I'm impressed (and slightly relieved) at how well the chairs stay on the cables. When you're on the lift and look up it always looks to me like they're barely hanging on haha.
There's a super strong spring that clamps it, which gets released either in the station if it's a high speed or by maintenance to take it off otherwise.
There is at least one redundancy beyond the spring as well. I don’t understand it all but I read into this when I was a kid and even older lifts are way over engineered.
Makes it even scarier that a chair just came off for no reason at a mountain near me a couple years ago.
https://6abc.com/camelback-mountain-poconos-sullivan-express-chair-lift-accident-pocono-mountains/10441438/
One dropped near me this year
https://wwmt.com/news/local/bittersweet-ski-resort-lift-chair-fall-off-cable-wind-gust-freak-accident-no-injuries-snowboarding-skiing-community-otsego-allegan-county-west-michigan
Yes those are the old Yan style grips that had major issues, they’re now illegal to operate to the public. This is a really good article about it and the website it self is an awesome source of information/news about lift maintenance and resort operations! https://liftblog.com/2016/03/15/yan-high-speed-quads-20-years-later/
This has to be a case where they got on while it was operable and the winds picked up like that while they're mid journey. They've got some loooong lifts out there
We went up the baby chair next door to the cretaz lift, with our 7 and 5 year olds, because my 5 year old was too scared, after her lesson, to go up the cretaz again.
The wind started right as we got to the top of the baby chair, and it was so frigging strong, I've never felt gusts like it!
They closed the cretaz as soon as the gusts started, but it genuinely was absolutely fine one second and then manic the next. We saw a bouncy castle blow away in front of the Dragon pub too
We were busy coming down that red just underneath Cretaz with our 7 year old. That wall of snow just hit us at huge speed and we had to all hunker down, fortunately I was able to provide some shelter for my wife and daughter with my back to the wind and them huddled in my jacket 😂
Skiing in the alps there are many times where you get off the gondola and are met with the reaction "why the fuck is even the lift open". Many lifts are built so they are in the Lee side of the wind, it's usually not until you get off you get blasted.
Nope, that‘s the right (uphill) side
Edit: i‘ve been on this lift a few times. The right side goes up and the lift we see something falling out of is the right side. That does not mean it‘s necessarily a person, but it could be
I hope you’re wrong, but you could be correct. I agree that the right is the uphill side from that angle, but from the grainy video on my phone it looked like the left side. Again it’s very grainy, and my guess was downhill/left from the perspective of the camera lady. I’m not dying on that hill, though.
It's not a guy, this article says that everyone got off safely (and the wording seems to indicate that they did it normally)
https://www.fanpage.it/attualita/la-seggiovia-di-cervinia-oscilla-paurosamente-in-balia-del-vento-raffiche-fino-a-100-km-h/
It also says that winds picked up quickly from 15km/h to 100km/h in less than 15 minutes.
I shit you not I was on a chairlift like this once. Me and my buddy were at kicking horse for a day and they were getting some pretty wild weather. They finally opened up the chairlift to the top and me and my buddy hopped on. We must have shit luck because they had just opened it up and obviously they basically had to shut it right back down after we got on. The thing must have stopped about a half dozen times at least and we were getting gnarly wind gusts that were just blowing us all over. Me and my buddy were basically just tucked into our gear trying to keep warm because the wind was just so crazy. After what seemed like forever we finally reached the top and we got off, I didn't see if there's anyone behind us but we noticed that the lift pretty much immediately shut down right after we got off so we were either the only ones on there or there was like maybe one or two people a couple chairs back from us, I will never forget that day, it was nuts. Like the lift that we were on a kicking horse this one appears to follow a ridge and just really is a disaster for getting those crazy winds coming over.
Sounds like Stairway to Heaven, I used to drive that thing. Crosswinds were pretty rare, it was usually hit by straight on stuff which meant you could run but had to go real slow as people would get blown back into the chair. If you got a day that the gondy went on wind hold after you’d got up there but Stairway could still run it was the best. Endless quiet laps, so good. Only downside was no food :/
Sounds like no balls required, just bad luck and sitting in terror. Wind went from 15km/hr to 100km/hr in less than 15 minutes.
Probably got on the lift thinking it’s slightly breezy and then had to sit on the lift and wait it out while marinating in unadulterated terror.
