Chairlift hangers, falls and misc fails...

I got the idea for this from Pee Tex and Raising Arizona's comments in the other thread about getting their backspacks caught on the chairlift and being dragged for a ride around the bullwheel. Pretty funny. My first day of orientation as a lift operator at Alpine in the mid nineties was actually all about this. They called it a "hanger" and took it extremely seriously because sometimes it was somebody's hood or the draw strings on a sweat shirt that got caught (strangulation danger) and some times they got around the bullwheel without tripping the break and headed back down the line (potentially leading to a dangerous fall). Impressing us with the importance of hitting the e-brake right away was their goal and it stuck with me. They even encouraged us to keep a knife handy and said not to worry about destroying somebody's jacket if we thought it was prudent. I never got a hanger but I saw people fail to load or unload in just about every different way imaginable.

I remember the first time I ever got on a lift, I was riding with a stranger and halfway up I realized I had zero idea of how I was supposed to get off. I asked the guy for advice and he gave good good suggestions: don't try to turn til you're off the ramp, just stand up at the cone and let the chair push you forward.... Instead I panicked, grabbed the guy by the elbow and hung on for dear life (don't know him from Adam remember). It was a little embarrassing. I'm curious to hear other peoples' experiences. There's probably some funny stories out there.

12 year old me, 2 hot 20 somethings, the chair all the way to skiers left at Windham, let them get off first, jumped off about 5 seconds too late, 5 foot drop, got outta there quick.

Johnnyonthespot wrote

12 year old me, 2 hot 20 somethings, the chair all the way to skiers left at Windham, let them get off first, jumped off about 5 seconds too late, 5 foot drop, got outta there quick.

This is awesome because it's a classic. It goes too different ways. One is with a splayed out pile of kid on his back on the ramp. The other is the successful landing but then your skis hit with a really loud thwack sound that makes everybody turn around and look at you.

No helmets back then either!

Ok true story : Friend of min a judge was skiing somewhere out west and told me this one at a party couple weeks ago .
He and his 2 college age sons were riding a lift without safety bar ,and saw a guy a few chairs in front of them fall off the chair

Apparently a female skier was  off the side of the trail and was squatting down relieving herself when she lost her hold on the slope and started drifting out on the trail near the lift

 The woman was still in a squatting mode with her ski pants down below her knees was in distress and this guy  saw her , leaned over to get a better gander at the spectacle and fell off the damn lift    apparently the guy had minor bruising and soreness but maybe it was worth it

Deciding where to pee when you're up on the mountain can be difficult- bet she gets out of her bindings next time

If anyone comes to Gore and needs to pee i can show you the best spots.

My little sister of about 8 or 10 at the time got the draw cord on the bottom of her jacket which had a line of stapled on lift tickets caught in the slats of West Mts. old double chair. The bullwheel was in a house beyond the get of ramp. She was dangling by the bottom of her jacket and the lifty had to reach up and lift her up to get her untangled.  We sometimes still laugh at this now at the top of West.

We've just been going to your place and well, sometimes Sponge's,,,, he has better booze.

Anybody see this week's Chronicle ? Article on Gore/NC,,,,, the Mtn used to have a summit Whopple hut way back when ?

What the hey is that ?

Man, I guess hangers are real. For all the warnings and hand wringing the lift department threw at us, I never saw one.

Harvey wrote

If anyone comes to Gore and needs to pee i can show you the best spots.

I usually have to go once or twice on the Pipeline hike.

i taught my 4 year old to ski at maple ski ridge using a harness. after about 10 trips up I got tired of taking the harness off. well of course the next ride up the harness catches the chair . the chair starts heading down and he is hanging under chair like superman. thankfully he tripped the wire and the chair stopped. i bribed him with mcdonalds and told him mom does not need to know what happened today

Was reminded recently of my biggest f'up on a ski lift, mid nineties while working as a lift operator at Alpine Meadows. The old Weasel double was a slow fixed grip riblet with two spots to get off but also, more unusual, two to get on. The first ramp serviced a bunch of blue trails and then the line went through a low pass and travelled horizontally through the trees to provide access to the back side of the resort.

It was a storm day and the backside wasn't open but they still had to have a liftie in that last shack. I just spent the whole day shoveling off the ramp and the ten foot high platform the shack was on so that the snow wouldn't interfere with the chairs as it piled up. At the end of the day, I was supposed to download back to the mid station and ski down from there, something I'd done many times before.

This time, after changing into my ski boots and gathering up all my crap, I stepped out in front of the moving chars like I always did but some piece of my gear, most likely a pole, caught itself between the platform and the chair. As I went to sit, the chair rose up my back; the line was pulling but my pole was holding the chair, storing up energy like a spring. Right about the time I figured out what was happening the Weasel overcame the friction and the chair released all that coiled up energy right into my ass. It launched me like a catapult, off the platform. It threw me so hard it felt like I was flying.

The craziest thing was that I was flying through the trees like superman and when I looked left my skis were right there flying along with me. My backpack and sorrels too. For a split second, it was like we were flying along in a little formation together. Of course I don't have photographic proof but this is how I remember it (drew this in leiu of taking notes at a supplier training the other day)



I didn't fly very far though. It had snowed about three foot that day so my landing was probably softer then the takeoff. I sat up in the middle of this big crater, not knowing whether to shit or go blind. Not only was I not injured, I didn't even have a bruise. I felt around in the snow to find my gear, trudged back through the waist deep snow, up the ramp and got on the lift successfully on my second try. The guy at the mid station was like "what the fuck took you so long."

True story

Is that your art? If so...freaking awesome man.

Brownski wrote

Was reminded recently of my biggest f'up

How many have you had .....

But seriously, your story was the best! Brownski for the win

Ha! I have had a few but between Alpine and Killington I've winesed  many
RA - thanks man... So much wasted potential...

Wow man, you are really good. Share more drawings please.

Wasn't sure if this belongs here or in the "Mad River Memories" thread (really not sure it belongs anyplace but I find it funny). Something inspired me to start doodling some memories again. This is really only peripherally related to skiing so I figured I should muck up my own thread instead of somebody else's

It's the late 90s (97/98 season I think) I'm working at Killington at the time and I'm absolutely thrilled to be living ON THE ACCESS ROAD and under a bar. The place was a defunct hotel. It was a total dump. I rented one room for almost no money. The other rooms were rented to other people. There was a common area with a kitchenette, a big fridge and a TV that I pretty much shared with a bunch of strangers.

So one night, after getting back from a late shift at work (I think), I'm sitting in the common area watching TV and drinking a beer. One of the guys who rents one of the other rooms has a bunch of friends visiting and they're all partying their asses off in the bar upstairs but the guy that actually lives there has already crashed and is passed out on the couch behind me.



I hear a noise and look over my shoulder. One of this guys friends just opened the fridge. I keep an eye on him cause I figure he's gonna try to take one of my beers. Oh shit! He is so drunk he thinks it's a urinal!



I jump up and yank him back. He's so wasted I am able to throw him like a rag doll. Of course he doesn't stop peeing.



He throws a big yellow arc across the wall, right over his sleeping buddy. I watch him go down, completely dumbfounded by what I'm seeing but I am aware enough to step back and not get peed on. Never saw that before.



Oh fuck. I had two big bags of fruit in there.

Best post I've seen on this site.