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Poma lift collapse

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Just come back from a week away; saw something which I've never even contemplated before and, frankly, made me rather worried - certainly made me think.
Basically (thankfully having just decided to go furtehr up, else I'd have been on the drag lift at the time!), I was sitting on the chairlift, looked over at the Poma drag lift going up below me and, as if in slow motion, saw the top wire falling down and the individual tube things that you put between your legs and hold onto all come crashing down like a row of dominoes. It turns out that somehow the entire thick wire rope had come off the big wheel at the top of the lift and the entire wire/rope and pull system catastropically failed. It was at times quite a steep drag lift but not too long.
Fortunately, as I understand it, there wasn't anyone badly hurt and there were few people on the lift at the time. The main casualty, I believe, was hit in the back by one of the falling poles as they were crossing the drag path on another piste. Could have been so much worse...
Anyone else come across this before or got any ideas what happened? I'm presuming some kind of tensioner failure, but should routine checks/maintenance not pick this kind of thing up?
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Where did this happen?
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Grizza,
Where was this?
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Was that on a glacier? Surface lifts which are mounted on the ice do occasionally move around, which can cause the cable to derail. Happened to a friend a couple of autumns ago in Tignes - glancing blow from the cable, but could have been worse.
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It was in a small resort in Finland (I won't name at moment in case there's insurance or legal implications, etc) and therefore, no, it wasn't on a glacier, just a low-altitude general hillside slope.
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Grizzler wrote:
It was in a small resort in Finland (I won't name at moment in case there's insurance or legal implications, etc) and therefore, no, it wasn't on a glacier, just a low-altitude general hillside slope.


Puzzled Puzzled Puzzled So there might be a legal implication for you reporting on something you saw whilst going about your (leisuretime) business? Not sure I understand what you mean.

With regard to the incident, whilst rare, these things do happen. Fingers crossed no one was injured and the problem fixed.
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OK...let's all be honest here...we have all done the "let me see how far out tot the side I can lay a set of ski tracks" on a Poma at some point in our life.

Don't deny it, you know it is true.

Many years ago I was in Schladming with a bunch of friends and Tim decided to really go for it....and he was a big, strong lad.

Suddenly the lift stopped....we all stood/hung there for ages.
A snowmobile came whizzing by, going up the lift track.
A snowmobile came whizzing down with the driver carrying Tim on the back of it.
Word was passed that the lift was utterly Kaput...and we made our way away.

Tim had put so much sideways stress on the overhead wire that it had pinged off its rollers, and the whole lift lost tension and "unravelled"!

That evening...no Tim.
The next morning he reappeared...he had been held by the police in their cells overnight!
They wanted to charge him the equivalent of £10,000 to mend the lift...once it became obvious that the was just a student with no hope of paying they turned him out with a very severe bolloking!

Happy days... Very Happy
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@rungsp, Blimey, lucky Tim Shocked

I guess its perfectly reasonable though. As you say, we've all done it but thankfully they are pretty robust bits of kit so failures are few and far between.
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We were once on a drag lift near the top of Risoul where it joins to Vars and the very top was exceedingly rocky. In fact we couldn't see how to get to the very end without completely wrecking your skis. So everyone left the lift about 100m from the top and skied off. Unfortunately this was more or less midway between two pylons and their span and the rate of release of skiers matched the first harmonic of the cable. The oscilations got bigger and biger until the cable bounced of the supporting wheel. Fortunately it landed on the spur to the side of the wheel designed to stop it hitting the ground. The lift didn't operate for the rest of the week.
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Rungsp - I certainly know what you mean, and someone else in the resort did suggest this (though they weren't there at the time) but the rental shop locals didn't think that it was contributory and certainly I don't think that anyone on it at the time was doing this. Also, it was a very narrow 'path' of the drag, and very steep, so I doubt that there would be many culprits for too much weaving: on skis or on a board I was struggling just to cling on, and I'm not a poma virgin by any means.

This one didn't just stop, either: it literally all collapsed to the floor!
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johnE wrote:
We were once on a drag lift ... So everyone left the lift about 100m from the top and skied off. Unfortunately this was more or less midway between two pylons and their span and the rate of release of skiers matched the first harmonic of the cable. The oscilations got bigger and biger until the cable bounced of the supporting wheel.


Interesting: this lift had certanly one, maybe 2 places where people often dismounted 1/2 way up (the preferred way of getting back to the hotels from the supermarket or lower restaurant!!!) Wonder if that didn't help, then.
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@rungsp,
Quote:
OK...let's all be honest here...we have all done the "let me see how far out tot the side I can lay a set of ski tracks" on a Poma at some point in our life.