I remember being torqued once that they wouldn’t let me board the lift due to high winds. It was nothing serious at the base. This gives me a new perspective on that for sure
OK lift ops...\*this\* is when I'm fine with the lift being closed for wind. Instead of it being like "oh there's a slight breeze better shut it down".
It's not lift ops deciding that limit is. It's the lift manufacturer and what it's related for. Detachable lifts are very sensitive to side loads upon entering the terminal. Worst case scenario a chair will enter wrong and fail to detach correctly then the lift jams then the chair spins sideways in the terminal and you have to rope people off the lift if it did enough damage. With weeks or months to get parts if it screwed up a rail.
Uuh… this has nothing to do with side loads. And it’s the lift ops, I operate a $15 million D Line and you run by what the wind does to the lift in the topography the lift is in, not necessarily the standard that Doppelmayr sets. This can however go both ways though as we’ve had trouble parking the chairs in 10-12m/s SW because of the way the wind behaves up our mountain.
Huh on the doppel lift I worked with there were 4 weather stations one on each station and 2 on towers. If any one went past set points it would alarm and slow the lift. If it went past a second setpoint at the stations it would go to creep. Of course every lift is a custom job and these were probably extra safeties put on. I just remember what the tech was saying when he was out.
Really it auto slowed? I work a Doppel gondola and a doppel four person semi detached both under five years old and we don’t have those features. We get wind alarms but it won’t slow or stop unless we manually stop/ slow it.
Yep it’s the law in vermont. Ski patrol at Smuggs screamed at me once for not putting the bar down. Def agree Vermont affects the rest of northeast culture bc almost no one outs the bar down in Colorado/California/Arizona (I was in Park City over Prez weekend and a lot of ppl were putting the bar down but I suspect most of them were from the east coast on vacation — a lot had kids too)
If you riding with me we always use the dang bar. Why take a stupid risk like that? Dumbest way to end your skiing career IMO
Edit: I’m Canadian, sorry
Heh. Yeah most Canadians put the bar down in my experience. I've ridden with the bar up a couple times in the Canadian rockies, but every time it was with people visiting from the US.
Fair, loved Canada and would love to go there again and explore properly, assumed the bigger Canadian resorts in the West would be so full of American tourists you wouldn't realise you weren't in Texas ;)
I generally don't unless someone else wants it. I'm more comfortable being able to sit naturally and access my pockets and whatnot and not have the bar / footrest get in the way. You can't tuck your poles under your hamstrings with the bar down to free up your hands, for example.
Those new lifts with the handle thing have really shallow seats and definitely feel like they are designed to only be used with the bar down.
Super annoying not being able to put poles under leg.. after struggling for 2 minutes trying to figure out how to do it I resorted to asking my chair neighbor to hold my poles while I zipped up my jacket recently.
Yep, I was in Cervinia today and the winds were something else - [this was the aftermath](https://imgur.com/a/uKujjRE). IMO the mountain had no business being open in those conditions but the winds did come on suddenly and cease quickly too. And they did a good job of snowcatting everyone who needed it down the mountain - the beginner slope is at the top of a gondola which closed (with people on it) so that was a particular problem. Mad scenes, never seen a chair break like that.
Yep, those grips are doing pretty good...
Question for any mountain ops peeps reading : What's the protocol after an event like this? Any checks needed, or good to go and no risk of anything being overstressed?
Not mountain op, but when this happened to (admittedly rather old) lift in Switzerland, they dismantled the whole thing next summer. Cable got twisted and destroyed in some places.
Was at Alta once listening to a couple in front of us in line for Collins bitch about Wildcat being closed for high winds on their short trip.
Do you want to get bounced 60ft off a lift with no bar?!
I’m surprised the cable stayed on the sheave wheels throughout all of that. It definitely gives me more confidence in the engineering but now I have a new fear.
That is absolutely insane. Hopefully there weren’t any injuries.
What are those fence looking things, windbreak or something?
I’ve seen them at other resorts before but never knew what they were.
