Ski Club 2.0 Home
Snow Reports
FAQFAQ

Mail for help.Help!!

Log in to snowHeads to make it MUCH better! Registration's totally free, of course, and makes snowHeads easier to use and to understand, gives better searching, filtering etc. as well as access to 'members only' forums, discounts and deals that U don't even know exist as a 'guest' user. (btw. 50,000+ snowHeads already know all this, making snowHeads the biggest, most active community of snow-heads in the UK, so you'll be in good company)..... When you register, you get our free weekly(-ish) snow report by email. It's rather good and not made up by tourist offices (or people that love the tourist office and want to marry it either)... We don't share your email address with anyone and we never send out any of those cheesy 'message from our partners' emails either. Anyway, snowHeads really is MUCH better when you're logged in - not least because you get to post your own messages complaining about things that annoy you like perhaps this banner which, incidentally, disappears when you log in :-)
Username:-
 Password:
Remember me:
👁 durr, I forgot...
Or: Register
(to be a proper snow-head, all official-like!)

The History of Ski Lifts

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Interesting article here about the history of skilifts. I knew that the first chairlift had been installed in Sun Valley Idaho, I'm pretty certain that it will be the one that was shown in the skiing scenes in the 1941 film Sun Valley Serenade ( look at the chairlift shown at 37:55 onwards):
http://youtube.com/v/cUnVNzeVPpI
snow report
 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Incidentally I noticed that the chairlift support towers have a rudimentary bit of padding around their base, I guess US customer litigation was a concern even back then! Madeye-Smiley
snow report
 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?
Thanks @Alastair Pink, an interesting read.

There is obviously a small cult of ski-lift history enthusiasts. Try www.remontees-mecaniques.net for lifts in the French Alps (unless you have technical French you will like me need Google Translate). More information than you could dream of, and some great old photos.
snow conditions
 You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
https://www.deepl.com/translator much better than Google Translate IMHO. Covers fewer languages though
snow report
 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
@jabuzzard, thanks, I should try that. It presumably doesn't integrate with searches in the same way though.
snow report
 You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
I don't believe it does. Case of cutting and pasting the text. However the results are much closer to a human translation than Google in my experience. Well at least the English translations look much more natural to a native speaker. I would not presume to say what translations into something other than English are like.

The best way to test is paste some text in and translate to your chosen language. Then repeat translating it back to English. When you compare the two using this method the translation back into English from DeepL is much better than Google in my view.
snow report
 Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
jabuzzard wrote:
I don't believe it does. Case of cutting and pasting the text. However the results are much closer to a human translation than Google in my experience. Well at least the English translations look much more natural to a native speaker. I would not presume to say what translations into something other than English are like.

The best way to test is paste some text in and translate to your chosen language. Then repeat translating it back to English. When you compare the two using this method the translation back into English from DeepL is much better than Google in my view.


Totally agreed, Deepl is by far better than google translate.
ski holidays
 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
Did they have a blanket of some form that use to form part of the chairlift? - it sure looks like there was - at first I thought it was his jacket when he sat on the the lift, with the interior fleece showing, then when he got off the lift it remained.

Also love the "do not tour* alone"



*edited to fix typo


Last edited by After all it is free Go on u know u want to! on Thu 4-02-21 22:32; edited 1 time in total
snow report
 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.
extremerob, Looked like it was attached to the safety bar, which they swung across.

Some of the skiing in the film looked impressive too Toofy Grin
snow conditions
 Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
It’s a canvass sheet, or similar.
I’ve ridden chairs with a similar arrangement (possibly at Westendorf or Hintertux).
snow conditions
 snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
Marksky wrote:
It’s a canvass sheet, or similar.
I’ve ridden chairs with a similar arrangement (possibly at Westendorf or Hintertux).


Yep, most of us who were skiing in the 1980s will have encountered old single chairs where some fabric was attached to the swing arm safety bar so that when you brought it across to the safety position it acted as a windbreak for your lower half. Smile
snow conditions
 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.
Alastair Pink wrote:
Marksky wrote:
It’s a canvass sheet, or similar.
I’ve ridden chairs with a similar arrangement (possibly at Westendorf or Hintertux).


Yep, most of us who were skiing in the 1980s will have encountered old single chairs where some fabric was attached to the swing arm safety bar so that when you brought it across to the safety position it acted as a windbreak for your lower half. Smile


Nope, never encountered that particular luxury! Laughing
latest report
 So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
The luxury now is the chairs move faster (even if not with hoods).
I’ll have encountered such a chair in mid 90s , or more recent.
ski holidays
 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Bones wrote:
Some of the skiing in the film looked impressive too Toofy Grin

Yes, I wondered whether Sonja Henie (the Norwegian Olympic ice skater who plays the female lead in the film and of course does the ice skating sequences) who apparently learned to ski at an early age actually did the skiing sequences in the film too, but according to this, apparently not. Quote: All the Sun Valley scenes were shot by the second unit; the stars never left Hollywood. The ski lift sequence and the two skiing scenes were not performed by stunt people but by amateur skiers at Sun Valley who could physically match the stars in long shot. John Payne was doubled by James Loranger of Sacramento; research has not been able to discover who doubled Sonja Henie and Milton Berle. Each of the three sequences took about two days to shoot.
snow report
 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
According to Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Valley_Serenade it was Gretchen Fraser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gretchen_Fraser who stood in for Sonja Henie.
latest report
 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
@jabuzzard, thanks, good spot!
snow conditions
 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Wow, Gretchen has quite a bio! Shocked
snow report
 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?
Nice article - lift-world is a great website for lift geeks.

Shep -if you like bio's and it popped up on Gretchen's was Otto Langs - from ski instructor in the early days in st anton through to hollywod movie director - in a magazine article he said there was an old man in st anton who would ask him every morning as he carried his skis to work in the 1920s 'bish du nit heen' are you not dead yet ?

As far as i am aware, not incuding rope tows - europes first proper ski lift - there's a clip of it in this video from Davos


http://youtube.com/v/ItKR2NorlQM
snow report
 You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
I am surprised nobody has mentioned Wengen. The first mechanical uplift for skiing was when British skiers at Wengen persuaded the local officials to run the railway to Kleine Schedegge in winter. This was the genesis, in 1925 of the foundation of the "Downhill Only" Ski Club. Up till then you always had to climb up first.
Chair lifts weren't the first ski-lifts. As the video above says, the first T-bar (or initially J-bar) ski lift in the world was introduced in Davos. The T-bar ski lift was designed by Zurich engineer Ernst Gustav Constam who registered his invention with the patent office in 1930. Four years later the first ski lift went into operation.
I don't know if there were any simpler rope tows earlier than that, similar to the tractor powered ones you still get now in the UK.
And what about cable cars (USA aerial tramway). They go back to 1644 and the first one for people 1893. Didn't any get used by a skier before the first drag lift? After all, one of the first was in Chamonix.
snow conditions
 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
@snowball, I believe it was St Antons Galzigbahn by Bleichart that was the first cablecar built primarily for skiing (arguably at least in Austria), others had popped up around the mountains before but for summer tourism.

But have references for earlier ones in Engelberg 1928, and Parsenbahn, brevent chamonix 1930, Davos 1931 used for skiing
snow conditions



Terms and conditions  Privacy Policy