 Poster: A snowHead
|
|
|
|
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
|
|
|
|
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?
|
|
|
|
You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
|
We were getting on Transarc1 in Les Arc and my daughter missed the seat somehow, was swept forwards, just about dropped off the edge of the high getting on mound of snow, leaving enough of her head protruding to be slammed into by the next lift had it got there. She was about 8/9 at the time. Liftie took much more time than they should have to realised that there was a problem and hit the stop button - I think they were taking a break from their usual vigilance (and it must be a boring job), but at the time I think I made my thoughts known about their lack of attention. I never regretted the fact that kids have to wear helmets. I've been belted from behind in the head by a couple of T bars and the odd chair lift bar overly enthusiastically pulled down, so I am glad wear one too. 
|
|
|
|
|
|
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
|
| Chasseur wrote: |
| I was on another Poma once, when the button fell off. Really quite a shock, tumbling down backwards and to the side where I stopped in a huge heap of snow. As if that wasn't bad enough, some git behind me in an all-red ski outfit was wetting himself with laughter |
Haven't we met?
(ok I wasn't wearing red but I'm sure I've laughed at your 'technique')
|
|
|
|
|
|
You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
|
I was on the West Wall Poma at Cairngorm a couple of seasons ago and had a lovely experience. I was looking up the slope thinking "that wee laddie is going to faw oaf there if he disnae stoap fannyin' aboot". And he did. For anyone not familiar with the tow, it's quite steep. He fell off at the steepest bit and was flying down the drag line at a rate of knots. If he'd continued like that and hit someone or something it would have been very messy. Split second decision made, i waited until he was nearly upon me, jumped off my poma, skied a bit and managed to jump on him and catch him just before he went head on backwards into a lift stanchion.
Because of the way his leg was facing I had to pick him up, put him on my shoulder and heave him round onto the piste at the side. Turns out the lad was about 10 and completely out of his depth. A few minutes later I had the (dis)pleasure of meeting his father who couldn't stop laughing, even though his son was inches away from chopping his head in half of a big frozen bit of concrete and metal!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Shoogly, a similar thing happened on the icy drag next to the park in Are, I grabbed a girl before she ended up in a river of melt water (april) only father was irate not laughing, my crime was grabbing a bit of hair as well as jacket, felt like pushing him in the icy water maybe then he'd realise it was better to lose 5 hairs than try to ski in soggy clobber. Ok no dramatic decapitation looming but it would have ruined the rest of the day for the kid. 
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|
shoogly, sounds like Franco Begbie taking one of his bairns skiing
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
lilywhite, it's crazy isn't it.
People are nuts.
|
|
|
|
|
|
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
|
|
That doesn't actually sound quite right somehow... 
|
|
|
|
|
|
You know it makes sense.
|
Where is that video of those guys that had some queue jump for the first chair on a pow day, and then faceplated off the lift from quite a height amongst jeers and heckles? That would not be a good day out.
I do feel sorry for people that stack it off lifts that are huge distances from the piste and then have bushwhacking in waist deep snow to further their punishment.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
|
it's 1986 and our first time on skis, we are at Les Arcs 1800
we are booked on an "evening meal followed by torchlight descent" up the mountain with our tour operator
our instructions are "get on last chairlift of the day and when you get off a rep will give you further directions"
we are in the lift queue in good order. i think it may have been Chatel chair-can't remember
we shuffle forward as required
the chair sweeps round and as i sit down it whacks my left ski boot
my left ski falls off
my brain clicks into action-sort of
what to do?
we're off up the mountain and then on a torchlight DESCENT-with only one ski!!
no problem- i'll jump off chair and get my ski
after all i was a very good athlete and a hard man rugby player back in the day-what could go wrong
i was higher than i thought by then, much higher-but i jumped
the snow was harder than it looked too. i was bleeding a bit
the lift person went crazy- "i would send ze ski up on anozzer chair you crazy english ***@$%
didn't think of that
you live and learn
everyone was laughing-except me, my eyes were watering a bit
cheers Geoff
|
|
|
|
|
|
Poster: A snowHead
|
also i seem to remember a button lift at Les Arcs, sort of where the Vagere chairlift is now
i think they got the mechanism off an aircraft carrier-grab the shaft (eek) stuff the button under your bum then wait
30 seconds for the steam catapult to take up the slack then close your eyes and hope for the best.
i fell off it a lot-so did everyone else not from France
cheers Geoff
|
|
|
|
|
|
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
|
|
|
|
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?
|
|
|
|
You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
|
Touch wood I've never had a bad accident on a ski lift, the worst that happened to me personally was being stuck on a lift when a power cut occurred and everyone had to be wound back down the mountain by hand then had to walk home, however as a child I did witness a horrible accident that has stuck with me for more than 30 years, Drag lift up Salzegg which goes in a rather nice punchbowl from below Kleine Schidegg station to just below Eigergletscher station (now replaced with nice chairlift) in the Jungfrau area, there was a long steep straight section with a sharp drop off to one side and no way out to the other side either, a man I think lost his t-Bar (might have fallen skiing across lift track) and slid down the steep lift run towards me, but hit the child in front, his skis hit the child's shins just above the ski boots breaking them like twigs, lift comes to a dead stop and I then had to wait listening to the screams of my classmate with nowhere to go, for probably no more than 10 mins (but for a child it felt like an hour) until the sled turned up with the piste patrol, they had my classmate bundled up and onto the sled very quickly and then shot off down the mountain after which the lift slowly restarted and being next in line my skis dragged bloody lines up the hill.
For decades afterwards I had avoided that patch of the ski area because of those memories which is why I was so pleased when they replaced the t-Bar with a nice chairlift
|
|
|
|
|
|
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
|
narc,
| Quote: |
I do feel sorry for people that stack it off lifts that are huge distances from the piste
|
This is what has always worried me with drag lifts.
|
|
|
|
|
|
You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
|
Two seasons ago I was trying out a pair of skis that were 28cm longer than my own. I had only been on the skis for about 10 minutes and hadn't yet got the length dialled into my spatial awareness when I attempted to board that little rickety, old, two-man Sources chairlift on Brévent mountain. That little chair is fast and I don't normally get the safety bar down until I'm a good two metres into the ride.
As I plopped down onto the chair and it took off, the tips of both skis dipped down into the little gully at the edge of the boarding point and dug into the snow, effectively catapulting me out of the moving chair and double-ejecting me out of the bindings to land face down in the opposite snow bank… to the sound of gasps from lift queue behind me and the lift grinding to a halt.
The liftie unceremoniously hauled me onto my feet by my backpack. I turned around to see both skis standing neatly to attention in the snow and everyone in the queue giving me the wide-eyed "oh" face... except for one elderly gentleman who was doubled over, clutching his friend's arm for support, busting a gut laughing.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
FAQ
) in Flaine. Instructor take us to a button lift (at the bottom end of the tennis courts, probably replace by now) "Whatever you do, do not fall off zees leeft". I did.
