the lift stops at the top it slides backwards about 6-10 feet before actually becoming stationary. We found that it was best if you coordinated with the other riders on getting off the lift - it seems to work best when the outside riders peel off at the same time and then work your way inwards. And JFB probably didn’t realize that if someone got off early (or fell), the whole balance gets thrown off and makes it more likely that everyone will fall.

All true. I always tried to get on the outside. The best was when another skier and I were the only ones on the lift and run and as sessioned La Vischaca for over an hour on a pow day. Big fun.

 

[JFB]

It operates like a gondola. There are two sides of the lift.

Yep and I had forgotten that.

 

[SKI-3PO]

It was just me (6’ 2”+) and my 11 y/o daughter on the Roca Jack. The height difference did not work. And I did not win father of the year by staying on after she fell off.

 

[KevinF]

Regarding the multi-person poma lifts at Portillo... I remember Robin Barnes at one of the ESA Stowe events telling us about it. She said it's easiest if the people on the outside get off while you're still going up.

I imagine she's been up it a few more times than most of us...

 

[Tricia]

It was just me (6’ 2”+) and my 11 y/o daughter on the Roca Jack. The height difference did not work. And I did not win father of the year by staying on after she fell off.

View attachment 113342

Something tells me, there is so much more to this story.

 

[Moose32]

Taking Franz Klammer’s gondola back down to Kitzbühel last year on opening weekend was cool. Franz was my childhood hero.

 

[James]

Taking Franz Klammer’s gondola back down to Kitzbühel last year on opening weekend was cool. Franz was my childhood hero.

Are there 4 of them or his name on one four times?
Must be tough for them to have 5 for Didier Cuche.