 Poster: A snowHead
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I remember being stuck on a drag lift once on quite a steep section.
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that happened to two of my kids. Both v competent skiers, but the weather was horrible - very heavy rain. When they eventually realised that the (sparsely populated) draglift was not going to start again, they had major problems getting up the slope. The lad got up, being much stronger, but my daughter, trying to side step and using ski poles as kind of ice axe, slipped and slid a long way down again, just when she was near the top. she was so distraught my son did the right thing and climbed down without his skis to help her.
Being the sort of skier who doesn't go out in pouring rain I was sitting in the warm with a nice cup of tea at the time.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| Megamum wrote: |
| The closing times of the lifts don't seem to be on many of piste maps that I've looked at |
That'd be because most large resorts stagger the lift closing times and leave them open a little later in the Spring with the longer daylight 
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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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Sooner or later there will be a serious incident on a chairlift in poor weather.
Imagine how long it would take to evacuate a fuller loaded line. Imagine then how much quicker it would take to get hypothermia !
It would not be pleasent.
Draglifts in exposed areas are much safer in my view. 
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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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Megamum
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| I think it's very reassurring to know it can be done! |
I agree!
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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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pam w, Some of the drag lifts I've been on (particularly a couple of T bars) have pulled up some very steep sections and through some very rough and unpisted side areas. I think this is why I hate the things as the whole time I am on them I think 'what if I muck it up and fall off the damn thing half way up with no easy way back across to a pisted run to ski back down on'. Some of them run on narrow piece of snow that I doubt you could walk down or climb up alongside the lift should it start to run again. I also worry about the kids on the lifts for the same reason, but I think in that eventuality they would probably fair fair better than I due to more experience off piste. The problem might be finding them again if their route down didn't coincide with the route down from the top of the lift.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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| Megamum wrote: |
| I assume that the resorts have a system for checking that all lifts are empty before they switch them off? In Switzerland they used to tip the seats up and when they met a turned up seat they knew the lift was empty. |
Just today, two friends and I just caught the last couple of seats on a chair in Baqueira (Spanish Pyrenees) and there were a couple of people about 7 seats ahead of us. We were joking about being on the very last seat, and as we departed we watched the liftie put a barrier across the lift entrance. On the way up we were commenting on how silent the resort is once most people have left and many of the lifts had shut. Near the top of the (long) lift, the folks ahead of us had gone over the top of the mountain and had reached the dismount. We couldn't see them, or the dismount, or indeed anyone else at all in our valley.
I thought it would be a good time to tell the story of the woman who got left on a lift in Grandvalira (Andorra) overnight, and who has spent 10 years trying to sue them only for the courts to finally reject her claim a couple of weeks ago. (She had hypothermia but happily was otherwise OK and quickly recovered.) Just as I finished the story our lift slowed... and stopped... and stayed stopped. Then I noticed that the chairs in front of us had all been tipped up. (The liftie at the bottom had obviously decided that no-one else was going to turn up, so had started tipping the chairs after the folks in front of us prior to actually closing off the lift queue, and had then let us on when we arrived.) We waited only a minute or so but we all had a feeling that this wasn't just a temporary outage, so we started yelling. Luckily we were reasonably close to another crest where we could see just the very top of a different lift exit, and since there was no wind our voices carried and after a minute or so some skiers came to the lip of the crest and saw us. They thought we were mucking around at first, of course, but then they spoke to their liftie who radioed in to the guy at the top of ours. A few minutes later our lift started and we crossed the crest and dismounted.
Our top liftie first hid in his cabin, and then when my mate went to have a word with him he kind of brushed it aside saying that the pisteurs would have come up that lift later anyhow so there was nothing to worry about. That struck us as complete bullsh*t, but we were pretty relieved to have reached the top so we shrugged it off and made our way down the other side of the mountain to the town. (TBH, had we missed the lift we'd have had a hell of a climb up... and down from the "middle" valley that we were in is about 500m of vertical cliff face so that wouldn't have been an option either.)
Wouldn't have been so "fun" if it had been windy, if there hadn't been another lift closeby with dismounting skiers, or if it hadn't been great weather. I did however have a mobile phone, a walkie-talkie thingy and a whistle. Glad we didn't have to use them! I expect we'll try not to cut it so fine with the last lift next time
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A sobering story 
At the end of the day draglifts are self escapable. Chairlifts are not.
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Pyremaniac, 
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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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Patrol sweeps at the end of each day should include a sweep up each tow - last on, last off. Does this not happen everywhere/anymore??
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