Chairlift Etiquette

[Seldomski]

I guess I am more observant than some? When I approach a lift for the first time, I check a few things:

1- Where is shortest line
2- How many seats?
3- Is it fixed grip or detachable?
4- Is there a bar?
5- Is there a footrest on the bar?

Maybe if the line is short enough I don't get to #4, but then, I'm probably riding alone and it doesn't really matter if I have advanced notice.

 

[Pete in Idaho]

WOW, I just ski up an get on. The longest lift line I stood in on Presidents Day weekend was maybe one minute. You must have a big choice in chairs I just get on the one that goes to the top.

 

[Bart Parnell]

The bars are welcome if you ever ride a ski lift downhill, it can feel like you're sliding out in some steep sections (you aren't but there is that queasy feeling).

I love foot rests but only if they are padded for the ski.

 

[Nathanvg]

Maybe at your home hill. But for those of us who do the majority of the skiing on lifts without bars we aren't regularly thinking about bars. So we can't get trained to "expect it".

I skied for years without the bar and even now, if there is a bar, I rarely lower it. But I still prepare for it when sharing the lift with others. I learned and it's really not that hard

 

[Freaq]

Much of this thread seems very foreign to my day to day experience. Here at Winter Park we have lots of chairs w/o bars and lots with. We have no speakers, no irate lifties, no rules....it's anarchy!

It all seems pretty casual, actually. In my experience, when someone wants the bar down, they ask if it's okay and it seems understood by all that the question is a polite formality. I've never seen anyone voice opposition. I have seen the stink eye given to those that bring it down without warning or assume an 'I don't care about what you think, it's coming down' attitude. Just ask, nobody's gonna fight you about it

But none of that is what I'm here to post.

I'm here to tell you that today, I whacked my own damn self in the head with the bar while riding solo. Yep, I sure did. Didn't do anything out of the ordinary, sat in the second seat from the towers on a four pack, was in normal posture, reached up, pulled down and whack! Actually just a glancing blow, no pain or damage. Made me laugh and laugh.

 

[Philpug]

Issue I ran into today. A 6 pack chair, with 5 on it, 4 skiers and a snowboarder. The snowboarder was in the middle with me just to his right. I go stuck with his tail sitting on the tails of my skis. I tried to politely work my tails over his tail so they wouldn't sit on them then he just put the tail back on top. I finally just had to hold my skis out straight so he wasn't resting on them, he was basically taking up three spots in space for his board. I didn't even get a "Sorry, Dude".

 

[pchewn]

Issue I ran into today. A 6 pack chair, with 5 on it, 4 skiers and a snowboarder. The snowboarder was in the middle with me just to his right. I go stuck with his tail sitting on the tails of my skis. I tried to politely work my tails over his tail so they wouldn't sit on them then he just put the tail back on top. I finally just had to hold my skis out straight so he wasn't resting on them, he was basically taking up three spots in space for his board. I didn't even get a "Sorry, Dude".

Was the bar already up or did you have to raise it before pushing him off the lift?

 

[crgildart]

Was the bar already up or did you have to raise it before pushing him off the lift?

 

[Doby Man]

I think that safety bars are useless for the following reasons: People don’t just simply fall out of the chair. I estimate that I have ridden a chair lift at least 20,000 times and not once have I come close to falling out as I am sure the case is the same with many others on this site. If you think about what physical movements it actually takes for a person to fall out of a chairlift, short of a surprise 60 mph wind out of nowhere while sitting on a seat caked with solid ice, you realize that somebody has to be doing some pretty stupid shit to make that happen. You can’t fall out the back or side. The chair is tilted backwards to a significant degree. What the heck is it that they are doing? Over passionately waving to a friend? Cleaning a ski tip or polishing a buckle? Stretching their lumbar region? Seeing what you can hit with your spit? Trying to switch skis or adjust boot cant? High on PCP or meth? Both? … and, of course, exactly what anyone would want to be doing on the edge of a cliff. I mean … one really has got to go out of their way to get forward enough to the edge of the seat in order to fall off. In the real world, that is what is referred to as “natural selection”. Now, the resorts know that one out of every, let’s say every 25 customers is going to be a complete insufferable moron and that the bars they put in are for those people. However, it is not for their safety but instead to cover liability because, a moron can figure out how to get past the lift bar whether it is up or down. Morons can be very intelligent about nullifying any safety precaution you might throw at them. Give a moron a stick of dynamite and they can figure out how to get it lit … just not what to do with it once it is lit. They can’t think that far ahead. They know how to open a can a beer and they know how to get a car started and then that is about it. So, if we think about this even further, the safety bar isn’t really keeping us safe and that it is not really falling out of the chair that we have to worry about at all. No. Instead we need to be concerned as to whether we are indeed, a moron. If you are not a moron, you will not fall out of the chair, bar or no bar. If you are a moron, up or down, the safety bar will not save you. Therefore, in conclusion, safety bars are useless. It also may suggest, if you will, that an impulsive eagerness to get the bar down may be the result of some type of subconscious self evaluation. Just sayin …

 

[Sibhusky]

Or a need for a foot rest.

 

[pchewn]

I suspect most people who fall off the lift do so immediately after boarding -- as a result of being off balance and not getting on all the way -- and well before the bar could have been lowered.

 

[luliski]

I suspect most people who fall off the lift do so immediately after boarding -- as a result of being off balance and not getting on all the way -- and well before the bar could have been lowered.