Don't deny it, you know it is true.


Maybe I'm too much of a goody goody, but I can genuinely say I've never done it and always give the children a bollocking when they start. It always struck me how easy it must be to derail the cable and have to confess that I've always thought those who do slalom (more than a couple of feet side to side) up the lift complete tw@ts. The lift companies don't put those 'no slaloming' signs up for fun.

Anyway, as I say I'm clearly too law abiding!
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andyman wrote:
So there might be a legal implication for you reporting on something you saw whilst going about your (leisuretime) business? Not sure I understand what you mean. Fingers crossed no one was injured and the problem fixed.


Not sure why I was being cautious either, but I just thought that I should be. It was Pyha, Finland.

Someone was injured, my understanding being a back inury from being it by the collapsing drag poles: carted off for "scans" to the hospital but hopefully no serious lasting damage. Had there been people on the steep bits in particular it could have been very nasty indeed, just from falls, never mind the wire cable and the drag poles coming down on top of them.

It wasn't fixed when I left yesterday and it didn't work for the rest of the week since breaking on Thursday (whilst being safety inspected and then I think attempts to mend it), which was a problem as it was the only lift available to 1/3rd way up the hill, to the top of the less steep (beginners) area of the slope and also, in very bad visibility, to somewhere where the more cautious could still see. And then, worst of all, we had to go all the way up the chair lift and ski/board down the long-ish red/black, in extremely poor to nil visibility, with the beer and shopping in the rucksac to get back to the hotel wink
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 You know it makes sense.
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There are often signs prohibiting slaloming and I know several drags with signs prohibiting dismounting part way, too. One drag in Les Saisies is included on the ski pass for the cross country area. Typically XC skiers dismounted part way up. They shortened the lift a bit a few years ago and the rule was that you had to go to the top, with strict instructions at the bottom to that effect. But that left you on a "black" XC track and an instructor I was with told us not to chat about it at the bottom (ie within earshot of the liftie) but to get off there anyway, as we weren't up to doing the black track.

They have now built a new skiercross piste which makes that very awkward, though not, presumably, solely for that purpose.
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foxtrotzulu wrote:
Maybe I'm too much of a goody goody, but I can genuinely say I've never done it .... I'm clearly too law abiding!


Actually, I wasn't going to admit it, but I've never done it, either. Little Angel More a case for me of trying too hard to cling on in-between the ruts and icy/slippy pole grips.
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Did see someone release the pole a bit to energetically and end up hooking the button over the cable. Fortunately the liftie spotted it just before it reached the wheel, stopped the lift, bashed it with a stick and shouted something (presumably) impolite in Italian after the departed skier. I could easily see how that might have taken the cable off.
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I was going up a T-bar one time and there was a lady on the bar in front of me and suddenly the pole lifted her up in the air (only a foot or two at this point) and she started doing 360s and then touching down again. I thought wow, that's a cool trick! Then a bit further up it suddenly lifted her up about 6 feet in the air and she was clinging on to it for dear life! At that point I realised she wasn't doing this deliberately. But luckily it came down again fairly softly and she was able to bail off safely and I told the lifty at the top what had happened so they could take the offending bar off. I can only think that the spring loaded cable mechanism was jamming up instead of extending to allow for the height of the cable.
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I've been told off for exiting a lift early; apparently someone the week previously had pinged the pole away and it got wrapped up and took out the lift for a day or so. I've never slalomed - too afraid of looking like an idiot if I catch an edge!
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@uktrailmonster, That happened to me on a button lift - a deserted one, on a very snowy day. I was less agile than that woman and eventually fell off, and had to clamber up to the piste through deep snow. The liftie, who'd been watching, laughed. It's not that uncommon for light kids to be lifted off their feet by button lifts.
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pam w wrote:
It's not that uncommon for light kids to be lifted off their feet by button lifts.

That's happened to me at Les Contamines, and I am not light!
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@pam w, a friend's daughter who although 17 is really slight nearly didn't manage to stay on a drag last year despite about 10 attempts. It's very steep and she just didn't have the weight to extend the pole. Nearly had to call the pisteurs.
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@rungsp, I've definitely been guilty of that, didn't even think about it being detrimental to the lift. I've always found it good practice for weight transfer when I've been learning (plus I enjoy messing about), I'll stop doing it now though Cool
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Quote:

I've always found it good practice for weight transfer when I've been learning

You can go straight up the middle, skis parallel, but just stand on one foot for a bit, then the other one.

