 Poster: A snowHead
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Marginally more seriously re music, there is a thing called the Creative Commons License which is a whole library of music which can be used without tripping over royalty for use in samples, mixing or overdub.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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My fave amusement is the Pre Esprit lift in Arc 2000, which automatically opens, you can tell those who have never been on it before as they frantically try and lift it Laughing
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Yes, that "feature" is really annoying. I cannot see the point in it. It leaves me wondering what happens if the lift breaksdown and you have to be rescued?
I had a minor panic in Les Arcs last week when we all dozed off on the Arpette lift and only when it turned the corner at the top realised no one had raised the bar and it was about to start its descent.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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@Richard_Sideways, …the key thing for us is the complete absence of noise in the hills….
Listen!!!
What???
Nothing….
Lovely.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Yes, that "feature" is really annoying. I cannot see the point in it.
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Eh? The point, clearly, is to stop people raising the bar too early as this thread has established is an annoying habit which can leave people feeling vulnerable, dangling over an abyss. I dare say that the clever people who make ski lifts, and the brave and resourceful pisteurs who rescue people on the very few occasions when they go wrong, have thought about what happens if people have to be rescued and I'm happy, if naive, to put my trust in them. 
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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| Quote: |
| Eh? The point, clearly, is to stop people raising the bar too early as this thread has established is an annoying habit which can leave people feeling vulnerable, dangling over an abyss. |
In 40 years of skiing often over 20 days a year I've never known this happen. I suppose that from other posts it is a thing in the USA rather than europe.
We were in Japan last year where one chairlift had no bar, no backrest and no foot rests. In fact it was in realty a pomma lift a couple metres off the ground.
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| valais2 wrote: |
@Richard_Sideways, …the key thing for us is the complete absence of noise in the hills….
Listen!!!
What???
*tap* *tap* *tap*
$#&*!#! |
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I was impressed in Monterosa at the netting before the lift station which was designed to give the earliest bar lifter plenty of safe space before coming into a top station.
Needless to say this just meant that people lifted the bar before the netting as though they might get off at the netting.
Demounted chairs should only have the bar lifted after they have gone through the rough demounting process. Plenty of time after that.
My least favourite lift is Tommeuse in Tignes where the drop is hundreds of metres if you’re on the right-hand side and fellow travellers insist on lifting the bar early.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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I just leave my skis on the footrest until I'm good and ready to lift the bar. Sometimes this may involve actively putting it there in the first place, which I don't always do by default, long legs and fat skis making it a hassle on some lifts.
I do like that most of the chairs in the PdS have locking mechanisms that don't allow early opening, saves all sorts of problems. I believe they will also stop the lift if the bar isn't down by a certain distance up the line, but I've never seen this in action. Anyone know for sure?
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@Chaletbeauroc, I didn’t realise the PdS was so advanced?
But I haven’t been over so much the last couple of seasons
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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@under a new name, around us we have examples of these advanced ones and then ancient fixed chairs which try to kill you when you are embarking and even one which also tries to kill you at the disembark - a horizontal platform with a sudden 30 deg drop - on which you have to INCREASE your ski speed on the horizontal bit once standing or the chair can whack you round the back of the head as you go down the 30 deg drop….bonkers but keeps you alert….
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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There's an old, two-man chair, in Notre Dame de Bellecombe which takes off over a fairly cranky looking netting over a VERY steep drop. It's a fixed chair, and a tad cramped for two anyway. It sweeps you up and dramatically over the drop, then carries on over a less precipitate drop and two roads (or rather the same road, which goes round a bend). Overall you end up a lot lower than you started. It's unnerving. I did it with a friend who had an apartment near ours - he'd not done it before. He didn't like it a big and made a note not to take his wife on it, as she'd freak. Actually, she's a very sensible woman and I suspect she'd not freak, but it gave him the excuse he needed not to do it again. Though it's not easily avoidable - the ski route down that same, sunny, slope is dodgy if the snow cover is good and involves walking over a road and up some steep steps (skis off).
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@Chaletbeauroc, In Les Gets on a couple of lifts that a loud alarm goes off if you haven't got the bar down quick enough, and I have seen them stop it this season too for people that didn't bring it down early enough for their liking.
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You know it makes sense.