I watched a girl fall off at Squaw a few weeks ago. I didn't see what went wrong with the loading, but she was in the middle of the chair, and ended up hanging off the legs of the rider next to her. By the time the lift was stopped, she was up high enough that she might have twisted her ankle if she'd let go (one ski stayed on, the other fell off). The liftie lifted her down, and sent her up with us, and yelled "bar down" as soon as we sat down. But I'm not sure the bar would have kept her from falling off the first time she loaded.. I think the group just wasn't paying attention as they loaded the chair.

I think kids are a major safety concern on lifts, either when loading or offloading, or just being in an unbalanced position on the chair. When my daughter was little, if she sat with her back against the backrest, her legs would be straight out and her skis perpendicular to the chair. There's no way I wouldn't put the bar down, but I often worried that she would slide under the bar. In the Tahoe area, lifties pay attention to the bar when kids are going up. I've also had ski team coaches in Tahoe ask me to help kids put the bar down if I'm riding up the lift with them. Maybe the bar at least helps to remind the kids that they're way off the ground.

 

[Jacob]

I suspect most people who fall off the lift do so immediately after boarding -- as a result of being off balance and not getting on all the way -- and well before the bar could have been lowered.

Quite a few of those falls appear to be a fair way away from the bottom of the lift. And on a detachable chair, you should be able to get the bar down by the first tower.

 

[KevinF]

I've had a couple instances where people brought the bar down immediately upon loading but then raised the bar a couple hundred yards before the unloading station.

Most mountains I've been on tend to be windier at the top then they are at the bottom... if the chair is rocking a bit, I prefer to have the bar down. I'll keep my feet on the footrest or just lean on the bar if it's windy. You have some time here! We're not flying through Beggar's Canyon here!

Mt. Snow in southern Vermont has a six pack bubble chair. You have to bring the bar down (and optionally the bubble), but they have some sort of automatic bar raising device at the unload terminal. And it doesn't raise the bar until you're fully onto the "slow" cable. It's basically "bar comes up, stand up". It's kind of unnerving... is it really going to work? I've gone to manually raise the bar and been told not to. Seems to work...

 

[Josh Matta]

For the areas that mandate the bar come down, what do they do about kids who are not able to reach the handle?

I tell the kids I coach that can’t reach it not to even try, it’s more dangerous for them to stretch and squirm then to sit quietly “seat to seat and back to back.” Also one of our older chairs has no bar, so it’s a moot point on that lift which serves more advanced terrain.

What many refer to as “safety bars” are actually known as “comfort bars,” a minor point but important for liability and practically speaking true, it’s more for psychological ”comfort” than physical security. Having said that I always bring it down as I like to rest my arms on it and occasionally my feet on the foot rests.

Most people seem to communicate pretty effectively and I’ve never thought of it as much of an issue, however I’m always a little amused by the rider who is in a hurry to bring the bar down before the chair has hardly left the loading area who also seems to want to raise it three towers from the offloading ramp.

always have small 6 and under ride with adults and older kids who can not reach ride with older children who can or adults.

 

[Goose]

I think a warning to all others should take place when someone brings it down. Ive been hit in the helmet a number of times and been slammed a few times too. Many people seem to grab it and just slam it much too quickly. But I always give a friendly warning and ask. I'll say something like a friendly ..."coming down folks" ...and then wait a second for any response before actually doing so to give a chance for someone to say "hold on a sec" or whatever the case. That always goes very well. Then I come down slowly enough. I do the same for the unload. A friendly ... "everyone good?,... coming up" then raise it slowly enough. Youd be surprised how many even unknowing its coming up and also giving an ok still don't realize they still have something to adjust.

As for do we need it? There is a sense of security even if only placebo affect. And thata never a bad thing. I generally put it down but there are often times I leave up it if Im alone. Being with others , you never know what someone else may stupidly do. Even there fidgeting around can affect another person so I always drop it when not alone and when Im alone I can go either way. Sometimes I like it as an arm rest. But there are still a lot of older chairs around too. fairly short seats and also more upright. Im more comfy with those bars down.

But why not put it down? Its something else to hold on to. Certainly people fall anyway but if your to fall forward for whatever the reason (even a moronic reason) the bar is another piece that one is capable of grabbing on to. I think that's fairly simple to realize.

 

[crgildart]

I've seen a couple people get dinged even after they clearly acknowledged the request/warning from someone else who was bringing it down. I usually take control of it and lower it slowly.. and stop if I see someone still is looking down or sideways.. or isn't leaning all the way back against the back rest.. then wait until they are clear of the path. I guess it;s possible that people either don't clearly understand the request/warning or aren't familiar enough with the ride to know where their head needs to be to avoid problems leaving the load ramp..

 

[fatbob]

Issue I ran into today. A 6 pack chair, with 5 on it, 4 skiers and a snowboarder. The snowboarder was in the middle with me just to his right. I go stuck with his tail sitting on the tails of my skis. I tried to politely work my tails over his tail so they wouldn't sit on them then he just put the tail back on top. I finally just had to hold my skis out straight so he wasn't resting on them, he was basically taking up three spots in space for his board. I didn't even get a "Sorry, Dude".

Might be deliberate - if you take any ski weight torquing on a single leg attached to a board can start to make you nervous about your ligaments. So even if you weren't resting on him he interpreted it as a potential move. That's what I would do if I was sandwiched on a board anyway ( though reality is I shoot for the end seat and do the goofy flip to rest tail on my other foot to prevent torquing)

 

[fatbob]

For those who are resolutely in the bars are for pussies camp ever had a pulse wave from a very hard stop coming down the cable toward you or a seriously nasty rollback? I fortunately haven't but I know people who've been very glad they had a bar to grab when they hit turbulence.

 

[Sibhusky]

There was an emergency stop today on the chair that had the chairs dipping and weaving for quite a few minutes. The bar was down and I was certainly grabbing it.