 Poster: A snowHead
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I'm afraid Lift queues are a fact of life unless you ski in Canada in Jan/Feb when all the locals know it's just too piggin' cold to stand about outside. (The exception here is Revelstoke I think on a powder day.)
I too loathe the people who don't fill seats. As has been mentioned, the best import from Trumpton into Europe is the singles line, it's a brilliant idea that works really well.
Oh, and anyone who doesn't fill seats should be sent to the back of the queue (without any supper) by an old fashioned headmistress/headmaster type! 
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| Quote: |
Waiting another 10 seconds isn't really a hardship.
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@foxtrotzulu, Yeah but if youre at the back of the queue and every lift goes up with 1-2 spaces free it can mean an extra 3-4 minutes until you get there, I prefer to see 'em full. I am that one jumping on with 5 strangers if my buddies are gone in front and I'm stuck behind, sorry folks! 
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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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| Quote: |
As far as lifts are concerned, if I see a group,of 2 or more getting onto a lift, then I'd leave them in peace and just catch the next chair/bubble whatever - assuming there is no real queue. Waiting another 10 seconds isn't really a hardship.
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"real queue" I have never seen a queue that wasn't real
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| Markymark29 wrote: |
| Quote: |
Waiting another 10 seconds isn't really a hardship.
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@foxtrotzulu, Yeah but if youre at the back of the queue and every lift goes up with 1-2 spaces free it can mean an extra 3-4 minutes until you get there, I prefer to see 'em full. I am that one jumping on with 5 strangers if my buddies are gone in front and I'm stuck behind, sorry folks! |
Two points:
1. Rushing to catch up with your mates is an entirely reasonable excuse to do this.
2. You missed my point about not gate crashing another lift being only applicable if there isn't a queue of more than, say, 20 seconds.
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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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As an aside, it's interesting that some are more interested in skiing with their friends, when you can't rally communicate with them, than joining them on lifts when you can! I understand it, but it's a little ironic.
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| foxtrotzulu wrote: |
| Boris wrote: |
| One of the things which annoys me about lifts is when they are really quiet and the 5 of us get on a 6 man lift and someone makes a superhuman rush through the barrier to join us! |
+1 it's annoying because it's an unnecessary invasion of one's personal space. |
Really!!?
It's not something I'd always do but sometimes time is precious... I may have limited time to ski, I a may be trying to get somewhere and don't want to be late or I may just not fancy hanging around. I don't see how this is invading your personal space. I am just going to sit next you minding my own business for five minutes.
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I was looking at the Whistler planned lift expansion and the world renowned consulting company came up with.... "max wait time should be double the uplift time". Wow so a 12 minute uplift could have a 24 minute queue.
I did send a letter in telling them it was stupid and that 10mins waiting anywhere is the max I am ok, not happy but ok with. Strange I did not get a reply! At least in Canada they do fill the lifts with managed queue unlike Europe where the lift can go with one person in in extreme cases as a group do not want to share.
I noticed that @hawkwind, was complaining about Pila at new year. Strange that no lift queues and empty pistes are why we go to Pila every year. Mind we don't go at school holidays or the weekend. Ski Monday-Friday and it is brilliant. Not sure anywhere is quiet at New Year.
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| Layne wrote: |
| I may have limited time to ski, I a may be trying to get somewhere and don't want to be late or I may just not fancy hanging around. I don't see how this is invading your personal space. I am just going to sit next you minding my own business for five minutes. |
So limited that 10 seconds waiting for the next chair is going to make a difference?
If there is a queue behind me, I'll fill up the chair. If there isn't, I agree with those who feel squeezing into that last seat is an invasion of personal space. And usually, there is no queue behind.
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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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| dogwatch wrote: |
| Layne wrote: |
| I may have limited time to ski, I a may be trying to get somewhere and don't want to be late or I may just not fancy hanging around. I don't see how this is invading your personal space. I am just going to sit next you minding my own business for five minutes. |
So limited that 10 seconds waiting for the next chair is going to make a difference?
If there is a queue behind me, I'll fill up the chair. If there isn't, I agree with those who feel squeezing into that last seat is an invasion of personal space. And usually, there is no queue behind. |
Forgetting the rest for a minute how is me sitting in a chair next to you invading your personal space? If you are in the supermarket looking at pies and I also want to look at the pies also, can I stand next to you, or do I have to wait for you to make your choice and walk away? Should I avoid all close human contact unless absolutely necessary?
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| Layne wrote: |
| If you are in the supermarket looking at pies and I also want to look at the pies also, can I stand next to you, or do I have to wait for you to make your choice and walk away? Should I avoid all close human contact unless absolutely necessary? |
You can choose your pie. However I'd rather you didn't sit next to me on a park bench to eat it when there is another empty bench just over there.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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@dogwatch, Do you get upset when someone uses the urinal beside you in a public toilet? 
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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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People do seem to get quite het up about the most trivial of matters. 