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| Timmycb5 wrote: |
| @Chaletbeauroc, In Les Gets on a couple of lifts that a loud alarm goes off if you haven't got the bar down quick enough, and I have seen them stop it this season too for people that didn't bring it down early enough for their liking. |
Same in Flaine
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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The Alpauris chair always used to give me the 'willies' in Alpe D'Huez . . .its not natural going up and then swiftly down into a valley on a rickety chairlift . . .its been years so not sure if its been updated / renewed?
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Poster: A snowHead
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Lots of talk about people closing the bar too soon - for me that thinking is wrong though. Why do some people find the simply, every day act of sitting down to be SO complicated as soon as they have a pair of skis on!
Now I'm not the sort to grab the bar before my bums hit the seat or anything but 5 seconds is more than enough time for everyone to sit down, check left and right that everyone else is seated, then pull the bar down (being ready to re-raise it if someone has something caught). Longer than that and in my view you're heads still in the way because you WANT to be hit on it by the bar. Had one English woman spend the whole ride on the (auto locking) Pre la Joux chair in Chatel complaining in English to her husband that I'd hit her on the head pulling the bar down. She never said anything to me to I left her to it, it being assuming I was French and not English so not understanding every word. Me, I'd read how a child had got their head trapped by the auto locking bar a week or two before and having been given a random child to look after had checked right, seen everyone was correctly seated so looked left at the child while puling the bar down. Personally I have more concern for a child (who might have trouble using a chair/might fidget) than an adult (who should be able to use a chair).
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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@Mjit,
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seen everyone was correctly seated
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If the bar hit her on the head, she obviously wasn't correctly seated. Also begs the question why you didn't keep a hand on the child, rather than force down a bar which is (I assume it was that sort of bar) supposed to operate automatically.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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@Mjit, so you didn’t think to apologise then?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Well if it was an auto-locking chair there was nothing to apologise for, was there? It pulled itself down. I didn't get the point about the previous ride, and "pulling the bar down" on an automatic chair though.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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@Origen, you can force some of them down. I had a good go at doing that the first time I rode on the automatic sort in the Dolomites, not realising it was automatic. 
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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Misloading and unloading of chairlifts and the stoppages it leads to are I believe one of the reasons ski areas prefer to replace chairlifts with Gondolas. Gondolas tend to stop less frequently than chairlifts.
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| johnE wrote: |
| Quote: |
My fave amusement is the Pre Esprit lift in Arc 2000, which automatically opens, you can tell those who have never been on it before as they frantically try and lift it Laughing
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Yes, that "feature" is really annoying. I cannot see the point in it. It leaves me wondering what happens if the lift breaksdown and you have to be rescued?
I had a minor panic in Les Arcs last week when we all dozed off on the Arpette lift and only when it turned the corner at the top realised no one had raised the bar and it was about to start its descent. |
What is annoying about a bar that opens itself at the appropriate time leaving you nothing to do other than chill out and prepare to disembark the lift? Cracking 'feature'.
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| andy wrote: |
I've had sit-slammers have the bar down before I've even managed to sit down before.
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From now on, I am going to use this phrase… “got clocked by a f*cking sit-slammer again…”
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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@maggi, that's true
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| Mjit wrote: |
Lots of talk about people closing the bar too soon - for me that thinking is wrong though. Why do some people find the simply, every day act of sitting down to be SO complicated as soon as they have a pair of skis on!
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The act is complicated because if you are tall many chairs are designed to run at the height of nursery school chairs and it can be physically impossible to sit down without some degree of splay of the skis.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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@Dave of the Marmottes, ...and of course there is the infrequent but very painful ‘calf pinch’ - where the lip of a low chair can pinch your calf against the top of each boot which is exceedingly painful for about 3 secs until it pulls up and away....
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The calf nip, is a real pain.
In all my time I have never had someone slam the bar down before I was settled, I’m assuming those that have made it perfectly clear to the offender that they are being a part
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You know it makes sense.