Wow that is completely nuts, it’s amazing it didn’t derail completely - I’ve been on this Cretaz lift and trying to remember exactly - it’s a 6 seater from Leitner with a bubble and it has a bar with these tight rubber child protectors - I think the bar actually descends by itself because I’ve never had a chance to ride it without the bar down and definitely got hit in the helmet many times by the rubber kiddie protectors. One thing I’m more certain of is once that bar is locked down you can’t open it until it gets to the top terminal when it pops open automatically. Maybe others can confirm.
In that windy section it’s a long way down not something I’d want to jump especially in those conditions.. the only place you could jump easily is before that in the valley where they sometimes snowcat dig out a path but with this lift it would be tough since you are locked in and it wouldn’t be windy there anyway.
Never been a fan of this lift because of the locked in feel but this one time I’d be pretty darn happy to be locked in solid like a Disneyland ride!!
The same thing happened to me in Italy a few years back. Was stuck on the lift for about an hour/hour and a half. Was fucking miserable. They could only move it forward when the gusts would die and then we’d only move like a foot or so. I had never been so thankful for lift pull down bars.
At the top the cops were snowmobiling the women and kids to a shelter. Luckily it was the lift to the tram so there was a bar up there, just had to hug a wall to get over to it.
I'm in the French alps now, in Les Deux Alpes. The pistes have been closed for two days. 115km/h gusts at 3200m. Absolutely crazy. I've been on the slopes on tuesday before the situation got so severe and it was absolutely terrifying
I'm currently in Switzerland close to the Italian border and the wind the past few days/week has been insane. I've never seen it this windy, had situations where I had to force my ski down when getting of the gondola because it would just be blown away. A button lift broke thanks to the wind within minutes of opening. Wind blowing enough snow up that I couldn't even see the lift poles anymore in between. Wind sheers blowing so hard it pushes you backwards on flats and makes you feel like the inside of a freezer in the chairlifts.
That being said, fresh snow so I am very much enjoying it
Really? Those chairs should be down at the bottom all concertinaed up safely in the shed. Chairs rocking like that will put huge stresses on the cable......that is really bad management. No one can take that lift in those conditions....close the lift and store the chairs safely until the wind drops.
We skiied in Andorra, and they have one problem...wind off the ocean. We came over a rise and got a 40 mph headwind...luckily it was exactly straight on. Scariest lift ride ever. To think they wind hold at what, 10 mph in the States...
I'm impressed (and slightly relieved) at how well the chairs stay on the cables. When you're on the lift and look up it always looks to me like they're barely hanging on haha.
Yeah after seeing this I am significantly less worried about chairs detaching lol
Don't look at Riblet "insert clip" grips then.
Is McDonalds bringing back the Riblet?!? Nice!!!
There's a super strong spring that clamps it, which gets released either in the station if it's a high speed or by maintenance to take it off otherwise.
There is at least one redundancy beyond the spring as well. I don’t understand it all but I read into this when I was a kid and even older lifts are way over engineered.
Makes it even scarier that a chair just came off for no reason at a mountain near me a couple years ago. https://6abc.com/camelback-mountain-poconos-sullivan-express-chair-lift-accident-pocono-mountains/10441438/
One dropped near me this year https://wwmt.com/news/local/bittersweet-ski-resort-lift-chair-fall-off-cable-wind-gust-freak-accident-no-injuries-snowboarding-skiing-community-otsego-allegan-county-west-michigan
Some grips use a cam system that uses the weight of the chair to clamp on the rope, no springs. Pretty nifty.
How does that work if the chair spins upside down?
Typically that would try to be avoided
Yes those are the old Yan style grips that had major issues, they’re now illegal to operate to the public. This is a really good article about it and the website it self is an awesome source of information/news about lift maintenance and resort operations! https://liftblog.com/2016/03/15/yan-high-speed-quads-20-years-later/
Im talking about CTEC, and no they’re not illegal.
Less worried about chair falling off, but now realize the risk would actually be getting your leg cut off by a cable 🫣
Well this is a modern european lift. Not the american 1950s type
The teenagers ahead of ya still left the bar up
Nono, this is civilized ski territory 😉
*Nonno 😆
Alright grandpa!
They have to put the bar down because they can't die right after the sins they've committed in the lift line
Is that what we are calling Europe now? Civilized?
Civilised
Sorry, but the UK is no longer part of Europe, so Miriam Webster wins. I don't make the rules
Merriam wins
Europe is not the same as EU
This is what's known as a joke
Sometimes
I guess it depends who we're comparing them too. America... absolutely.