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| enduroaid wrote: |
it really depends on the lift type....a fairly quick 6/8 man chair i would expect to wait less than 5 min. If it's a big cable car that is running to a timetable then 15-20min is acceptable at the end of the day its your fault for arriving just as the other cable car left!
As i do most of my skiing in Austria and outside the main holiday times I pretty much ski straight onto the next lift!! |
Same here, We are almost at the point of considering it a que if there are a few people in front of us. 
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You know it makes sense.
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We get on chairlifts with anyone; doesn't bother us. Got cheesed off last week though when a chap sat in the middle of the four of us then proceeded to turn right as he got off, skiid over the top of my husband's skiis making him then fall over. He turned and looked at him on the floor, then skiid off. No apology; nothing.
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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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We are almost at the point of considering it a que if there are a few people in front of us.
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Is that not the definition of a queue? Or are we talking about snooker?
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Poster: A snowHead
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| biddpyat wrote: |
| enduroaid wrote: |
it really depends on the lift type....a fairly quick 6/8 man chair i would expect to wait less than 5 min. If it's a big cable car that is running to a timetable then 15-20min is acceptable at the end of the day its your fault for arriving just as the other cable car left!
As i do most of my skiing in Austria and outside the main holiday times I pretty much ski straight onto the next lift!! |
Same here, We are almost at the point of considering it a que if there are a few people in front of us. |
I am from Barcelona, I know nothing.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=que+fawlty+towers+video&view=detail&mid=CF72F42B13BF5A19FA22CF72F42B13BF5A19FA22&FORM=VIRE
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Once on a 6-man lift someone double gated and as I was quite relaxed aka slow going through my gate I was faced with a wall of 6 people and nowhere to go. That is what I call invading my fecking space!
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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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| Jake43 wrote: |
I was looking at the Whistler planned lift expansion and the world renowned consulting company came up with.... "max wait time should be double the uplift time". Wow so a 12 minute uplift could have a 24 minute queue.
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Double lift time does sound like a lot. But remember that is a maximum so should only ever be reached at the very most peak time (I.e. a 20cm+ powder day on mlk weekend with the alpine lifts all closed). On a day like that I would grudgingly expect to queue up to 20mins for a lift anyway. In reality on a normal day a lift with that capacity will probably 5mins queue tops.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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One of my mates purposely rushes onto an almost full chair so that he can practise his crappy french on them 😃
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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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I'm with @AlpineWalker, lift management in France (mainly Porte De Soleil) is the bane of my life, they should get some experts in from Disneyland to sort out their staff ! Regularly see 6 man "express" chairs with large queues and 2 or 3 people on each chair.
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Some of the places in the US use a single person gate on large chairs, which allows singles on after the main gates have opened and closed to infill any spaces during busy periods.
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| dfhage wrote: |
| I'm with @AlpineWalker, lift management in France (mainly Porte De Soleil) is the bane of my life, they should get some experts in from Disneyland to sort out their staff ! Regularly see 6 man "express" chairs with large queues and 2 or 3 people on each chair. |
They need to send staff over to Canada where they manage the queue brilliantly and no chair goes less than full capacity. Pairs shuffle forward and merge with 4 other queues then a singles line so than by the time you get to the lift you are full. Huge frustration to me, more then general queue, when you see part filled chairs and queues.
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Worst queue I've ever personally experienced was ninety minutes for the gondola in Cortina a couple of New Years ago. After that we got the hotel driver to take us to outlying ways up. I remember a forty-five minute wait at Zell, too. I don't know if (otherwise) I'm just lucky but I rarely experience long queues on piste. It's probably at least partly because whether I'm with family or friends we operate a no-messing-around-waiting-to-get-on-the-chair-together policy. See you at the top, basically.
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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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It was indicating over 60 minutes on a sign at Gerlos over New Year 2015/2016 and to me the queues were so bad I reckoned longer than that - totally ridiculous. Fortunately we had a car, so we gave up after 10 minutes, clambered back into the car and headed off to find empty lifts 5 minutes up the mountain, next bus stop along.
This year, no queues in Sainte Foy over New Year, no queues of any note in Ski Amade over Feb half term, but then a lot of places we skied only had t-bars - and we had some of the best skiing we've had in years.
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Saw some extremely good queue management on the Grandes Platières gondola in Flaine at half-term (or maybe it was the Aup de Veran). 2 queues, one for 8 sitting places, one for the 6 standing places. A liftie on each queue numbering people in the queue up to "huit" and "six" respectively, and making sure all those people got on. Every cabin full - perfecto.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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@dogwatch, if you don't like strangers sitting next to you as it's invading your "personal space", how do you survive to actual queue?
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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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My worst was in Zermatt at easter. It was unseasonally hot and you could no longer ski back to the village. We skied down as far as we could to the midstation of the gondola. There was about 100 folk queuing already. Every gondola that came down was already full from the top station. Lots of disgruntled, over heated people squeezing in like sardines. It seemed to take forever to get back.
