• Women skiers, this is the place for you -- an online community without the male-orientation you'll find in conventional ski magazines and internet ski forums. At TheSkiDiva.com, you can connect with other women to talk about skiing in a way that you can relate to, about things that you find of interest. Be sure to join our community to participate (women only, please!). Registration is fast and simple. Just be sure to add [email protected] to your address book so your registration activation emails won't be routed as spam. And please give careful consideration to your user name -- it will not be changed once your registration is confirmed.

Scariest lifts?

ski diva

Administrator
Staff member
Is there a lift that turns you white with fear? You know there are some of them out there -- some that are so high, so steep, so intimidating that they cause your heart to palpatate and beads of sweat to form under your ski jacket. Anyone?
 

Jilly

Moderator
Staff member
About 2/3 of the way up La Soliel lift at Tremblant. Its just too high off the ground there. Goes over a ravine at that point. I just keep looking at the next hump and try to ignore the bottom. Haven't rode that chair by myself, usually its too busy, so that is good.
 

Lilgeorg

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I am afraid of a lift at Whiteface at Lake Placid. I can't remember the name of the lift but it goes around the side of the Mt. on the way to the top. When you are out of site of all the lift operators, it makes its way over a deep gorge and it looks to me like it would be impossible to down load if it stopped. In fact, if I remember correcting some folks did spend the night on that lift until they finally repaired it. It scares me silly.
 

Kimmyt

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
That one lift at Jay that goes to the top is frightening, but mostly because it can get so goddamned windy and cold that I'm always worried the lift will stop and I'll be frozen to death on the chair.
 

num

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I haven't been on one with anything scary about the ride up, however there is a lift at teeny tiny Christmas Mountain in Wisconsin which isn't low enough to the ground at the unloading area for you to just stand and ski away, you have to kind of jump off :eek:

The first time I was on it I waited a bit too long to get off (making it a higher jump), because I thought it would get lower to the ground. Nope!

Needless to say, there's always a small pile of people who fell getting off the lift, about two feet away from the unloading area.

It's probably better with more snowcover, but if that's what makes the difference, I can't believe they wouldn't blow extra snow over the unloading area.
 

Thatsagirl

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
The Millicent Chair at Brighton, Utah. It's an old two-seater, no safety bar, and it crosses about 200 feet above a cliff and bowl area. We affectionately call it "The Chair of Death" :eek: and I have referred to it as that in several articles. My husband told the PR guy that his butt hurt after that ride, from squeezing his cheeks to stay on the lift. :D

Thatsagirl
 

ISki

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I was 11 and on the Schilthorn tram. It was scary! After it rumbled over each tower it would dive into a freefall and your stomach would lurch upwards. Everyone would go "oooooooh" (in Swiss-German :smile: ). You were very high up and passed over jagged alpine ridges. This was eons ago. It may be different now.
 

volklgirl

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
The chair at Whitecap Wisconsin that serves both Eagle's Nest and Thunder Mtn is pretty scary.....there's a long, long, long stretch where you're quite a ways up between the 2 peaks and it's a 2 seater with the molded plastic seats so you feel like you're gonna slide off the entire time :eek:
Here's a pic:
whitecapmap.jpg
 

lv2ski

Certified Ski Diva
The Old Madonna chair at Smugglers Notch in VT intimidates me...it is an old double that goes up, up and away.......creek :eek:
 

dloveski

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Keep some edge in skiing!!

Thatsagirl said:
The Millicent Chair at Brighton, Utah.

Yes---my 19 year old son is the lead lift operator on Millie (that should instill confidence in all Ski Divas)! The lift is old, crossing one steep ravine. The other day, my sister-in-law and I were riding up, loaded by my darling son, and the lift STOPPED right over the steepest ravine. We said, "Eddie did this on purpose" to freak us out. (He has told us how he is trained to evacuate the lift). When we got down, we asked if this was the case. He said it was not, but figured it was good timing, no? Millie is due for an upgrade to a quad this year or next. It's kind of sad.

I remember Millie at Brighton when it was a red SINGLE CHAIR lift. Riding up on that tiny seat in the early 70's was even more gnarly than today's ride. Progress is good, but I hope it does not completely take the fear factor out of skiing. I hope we never get to the time where skiing becomes so corporate, so cushy, so 'safe', so bland that we lose the essence of skiing, where danger and fear factor (controlled to a point) make us stronger and more invigorated as skiers.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Thatsagirl

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
dloveski said:
Yes---my 19 year old son is the lead lift operator on Millie (that should instill confidence in all Ski Divas)! The lift is old, crossing one steep ravine. The other day, my sister-in-law and I were riding up, loaded by my darling son, and the lift STOPPED right over the steepest ravine. We said, "Eddie did this on purpose" to freak us out. (He has told us how he is trained to evacuate the lift). When we got down, we asked if this was the case. He said it was not, but figured it was good timing, no? Millie is due for an upgrade to a quad this year or next. It's kind of sad.