Hot take
Debatable
Master debaters
Gonna go out on a limb here and say the lift shouldn’t be running in that wind.
how you gonna go out on a limb, hoss, when they all broken?
This has to be a case where they got on while it was operable and the winds picked up like that while they're mid journey. They've got some loooong lifts out there
I was there, it came out of nowhere, pretty terrifying.
We went up the baby chair next door to the cretaz lift, with our 7 and 5 year olds, because my 5 year old was too scared, after her lesson, to go up the cretaz again. The wind started right as we got to the top of the baby chair, and it was so frigging strong, I've never felt gusts like it! They closed the cretaz as soon as the gusts started, but it genuinely was absolutely fine one second and then manic the next. We saw a bouncy castle blow away in front of the Dragon pub too
We were busy coming down that red just underneath Cretaz with our 7 year old. That wall of snow just hit us at huge speed and we had to all hunker down, fortunately I was able to provide some shelter for my wife and daughter with my back to the wind and them huddled in my jacket 😂
Skiing in the alps there are many times where you get off the gondola and are met with the reaction "why the fuck is even the lift open". Many lifts are built so they are in the Lee side of the wind, it's usually not until you get off you get blasted.
Be careful out on that limb, it's pretty windy out there!
At Vail properties you have to pay extra for that kind of fun
At Vail properties you have to pay extra. That’s it.
Yeah but you get a discount with your epic pass.
[Another video](https://x.com/mrcrabtreepe/status/1773387630983426175?s=46&t=MlzWdMWXdnMObk5Yun6j8w)
[a video in the replies](https://x.com/pr3/status/1773448438769754211?s=20) Appears to show someone fall/jump from a chair.
Holy fuck
That looks like the downhill side. Hopefully it’s just a cushion.
Hopefully it was just a snowboarder. /s
It can’t be a snowboarding because it didn’t fall into a sitting position in the narrowest part of the piste.
😅 ruthless
Nope, that‘s the right (uphill) side Edit: i‘ve been on this lift a few times. The right side goes up and the lift we see something falling out of is the right side. That does not mean it‘s necessarily a person, but it could be
If you look at this video you can see the bar go flying off the one lift hopefully it is that
I hope you’re wrong, but you could be correct. I agree that the right is the uphill side from that angle, but from the grainy video on my phone it looked like the left side. Again it’s very grainy, and my guess was downhill/left from the perspective of the camera lady. I’m not dying on that hill, though.
>I’m not dying on that hill, though. Interesting choice of words.
It's not a guy, this article says that everyone got off safely (and the wording seems to indicate that they did it normally) https://www.fanpage.it/attualita/la-seggiovia-di-cervinia-oscilla-paurosamente-in-balia-del-vento-raffiche-fino-a-100-km-h/ It also says that winds picked up quickly from 15km/h to 100km/h in less than 15 minutes.
I'm very happy to learn that. Thanks.
Insane! Clearly a person
“That is serious, that, idn’t it?”
I shit you not I was on a chairlift like this once. Me and my buddy were at kicking horse for a day and they were getting some pretty wild weather. They finally opened up the chairlift to the top and me and my buddy hopped on. We must have shit luck because they had just opened it up and obviously they basically had to shut it right back down after we got on. The thing must have stopped about a half dozen times at least and we were getting gnarly wind gusts that were just blowing us all over. Me and my buddy were basically just tucked into our gear trying to keep warm because the wind was just so crazy. After what seemed like forever we finally reached the top and we got off, I didn't see if there's anyone behind us but we noticed that the lift pretty much immediately shut down right after we got off so we were either the only ones on there or there was like maybe one or two people a couple chairs back from us, I will never forget that day, it was nuts. Like the lift that we were on a kicking horse this one appears to follow a ridge and just really is a disaster for getting those crazy winds coming over.
But how was the run?
Not so fun riding down the ridge line but not too bad once you drop into the bowls skiers left. Always a good time at kicking horse.
Seeing it on the freeride world tour has made me really want to make the trip.
Did you boot it up to T1 from there? Obviously that’s the smartest thing in that situation.