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| Hurtle wrote: |
@Mjit,
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seen everyone was correctly seated
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If the bar hit her on the head, she obviously wasn't correctly seated. |
No, she was correctly seated and not moving when I looked but then decided to lean forward and start faffing around after I'd looked the other way to make sure the small child was safe.
| Hurtle wrote: |
| Also begs the question why you didn't keep a hand on the child, rather than force down a bar which is (I assume it was that sort of bar) supposed to operate automatically. |
| Origen wrote: |
| Well if it was an auto-locking chair there was nothing to apologise for, was there? It pulled itself down. I didn't get the point about the previous ride, and "pulling the bar down" on an automatic chair though. |
Maybe "self closing" safety bars exists but I've not encountered one yet. This is just a "auto locking" safety bar so needs to be manually closed but once down locks until the release trigger's pressed in the top lift station (the reason the child a couple of weeks before who leant over the side, getting her neck trapped between the arm rest and safety bar couldn't be released in transist and was unconscious by the time the lift got to the top station).
| altis wrote: |
| @Mjit, so you didn’t think to apologise then? |
Due to the way she spoke and the fact both her partner and children stayed completely silent - no I didn't, not one bit!
And I didn't wang the bar down or anything, just pulled on the rope to lower it giving here a slight tap on the hear at which point I let it rise again. She was off on one about the "bloody French" before I could open my mouth to say anything at which point I wrote her off as a lost cause (like her husband and children).
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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| Hurtle wrote: |
@Mjit,
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seen everyone was correctly seated
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If the bar hit her on the head, she obviously wasn't correctly seated. Also begs the question why you didn't keep a hand on the child, rather than force down a bar which is (I assume it was that sort of bar) supposed to operate automatically. |
It begs the question why were you looking after a random child?
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Poster: A snowHead
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It begs the question why were you looking after a random child?
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Not been on many European chairlifts then, @Whitegoldsbrother?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| Whitegoldsbrother wrote: |
| Hurtle wrote: |
@Mjit,
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seen everyone was correctly seated
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If the bar hit her on the head, she obviously wasn't correctly seated. Also begs the question why you didn't keep a hand on the child, rather than force down a bar which is (I assume it was that sort of bar) supposed to operate automatically. |
It begs the question why were you looking after a random child? |
You've never had to do that? Quite common in my experience to get to a chair and fine a ski school lane of little children who just need a random adult to 'accompany' them. Basically just making sure they get on and off and there's at least 1 pair of legs long enough to reach the safety bar footrest and so hold it down.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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I was assuming @Whitegoldsbrother was just being a berk?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| Mjit wrote: |
| Maybe "self closing" safety bars exists but I've not encountered one yet. |
Oh, they definitely do. Not as common as self-opening ones but getting there as more new lifts are built. Rule seems to be, if it self-closes it will be self-opening, although it can be self-opening only. It's never the other way round!
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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@Mjit,
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Maybe "self closing" safety bars exists but I've not encountered one yet. This is just a "auto locking" safety bar so needs to be manually closed but once down locks until the release trigger's pressed in the top lift station (the reason the child a couple of weeks before who leant over the side, getting her neck trapped between the arm rest and safety bar couldn't be released in transist and was unconscious by the time the lift got to the top station).
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Yikes, how awful. There are loads of self-closing bars in the Dolomites. Sorry my assumption that it was one of those was incorrect.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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Italy? With brand new chairs, not second hand ones bought from the French (when they bought second hand ones from the Austrians)?!?! 
Out of interest how long do self-closing bars give you? Unless the base station has to have a very long run-out close to the ground I'd guess the chair would want to be closing its bar sooner rather than later, certainly sooner than a lot of people on this thread would be expecting...
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@Mjit,
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Out of interest how long do self-closing bars give you?
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Difficult to say, it seems gradual but not slow. But I guess I must have thought it slow the first time, otherwise I wouldn't have tried to force it down.
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The one I timed at Serfaus gives you five seconds. it’s fine.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| Origen wrote: |
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Yes, that "feature" is really annoying. I cannot see the point in it.
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Eh? The point, clearly, is to stop people raising the bar too early as this thread has established is an annoying habit which can leave people feeling vulnerable, dangling over an abyss. I dare say that the clever people who make ski lifts, and the brave and resourceful pisteurs who rescue people on the very few occasions when they go wrong, have thought about what happens if people have to be rescued and I'm happy, if naive, to put my trust in them. |
I don't understand how people lift the bar early if your skis are on the footrest.
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I don't understand how people lift the bar early if your skis are on the footrest.
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And I don't see how they lower them too quickly if you have a hand up to stop them (which I've done automatically for years). A lot of fuss about nothing, if you ask me. I particularly wonder why people who claim to have been bashed on the head many times just continue to sit there and do nothing, waiting for it to happen again.
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FAQ
