 Poster: A snowHead
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I was just thinking regarding the previous thread about favorite lifts, what are the strangest lifts that you may have come across over the years? Most of these lifts generally tend to be old and may have even been removed over the course of time. They most likely came into being prior to the advent of modern lift corporations, generally conceived by the resort owners.
Two that came to mind for me were the Mt Cranmore Skimobile in New Hampshire, which was a different take on the funicular, and the only lift of its kind in the world until its removal in the early '90's. It featured carriages (or skimobiles) that rolled on a wooden track up and down the mountain pulled by a single cable. You can see them here: http://teachski.com/pcindex2004/CranmoreNH.htm
Another was the old Mixing Bowl double chairlift at Mt Snow in Vermont. It was a conventional, old fashioned double chairlift, but rode on a track mounted above the chairs that was pulled by a chain. It was slow and dripped gease (which is why every chair featured a hood), but was still quite a nifty contraption. Here's a picture of another "conveyor" lift built at Mt Snow: http://www.chairlift.org/pics/mtsnow/ms29.jpg[/url]
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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The buckets at Flaine.
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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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Difficult as I doubt I've been on anything that could be considered strange as such. The ones that stand out though are the foot-rest-less chair in Val d'Isere, the old chairlift at Alum Bay on IOW, the old bubbles at la Plagne (up from below the Vanoise Express) oh and the Vanoise Express I suppose (double decker), and the odd draglift with complicated cabling at sharp corners.
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Probably the single man chairlift at Pamporovo, Bulgaria.
Mainly because as a beginner being sent on a chair list, alone and finding the safety bar was iced open and I couldn't shut it. Add on to this the damn thing stopping half way up and swinging slightly (though to me it felt like it was swinging madly) and it felt more like a fairground white knuckle ride.
It took me a couple of years to do that one again! 
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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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The one in ADH that goes over the town, same in Mont Tremblant, stand up cage that travels over the shops. Up and over lift to Le Fornet in Val D'Isere.
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The dustbins way up above Alagna/Gressony are a prehistoric version of the ones in Flaine and more consequently more interesting/exciting.
In Kandersteg there's a chair lift which goes up sideways.
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This may not count, but the tubing run in Vail has a little lift that is hooked onto the tube and up you go, sitting in your tube. You have to remember to disengage at the top, otherwise you go down again before you really want to.
I have a vague recollection of single chairs facing sideways somewhere or the other. Aviemore? Seems an absurd arrangement, so perhaps I've imagined it.
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richmond, no you're right the lower chair at Aviemore did face side ways, never convinced how safe it was in the way the chairs locked onto the cable! That's probably the strangest lift I've been on though. In Schladming there used to be(?) one of those multiple gondolas in a line and the base station moved as the cable was tensioned when it arrived in the "station", that was weird but quite modern (10 years ago?).
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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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| pendodave wrote: |
The dustbins way up above Alagna/Gressony are a prehistoric version of the ones in Flaine and more consequently more interesting/exciting.
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Unlike the stand-up buckets at Les Menuires, the ones at Alagna are high up the mountain and provide an essential way out. and they don't slow down for you to get on and off.
They are two person buckets and you have to run to get on from the back and then close a little gate behind you, and run to get off again. If you are lucky an attendant looks after putting your skis onto the bucket, but you often have to take your skis off it yourself, while trying to keep up and not fall over.
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snowball,
Love'd that lift and the decrepid floorboards to get to it....
And the old cable car isn't much more reassuring considering the height of it....!!!
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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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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A single chair in Sauze D'Oulx and more recently a ski on/off escalator up through a man made plastic tunnel in the middle of the mountains in La Thuile italy
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There's a single chair at the top of the Hohe Salve above Soll in Austria, it's often closed due to wind though.
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You know it makes sense.
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the basket or bucket shaped lifts in Monte Bondeone, trento area of Italy. Really weird 
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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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| Winterhighland wrote: |
For operational reasons a rig was built on top of the station and the Lady Chair started on the roof till it was decommisioned in April 2001.
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Are you saying that at some point the White Lady chair was seperate to the car park chair? In my fading memory of what must be 10 years ago I thought the White Lady was a conventional style 2 man chair - or has my memory failed me?