OMG! My husband and I kept saying, "I hope this chair doesn't stop over this cliff bowl!" I think we would have both fainted. :o

Make sure they put a SAFETY BAR on that new chair, OK? ;) You'd never know by the terrain that we ski, but we are both afraid of heights...

Thatsagirl
 

Lynn

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
The only time I felt uncomfortable was coming DOWN the Town Lift in Park City. It goes over other lifts and has no bar. There is a rope net which goes over Main St., in case someone slips off the chair.:eek:

My husband is famous in our family for stating to my sister on a Alta lift, without a bar, going up steep rock face, " if I had a choice between being on this chair and having needles inserted in my eyeballs, I choose the needles." Since then, all is compared to whether one prefers "that" or the needles.
 

SnowGlider

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
The lift you come DOWN

This is an embarrassing story.

One fine fall day I hiked to the top of my favorite ski hill. There was a beautiful view of a lake below and the red and orange mountains across the lake.

The lift just happened to be stopped at exactly the right place for me to sit in a chair and admire the view. I figured that sign that said, "DANGER! Lift may start up at any time!" referred only to the winter.

I was sitting in this comfortable chair for all of 15 seconds when the lift started up and I went downhill. Man, did I panic! My dog was running under the lift barking frantically, "Don't leave me behind!"

I started screaming bloody murder. There was a mechanic working at the top of the next tower, thank God. He radioed down to stop the lift. But there was no was he could get me down from there, so I had to ride the lift all the way to the bottom.

Now, when you're going UP the mountain, the mountain rises up to meet you, right? But when you're going DOWN the mountain, it falls away beneath you. I found myself hanging 300 feet above a gorge. Well, it FELT like 300 feet. I did lots of screaming on the way down. What a wimp!

The poor mechanic had to run all the way down the mountain with my dog.

Moral: Do not sit on the lift in the summer, no matter how tempting it looks.
 

Gina23

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
^^ LOL, I loved that story!!!

There is a lift at Loveland Valley here in Colorado that is one of those "unload/reload" type things... well, anyway, I went up this lift on my 2nd time skiing EVER and expected to "unload" to go down this green... once I got to the "unload" area I was like "noooo, that couldn't be... Oh My God!" It was one of those you have to jump down to get off the lifts which I was NOT prepared to do. So my only choice was to go down this blue at the top of the hill... so I spent most of the run walking down off my skis and totally embarassed. Definately not what you get at the mega-resorts, but I learned my lesson.
 

SkiMonster

Certified Ski Diva
I was on one of those with my husband last year @ Whiteface, but we weren't expecting the unloading point and it threw us totally off for some reason. I'm a little afraid of heights, it was windy, and the lift in question is an old double that was going along the side of a hill/over a ravine; then all of a sudden there's this ramp shaped bump that it looks like we were gonna run into, but NO visible trails or whatver (maybe we just couldn't see them?) We had never been there before, and were totally throw off, since we were expecting to go much farther ;) I paniced, he thought we had to get off and started lifitng the bar up while we were still over the ditch, and then he nearly knocked me out of the chair with his ski pole, because he is one of thsoe that often tucks them under his leg on a long chair ride. I GUESS it was a halfway unloading point; but it didn't really look like there was anywhere to go from there.

We just had a brain cramp or something and thought we HAD to get off, I don't know?? We bent his pole, but nobody got out until we were where we expected to be going, at least... Totally got me over my chairlift paranoia; but boy was I freaked out at the time/mad at him because (to my afraid of heights mind) he almost pushed me out.
 

persee

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I know what you mean about going down a lift. I've done "scenic ride" trips up the gondi at Wildcat in the summer, and up Whistler in May and even though I'm "secure" inside the gondi I hate watching the terrain sink away when going down. Kinda the same thing I feel when hiking up a steep rockface... going up is easy because if I fall forward it's just a little bit into the side of the mountain in front ofme... going down if I fall forward I'mgonna tumble a LOOOONNNG way.

Now as far as lifts that scare me going up I've not been on any yet that give me that feeling by themselves, but I really hate ones that sit high and in a major windtunnel as I get the irrational fear that the chair is gonna get blown off the lift line somehow with me on it.
 
A VERY old lift out of the back area of Taos (I think it's chair 7 or something!) WAYYYYYY Scary for me! (It had wooden slat seats and backs and had a pole coming up the middle between us and no side railings and the towers were made out of some metal AND wood!) :eek:
 

Lori_K

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Native Vail Gal said:
A VERY old lift out of the back area of Taos (I think it's chair 7 or something!) WAYYYYYY Scary for me! (It had wooden slat seats and backs and had a pole coming up the middle between us and no side railings and the towers were made out of some metal AND wood!) :eek:

That's chair 7A, and it's still there and in use. :D It's a pretty short ride, but can be exciting the first couple times you ride it. Those open slats on the seat can really let the wind in, though!
 

Forum statistics

Threads
26,237
Messages
497,632
Members
8,503
Latest member
MermaidKelly
Top