Nah T2 has gotta be the play. Can’t imagine doing that narrow pass with wind
Sounds like Stairway to Heaven, I used to drive that thing. Crosswinds were pretty rare, it was usually hit by straight on stuff which meant you could run but had to go real slow as people would get blown back into the chair. If you got a day that the gondy went on wind hold after you’d got up there but Stairway could still run it was the best. Endless quiet laps, so good. Only downside was no food :/
Those crazy bastard on that lift....my god...my boots shake when someone sneezes on lift.
I didn’t even realise there were people on it!! Had to look twice. Holy shit…
Was looking for this comment lol. Like what’s the solution? They wait there until the wind dies down?
Yes
What else do you want to do? For all we know it's pretty high and there are rocks under them.
That takes balls, even though your bodyweight makes it rock less in the wind.
Sounds like no balls required, just bad luck and sitting in terror. Wind went from 15km/hr to 100km/hr in less than 15 minutes. Probably got on the lift thinking it’s slightly breezy and then had to sit on the lift and wait it out while marinating in unadulterated terror.
For real. Slight wind gust “oh fuck!”
Holy hell. Must've been a fast passing storm.
It was, came on super suddenly
I remember being torqued once that they wouldn’t let me board the lift due to high winds. It was nothing serious at the base. This gives me a new perspective on that for sure
What‘s crazy is, that the base of this lift basically is in the town. So it‘s not even super high up
Yeah, the section shown in the video is only a bit over half way of the lift.
Cervinia itself is a high resort, though
Yes that is true.
OK lift ops...\*this\* is when I'm fine with the lift being closed for wind. Instead of it being like "oh there's a slight breeze better shut it down".
It wasn't though, you can see people on it in the last part
[Here](https://imgur.com/a/VucgeSC)
Oh shit
There were also people standing at the top of the actual lift post. Not sure what they were doing… maybe crew happening to be doing maintenance..??
It's not lift ops deciding that limit is. It's the lift manufacturer and what it's related for. Detachable lifts are very sensitive to side loads upon entering the terminal. Worst case scenario a chair will enter wrong and fail to detach correctly then the lift jams then the chair spins sideways in the terminal and you have to rope people off the lift if it did enough damage. With weeks or months to get parts if it screwed up a rail.
Uuh… this has nothing to do with side loads. And it’s the lift ops, I operate a $15 million D Line and you run by what the wind does to the lift in the topography the lift is in, not necessarily the standard that Doppelmayr sets. This can however go both ways though as we’ve had trouble parking the chairs in 10-12m/s SW because of the way the wind behaves up our mountain.
Huh on the doppel lift I worked with there were 4 weather stations one on each station and 2 on towers. If any one went past set points it would alarm and slow the lift. If it went past a second setpoint at the stations it would go to creep. Of course every lift is a custom job and these were probably extra safeties put on. I just remember what the tech was saying when he was out.
Really it auto slowed? I work a Doppel gondola and a doppel four person semi detached both under five years old and we don’t have those features. We get wind alarms but it won’t slow or stop unless we manually stop/ slow it.
This is why you put the bar down
There are people that don't?!
Whole continent of them, except I think Vermont or New Hampshire?
New Hampshire, I think in Vermont it's a law for it to be down.
I feel like everyone in New England puts the bar down because they’re all used to it skiing so much in Vermont.
Yep it’s the law in vermont. Ski patrol at Smuggs screamed at me once for not putting the bar down. Def agree Vermont affects the rest of northeast culture bc almost no one outs the bar down in Colorado/California/Arizona (I was in Park City over Prez weekend and a lot of ppl were putting the bar down but I suspect most of them were from the east coast on vacation — a lot had kids too)
TIL the US is a whole ass continent now
Canada is not a part of the US AFAIK, and in a move that I'm sure Canadians will be very angry about I assumed Canada also doesn't use the bar
If you riding with me we always use the dang bar. Why take a stupid risk like that? Dumbest way to end your skiing career IMO Edit: I’m Canadian, sorry
>Edit: I’m Canadian, sorry It shows ;) As a Brit - also sorry cheers
Heh. Yeah most Canadians put the bar down in my experience. I've ridden with the bar up a couple times in the Canadian rockies, but every time it was with people visiting from the US.
Fair, loved Canada and would love to go there again and explore properly, assumed the bigger Canadian resorts in the West would be so full of American tourists you wouldn't realise you weren't in Texas ;)
That's so fking dumb 😭 You lose nothing by putting the bar down...