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Poster: A snowHead
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When I was young with my parents we were in Wengen and wanting to ski the Manlichen, but the cable car was closed due to high winds. For some reason they wanted to get something or someone to the top, so when there was a lull they decided to send one car up and we got in too. It was a short lull and by the time we got to the top we were swinging wildly. He waited for over an hour just outside the top station till a brief lull stopped the wilder swings and we were able to bump our way in.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Willamette Pass in Oregon had a slingshot palma lift in the 70s and early 80s. The palma devices detached from the cable. The operator would hand you your palma device then attach it to the cable. The device had a spring on it that was designed to stretch when it connected to the cable then contract thus the nickname slingshot palma. The spring was prone to freezing stiff or contracting rapidly causing an unpleasant (and often painful) surprise for anyone that had stuck the palma pole snuggly between his legs.
The most unusual lift I've been on in recent years is at Lost Trail Ski Area in Montana. They have a rope tow with wooden paddles sticking out of the rope. Some people just hold onto the paddle while I've seen others try to put it behind them like a t-bar.
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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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There was a very strange chair when we skied in Sestriere/Sauze d'Oulx for the day, you had to take off your skis? , and then we got off inside a garage type building? or did i just dream that one?
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Helen Beaumont, the old chair up from Clotes (??) in Sauze d'Oulx, you take your skis off to get on it and have to hit the ground running at the top (still carrying skis and poles) to avoid it knocking you over. I think it's been replaced now, probably as part of last year's work for the Olympics.
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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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Here is a picture of the ski on and off escaltor in La Thuile that I mentioned above
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| Quote: |
finding the safety bar was iced open and I couldn't shut it.
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Ah! the joys of escaping the nanny state....
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FenlandSkier, Helen Beaumont, Used that lift during Christmas 2004. The queues in the morning were horrendous. You had to put your skies on to get to the queue then take them off to get on the lift. Sat there with skies, poles and rucksack in hands was a nightmare. How I never lost anything was a mystery.
And yes it as now been relaced with a more modern 4 man chair lift.
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Super Eagle, I was there Jan 05 but only used it once, the bus up to the lift to Sportinia stopped right outside our hotel so used that each day.
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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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OK I got a good one. The nutcracker in Craigieburn New Zealand. If you've never ridden on they are an expierence... It's one huge long cable which loosely goes over pulleys. You get a harness with what can only be described as a giant nutcracker attached. Then you position yourself near the (fast) moving cable, grab it to get moving, then with the other hand while moving flick the nutcracker around the cable and sit back. After my day there I had pains in my shoulders, arms and most especially abs for about 3 days. Learning to ride it takes about 2 hours of falling off....
And I found a link
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| Quote: |
there was perhaps only 2 others ever built?
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One of those was probably the 'First' lift above Grindlewald. It went up in three stages in the same way as you describe at Cairngorm and was for a time the longest chairlift in the world.
I remember using the Cairngorm lift in the 1970s. At the Sheiling it went into the shed and you were pushed through on a series of rails onto the upper system in an exactly similar way to a two stage Gondola, only with a bit more manual assistance !
It was moved onto the roof in about 1981 (?) the same year that Coire Cas was lifted up and the M1 and Fiachial ridge poma constructed ? The reason was to avoid digging out a huge drift across the uphill entrance, just below where the M1 now stands.
I've helped build a few unusual lifts. At Yad Moss in the North Pennines we used to operate rope tows. Harwood Common just to the south and Allendale to the north, both still use rope tows, very effectively. They are cheap and reasonably simple to construct but can be a pain to operate, especially if they get buried.
The bottom rope tow at Yad Moss was unusual because the drive was on the down rope, half way down the hill. That meant that the emergency stop gate operated electronically rather than mechanically, always a source of slight concern ! When we commissioned the tow, it was suggested that the configuration might permit the rope to stay still whilst the engine hut wound its way down the hill 
A later 'summit' tow utilised an amazing self propelled mini engine designed and built by Cumbrian ski pionneer 'Frank Keiser'. Eventually that was replaced with a Lister diesel engine and then eventually the Poma that is there today.