My worst time spent skiing to queuing ratio would be at Cairngorm. But everyone is very orderly.
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| adithorp wrote: |
| @dogwatch, if you don't like strangers sitting next to you as it's invading your "personal space", how do you survive to actual queue? |
Try reading the totality of what I actually wrote. The context was situations when there is no queue.
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You know it makes sense.
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| foxtrotzulu wrote: |
| Boris wrote: |
| One of the things which annoys me about lifts is when they are really quiet and the 5 of us get on a 6 man lift and someone makes a superhuman rush through the barrier to join us! |
+1 it's annoying because it's an unnecessary invasion of one's personal space. Imagine a crowded tube train.... Someone squeezes on an ends up wedged against me with no room for anyone to breathe. That's fair enough. Imagine an empty tube train and you are the only person on board. Someone joins the train and, despite acres of empty space decides to stand 2 inches away from me. Not ideal. It's a bit like the way Italians like to come and lie right next to you on a beach that is otherwise deserted!
As far as lifts are concerned, if I see a group,of 2 or more getting onto a lift, then I'd leave them in peace and just catch the next chair/bubble whatever - assuming there is no real queue. Waiting another 10 seconds isn't really a hardship. |
A four person chair is designed for four people, a six person chair is designed for six people etc. etc. its not someone invading your personal space, its someone sitting on a chairlift who is just trying to get up the mountain. If they where sat on your lap I think you would have grounds for complaint.
This is why lift queues can be so long.......if there is an empty seat, get on and lets all get up the mountain to do what we all love doing.
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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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| johnE wrote: |
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We are almost at the point of considering it a que if there are a few people in front of us.
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Is that not the definition of a queue? Or are we talking about snooker? |
Indeed - if you'd avoid it at a supermarket checkout don't criticise people who prefer to avoid it when skiing.
On topic I found the design of the new La Chaux chair interesting - side loading well after the pass gate (no secondary gate),giving punters a choice of 3 or 4 (very slow)chairs they can sit on. Very easy to scoot past faffers and plonk yourself on the front chair.
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Poster: A snowHead
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@Gyro,
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A four person chair is designed for four people, a six person chair is designed for six people etc. etc. its not someone invading your personal space, its someone sitting on a chairlift who is just trying to get up the mountain. If they where sat on your lap I think you would have grounds for complaint.
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You are missing the point. We are talking about moments when there is no queue. In addition, a four-man chair is designed to take up to four people. That doesn't mean you have to put four people on it. By the same token, a bus/coach might have, say, 10 rows of seats with each row holding four people. If the only spaces available are right next to other people then fine, but you and your wife/girlfriend are the only other occupants of the bus then it's common courtesy to go and sit in a different row.
This is a slightly daft discussion, because so much depends upon the exact circumstances. All we are really saying is that one should be considerate to others. If there's a big queue or you really need/want to get up the mountain NOW as opposed to 20 seconds later then oviously that's fine. Squash in wherever you like. If not then let's give each other some space. It's hardly a big deal either way.
@adithorp,
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@dogwatch, if you don't like strangers sitting next to you as it's invading your "personal space", how do you survive to actual queue?
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I don't know if you've noticed, but if you have 1,000 people in a queue they all squash up together. If you have 10, they are farther apart. In general, people (other than Italians) like to preserve as much personal space as they can.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Interesting discussion. I recently went out skiing for the day on my own. I didn't need to wait for anyone, there was no faffing, so if there was a space on a chair I was in it. At the only chairlift bottleneck I hit, maybe 10-15 rows of people, I soon nipped through the crowd of ditherers and got virtually straight in to a gap. I have no idea if I invaded anybody's personal space – I do tend to sit at the other end away from other occupants, but really I just wanted to get going.
I left the hotel just after 9am, and over the course of the day saved about 2 hours on the time it took me to complete my circuit compared to normal. I carried on till the lifts shut, and according to my phone, I did 50% more ski miles than I normally would on a long day.
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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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@Jake43,
It was insane, the gondola to Blue 15 took almost an hour!
Most lifts 20mins to half hour
To get an idea there were no skis available to rent at any shop!
Maybe 30 minutes queuing for a drink or food, just to pay and same to pick it up.
Was horrible, I ended up not even bothering, just waited till the Monday and it was deserted again.
Don't go at new years!
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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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| Quote: |
Waiting another 10 seconds isn't really a hardship.
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True, it's not. But then having someone we don't know sit on the same chairlift as us for a few minutes isn't really a hardship either. In fact it can be useful to chat to people not in your group to find out what conditions are like in areas you haven't been to yet. Or, on occasion, to get to taste something you've never tried from a hip flask before 
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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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@swiftoid, norovirus?
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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@Scarlet, paranoia
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Rohypnol? Lol
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FAQ