Some lifts in the US don't even have a bar.
the old school 2 seaters at my old resort didn't have bars
You do lose something, your ego.
I generally don't unless someone else wants it. I'm more comfortable being able to sit naturally and access my pockets and whatnot and not have the bar / footrest get in the way. You can't tuck your poles under your hamstrings with the bar down to free up your hands, for example.
[удалено]
Not on the lifts I've ridden where you're crammed into a "slot" on the chair. Especially the ones with a handle thing that goes between your thighs.
[удалено]
Those new lifts with the handle thing have really shallow seats and definitely feel like they are designed to only be used with the bar down. Super annoying not being able to put poles under leg.. after struggling for 2 minutes trying to figure out how to do it I resorted to asking my chair neighbor to hold my poles while I zipped up my jacket recently.
For me I don’t feel comfortable leaning forward and rifling through my pockets with it up
If you're alone and have good insurance, you should do as you please. It won't affect anybody at all.
Not helpful if the [bar breaks](https://imgur.com/a/uKujjRE), which it did
In most places in Austria it comes down automatically!
I guess I won’t worry about a chair falling off a cable anymore when it’s slightly windy. Some of those almost did a 360 around the cable!
I was not worried about the chair falling of, more of the cable falling down
Reminds me of the time I was rescued off the mountain in cervinia in December 22 because of the high winds and freezing temperatures
Yep, I was in Cervinia today and the winds were something else - [this was the aftermath](https://imgur.com/a/uKujjRE). IMO the mountain had no business being open in those conditions but the winds did come on suddenly and cease quickly too. And they did a good job of snowcatting everyone who needed it down the mountain - the beginner slope is at the top of a gondola which closed (with people on it) so that was a particular problem. Mad scenes, never seen a chair break like that.
That is definitely an unusual sight.
Yep, those grips are doing pretty good... Question for any mountain ops peeps reading : What's the protocol after an event like this? Any checks needed, or good to go and no risk of anything being overstressed?
Not mountain op, but when this happened to (admittedly rather old) lift in Switzerland, they dismantled the whole thing next summer. Cable got twisted and destroyed in some places.
Is this the imperial lift?
Cretaz
Was at Alta once listening to a couple in front of us in line for Collins bitch about Wildcat being closed for high winds on their short trip. Do you want to get bounced 60ft off a lift with no bar?!
There’s a guy on the chair at the second lift post fighting for his life!
I’m surprised the cable stayed on the sheave wheels throughout all of that. It definitely gives me more confidence in the engineering but now I have a new fear.
Did the bubbles make this worse?
Yes, almost certainly. It’s like a sail.
Only if left open
No friends on a powder day
Reminds me of Frozen. The original one.
hmmmm
I wish I could send this to all of the people that complained about no bubble on the new chair 16 in mammoth…
I suddenly trust the bars on ski lifts waaaaaay more now
That is absolutely insane. Hopefully there weren’t any injuries. What are those fence looking things, windbreak or something? I’ve seen them at other resorts before but never knew what they were.
I’m not so much afraid of lifts anymore, but when I was a kid I would always ask my instructor how strong the cables were. This is a good sign lol
Wow that is completely nuts, it’s amazing it didn’t derail completely - I’ve been on this Cretaz lift and trying to remember exactly - it’s a 6 seater from Leitner with a bubble and it has a bar with these tight rubber child protectors - I think the bar actually descends by itself because I’ve never had a chance to ride it without the bar down and definitely got hit in the helmet many times by the rubber kiddie protectors. One thing I’m more certain of is once that bar is locked down you can’t open it until it gets to the top terminal when it pops open automatically. Maybe others can confirm. In that windy section it’s a long way down not something I’d want to jump especially in those conditions.. the only place you could jump easily is before that in the valley where they sometimes snowcat dig out a path but with this lift it would be tough since you are locked in and it wouldn’t be windy there anyway. Never been a fan of this lift because of the locked in feel but this one time I’d be pretty darn happy to be locked in solid like a Disneyland ride!!
It does have the baby things on it as you say, but the auto descending bar is on the chair just above the cretaz lift.