The Yad Moss Poma has a similar reputation to the Harrier at the Lecht, at least amongst snowboarders. The secret is to be moving at the same moment as the hanger attaches, to avoid the inertia.
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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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| stevew wrote: |
| richmond In Schladming there used to be(?) one of those multiple gondolas in a line and the base station moved as the cable was tensioned when it arrived in the "station", that was weird but quite modern (10 years ago?). |
That wasn't my imagination then - it's REALLY disconcerting! The only other odd ones I can think of are the old 'safety bar unfolds from the arm in origami fashion' - also at schladming and in slovenia I think - as you start off going downhill and over an immediate 20m or so drop to a busy road it all had a certain panic element to it the first time. Gone now though - replaced by goldenjet apparently.
aj xx
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There used to be one at Sierra Nevada which looks and feels just like a series of old fashioned park benches hanging from a cable on chains. There's another bit of chain to hook over your legs for 'safety' which would probably do nothing for you if you were going to fall out/off. The most amazing thing about it was the mass of ski equipment in the rocks underneath it. ...skis, poles, goggles, clothing etc. everywhere.
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You know it makes sense.
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Perhaps the Carpark T-bar on CairnGorm deserves a mention here. Firstly for putting quite a lengthy T-bar on what is really beginner terrain, and secondly for the fact that the steepest section of the up-track is downhill! It certainly has entertainment value! 
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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 is (or was) a thing in Verbier area (Nendaz, I think) to help you over a bit of flat, consisting of soft cyliders, about 10' long, 6" diameter, IIRChanging down from a circlating cable. One grabs on as best one can. Known to me and my chums as 'the donkey's dongler'.
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Poster: A snowHead
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T-Bar 115 in Westendorf is a slightly odd one, the drag itself goes up and over a hill so you can actually use it from either end, you get off in the middle at the top.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| FenlandSkier wrote: |
| T-Bar 115 in Westendorf is a slightly odd one, the drag itself goes up and over a hill so you can actually use it from either end, you get off in the middle at the top. |
Have you ever stayed on down the other side!
Such is the joys of Scottish Weather I once took the Daylodge Poma DOWNHILL!
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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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Just thought I'd postn here to get that other post off the top!
The Bouqetein(?) Funitel in VT is very odd in my book, a cut price Funitel.
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stevew, Odd yes, but it does go like the clappers. Its a sort of Funitel/cable car cross. Noisy beggar as well.
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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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If we keep talking nonsense (ski talk here) it carries on pushing it down.
Have you noticed the old bucket lifts in Courchevel went 2 seasons ago when they put in the new 6 man from C1550?
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The Va y Vient in Portillo - like waterskiing uphill at 60 degrees!
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In Saas Fee in 1992 a piste basher would trail a rope with strategically placed knots and you just grabbed hold and got dragged across the glacier .. haven't been back since so I don't know if this still goes on.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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There is a 4-man(?) chair in Mammoth which goes round a 45° bend. Going up this happens in one go, but on the return the chairs take a very circuitous route.
| Quote: |
| the old chair up from Clotes (??) in Sauze d'Oulx, you take your skis off to get on it and have to hit the ground running at the top (still carrying skis and poles) to avoid it knocking you over. I think it's been replaced now, probably as part of last year's work for the Olympics. |
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Yes that's gone. Now a quad (fixed I think - didn't decend below the top of it last year).
There's also the single-seater chair between the top of Sauze and the gondola up from Sestriere: was running in January last year when the snow was very thin in the valley between: for the previous two years (at least!) I don't recall even seeing the chairs mounted on the cable. As the chair has such low capacity, there were also running a skidoo-lift there last year: grab one of the ropes and hang one - very hairy when passing another skidoo heading in the opposite direction. 
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| Quote: |
the old chair up from Clotes (??) in Sauze d'Oulx, you take your skis off to get on it and have to hit the ground running at the top (still carrying skis and poles) to avoid it knocking you over
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The two man chair in Arinsal, which was the main access lift before the gondola, is (was?) like this at the top you linked arms with a liftie and got span 180 degrees out of your seat. Skis and poles were put in the back but you had to carry boards yourself, unsurprisingly most people left their stuff in cages at the top.
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