I went up one very long drag behind two lads who were showing off, doing 180 turns, going up for a while backwards, then flipping round again. Actually very clever - but my grumpy friend, in front of me and immediately behind them, said he was ready to skewer one of the little smartarses with his pole if they'd fallen off.
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In the resort I learnt to ski in, also in Finland, the nursery slope had a button lift. At two or three different points up the lift line, there were animal characters, and the instructor would say "get off the lift at the owl", so we were discouraged from going to the top for the first day or two. The lifty was well aware of this.

Apart from falling off an 'extreme' drag lift as a beginner in Chatel, the only incident I've been aware of was when a skier failed to exit the t-bar on the glacier in Saas Fee. We were stuck at the bottom with loads of others while a helicopter was called. We weren't sure what had happened until a Russian skier explained to the crowd, in Russian but with very enthusiastic actions, exactly what had occurred. Turns out the dozy skier hadn't been paying attention and had smacked into the pylon or similar at the top rolling eyes
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Quote:

At two or three different points up the lift line, there were animal characters, and the instructor would say "get off the lift at the owl", so we were discouraged from going to the top for the first day or two.

What a good idea! Probably some lift mechanisms are much more robust than others.
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laundryman wrote:
I've never slalomed - too afraid of looking like an idiot if I catch an edge!


+1 Laughing
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@miranda, I had a Laurel and Hardy moment involving a chair lift at La Giettaz a couple of seasons ago. Embarassed
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@pam w, I do the one foot thing too now, it's a good way to learn that kind of thing without having to worry about where your going or who might be in your way.

The Livigno nursery slopes had animal characters too. Think the first one was a little penguin on a sled, the next one was a little penguin on skis with a big penguin, and the top one was a big penguin. At each exit point there's a level 'landing' to help people get off and presumably lessen the strain on the lift.
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
I was taught by my instructor as a kid that if you are going to come off early, to stop the risk of the cable coming off, always let go after a pylon, rather than just before one. Makes sense, I guess.
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I witnessed an amusing lift failure many years ago. Someone on the poma in front of me was travelling up blissfully unaware of his pending demise.

The button detached from the pole and his carefree attitude changed to one of alarm, as he accelerated backwards past me before doing the splits and ending up in a heap beside the lift. Fortunately it was only his pride that was hurt.
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geepee wrote:
The button detached from the pole and his carefree attitude changed to one of alarm, as he accelerated backwards past me before doing the splits and ending up in a heap beside the lift. Fortunately it was only his pride that was hurt.


I fell off one earlier in the year without even setting off. Not quite sure how it happened either, I think I grabbed the pole while off balance and forgot what I was doing so failed to move when the poma did Very Happy Thankfully I'm not an overly proud man so find it funny enough not to be ashamed Laughing
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@SnoodyMcFlude, I didn't want to embarass you by mentioning it - but it was the second funniest thing I saw all week. It was kind of the liftie to help you back up too. Laughing
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@Tubaski, see, you say that you don't want to embarrass me, and then you lie about the liftie helping me...he was just very concerned and came to check I was alright (once I'd got to my feet all by myself) Laughing
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It seems quite common to have one or more worn springs on Pomas, you hear it extending as you get on and just know it's going to jolt you off the ground. Better if you carry a bit of weight of course Toofy Grin
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Tubaski wrote:
Did see someone release the pole a bit to energetically and end up hooking the button over the cable. Fortunately the liftie spotted it just before it reached the wheel, stopped the lift, bashed it with a stick and shouted something (presumably) impolite in Italian after the departed skier. I could easily see how that might have taken the cable off.


All I did was get off! rolling eyes
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Was that you? I had forgotten that! Damn, this could have been the 'day I saw @adithorp break a Poma lift' story - prone to embroidering the truth as I apparently am. Toofy Grin
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pam w wrote:
Quote:

I've always found it good practice for weight transfer when I've been learning

You can go straight up the middle, skis parallel, but just stand on one foot for a bit, then the other one.

I went up one very long drag behind two lads who were showing off, doing 180 turns, going up for a while backwards, then flipping round again. Actually very clever - but my grumpy friend, in front of me and immediately behind them, said he was ready to skewer one of the little smartarses with his pole if they'd fallen off.


I also see a lot of teenagers doing a hockey stop to extend the wire fully, then do a "butter" on the tips of their skis. I thought of it knackering that pulley, but never considered it damaging the whole lift. Also see teenagers purposely flipping the seat up onto the top of the wire. Never checked, but I assumed there is a guide at the top that would knock those down.
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...then there's the tale of a snowHead who split his salopettes, repaired them with gaffer tape... and got stuck to a poma! snowHead
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There's also the tale of the Snowhead who got a standing ovation when he walked into the Schneekarhatte wearing a pair of chaps that had once been salopettes.
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