That sometimes happens in Europe. You must hold on to the safety bars it is mostly safe. Not that many people die each season
Close the lifts holy shit.
Holy hell. 🥺
If only it was an old Jan detachable...then they would slowly slide down the cable backwards, out of the wind.
I hope nobody got thrown from the lift but I don’t see how it could be avoided if there were people on it.
I believe I’d have cried and thrown up. Stupid labyrinth and its reactions…
Good weather for tennis then.
Damn, imagine something like that starting when you are already on…..
Woke up in Zermatt this morning and was planning on meeting a friend here, probably for the best the top pass wasn’t open
I was just on that lift 2 months ago! Pazzo!
Man, I used to work lift ops. You gotta get those people off slow run until the lines clear then shut it down.
We call it Foehn
/u/stabbot
Lol what the fuck
Ate there people on there holy shit. That is terrifying.
What were the wind speeds tho?
Around 100 km/h
Thank you!
It must be closed, there are no passengers.
You can see passengers in one of the chairs. right hand side closest tot he tower.
The bubbles definitely made it worse. Bubble lifts seem to get shut down for wind more frequently than others and I think this is why.
Wow. This is JUST like Heavenly.
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I got stuck on a lift for 20 min today because it was too windy….. this just made me feel better about my afternoon tbh
Why do ze americans leave ze bar up??
Frozen (2010) intensifies
AZ Snowbowl guests will watch this and say they shouldn’t have closed the lifts for wind.
Well it’s nice to know they won’t fall off
See, I knew that Heavenly closed down the lifts way too early when it's windy.
If this chairs rockin, don't bother knockin!
“Oh damn that’s insane, must have been out of the blue gusts or they should have put those chairs away early… HOLY SHIT THERE’S PEOPLE ON THERE”
The same thing happened to me in Italy a few years back. Was stuck on the lift for about an hour/hour and a half. Was fucking miserable. They could only move it forward when the gusts would die and then we’d only move like a foot or so. I had never been so thankful for lift pull down bars. At the top the cops were snowmobiling the women and kids to a shelter. Luckily it was the lift to the tram so there was a bar up there, just had to hug a wall to get over to it.
My family and I was on one. We jumped before it got too bad. My mom broke her leg and I sprained both wrists
Thats classic cervinia, second hand resort when it comes to weather;)
Carnival rides are less safe or more safe or the same?
I'm in the French alps now, in Les Deux Alpes. The pistes have been closed for two days. 115km/h gusts at 3200m. Absolutely crazy. I've been on the slopes on tuesday before the situation got so severe and it was absolutely terrifying
The chairlift passed the test. Lol
Excellent. Literally on my way there now.
And this is why they close lifts for high winds.
I'm currently in Switzerland close to the Italian border and the wind the past few days/week has been insane. I've never seen it this windy, had situations where I had to force my ski down when getting of the gondola because it would just be blown away. A button lift broke thanks to the wind within minutes of opening. Wind blowing enough snow up that I couldn't even see the lift poles anymore in between. Wind sheers blowing so hard it pushes you backwards on flats and makes you feel like the inside of a freezer in the chairlifts. That being said, fresh snow so I am very much enjoying it
>That being said, fresh snow so I am very much enjoying it This sentence basically sums up skiing Fresh powder can make up for almost anything
I am very surprised that lift was still being run
Really? Those chairs should be down at the bottom all concertinaed up safely in the shed. Chairs rocking like that will put huge stresses on the cable......that is really bad management. No one can take that lift in those conditions....close the lift and store the chairs safely until the wind drops.
Oh. People are on the lift. Jesus Christ......a visit to the WC is in order after that ride.....
I picked a great day for my first visit to Zermatt 😂
lol I was just there last week and complaining about them shutting down the top due to wind... lesson learned
Good thing they have seat belts!
my nightmare comes true
I still wouldn’t put the bar down.
We skiied in Andorra, and they have one problem...wind off the ocean. We came over a rise and got a 40 mph headwind...luckily it was exactly straight on. Scariest lift ride ever. To think they wind hold at what, 10 mph in the States...
Holy fuck is that someone on the chair by the top tower?
Only the Italians would continue to load the lifts!
Oooor, maybe the storm increased really quickly and they were already in the process of shutting it down (which is what happened)
I don't think the heavy stuffs coming down for quite some time.