HuntersEmma57
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Warm, bluebird day today in UT up skiing groomers with a friend. This is our home mountain -- mine for 8 yrs, hers for 10. We know every square foot of this area as it's used to access most of the rest of the resort. Both of us advanced/expert skiers with thousands of lift rides under our belts.
No lift line today. We ski right up to the loading line on the fixed grip quad chair - one that comes around really fast. We each lined up to be on the outside of our respective sides. I was closest to the lifty bumping chairs.
Sue and I both looked over our shoulders as we hear the lift approach and I immediately yell out, "THE SEAT IS UP!!" I have a very loud voice. The lifty had already grabbed the seat to keep it from banging into us and he...panics. He tries to hold the chair back, both feet braced and he is straining to hold back. The lift snickered at him and kept moving. We got banged hard from behind and were doing all we could to avoid falling thru the seat frame yelling "STOP THE LIFT" on repeat.
The lift does not respond to voice commands.
The lifty and I bump heads as he's getting pulled along. As we reach the end of the ramp, he finally lets go and drops off the ramp right below me.
Sue and I had both been trying to bail off our respective sides of the chair before the end of the ramp but I was blocked by the lifty and the chair was too twisted for her to jump clear and she'd be hit by the chair. When the lifty lets go, the chair swings back hard. I don't know how we both didn't go flying. We are starting to go up and picking up speed as we both are still fighting to keep from falling thru.
Generally there are feet of snow underneath this lift, but this year, it's just some crust and a thick square pad for unfortunates to land in.
I somehow managed to arch up and off and land mostly on the pad. I hit pretty hard and was a bit stunned. Coincidentally, I posted a few days ago one my key skills is knowing how to fall. Although I'd never tried from thin air before. So that was cool.
Now all this probably takes under 8 seconds. The I look over for Sue and she's DANGLING from the front center of the lift held up ONLY by the elastic on her snow skirt (thankfully snapped closed) caught on who knows what. She is somehow miraculously vertical.
The lift was stopped by this time, but is swinging from the hard emergency stop and she screaming because she thinks she still going up. I'm a bit dazed and trying to get my skis out from under me so I can go help. The lifty bolted over to her and wraps his arms around her calves trying to keep her from falling. Two lifties from an adjacent lift race over and one from the shack comes out. A fifth comes over to check on me. One of them figures out to take her skis off. They then get better grip to try to free her from where her jacket she is mysteriously hung up. It takes several efforts because the snow skirt elastic keeps retracting. The tallest guy wraps his arms around her higher up and the others lift up from below on her boots. Freed, they gently lowered her to the snow.
A round of applause goes up from both lift areas. Neither of us appeared to be injured. They asked us if we want a snowmobile or sled to take us down to Ski Patrol to make the report. We declined, put our skis on, took the lift up and skied down to the main patrol building.
Sue started uncontrollably shaking and when she tried to give her report, she burst into tears. She's a tough bird originally from Boston and rural NH (there's not crying in NH!) She was stunned and embarrassed to find herself crying. (Skier for 40+ years, former ski instructor. Her first "incident" like this.) I had been in a serious car accident a few years ago when my car was totaled. It's common to get a massive surge of adrenaline that keeps you from feeling pain for some time, but the shaking and trembling is scary in and of itself. I kept reminding her of the adrenaline surge. An hour later, it subsided by a lot, but she was still shaky this evening.
Powder Mountain took this very seriously. As the should. We got checked out by the medic, made statements to the Safety manager as did everyone involved. Witnesses were also pulled in for statements. They made immediately clear this was not skier error, that this was 100% lifty error, they couldn't be more sorry, and they needed to get to the bottom of what happened so they could prevent a repeat. Each of the lifts has cameras and they'll pull the recordings from both lifts.
We rarely get gusts strong enough to flip the chair seats on the newer lifts -- especially on a sunny day -- but clearly it can happen. We agreed they could use the recordings for training.
I took it as a really good sign that Sue was still on her game enough to say, "Well, I'd feel even better if you'd comp us some access tickets for Davenport." This is a new lift on the exclusive private side of our resort. The manager noted her request. Wait and see.
To a person, every member of the Powder Mountain Ops team was unbelievably comforting and kind. They even offered us hot tea and one of the female staff even hugged Sue (with her permission). Sue had kept declining offers because she was uninjured (we think -- know more tomorrow when the adrenaline wear off). What a great reminder that kindness, compassion, and accepting responsibility really go a long way.
No hard feelings, we just hope it'll be a good reminder that vigilance is the hardest part of a lifty's job.
Sue decided headed home after the reporting/interview. I stayed and skied for 4 more hours. I worked the adrenaline thru my system that way. Feeling a bit sore, but smiling and grateful.
No lift line today. We ski right up to the loading line on the fixed grip quad chair - one that comes around really fast. We each lined up to be on the outside of our respective sides. I was closest to the lifty bumping chairs.
Sue and I both looked over our shoulders as we hear the lift approach and I immediately yell out, "THE SEAT IS UP!!" I have a very loud voice. The lifty had already grabbed the seat to keep it from banging into us and he...panics. He tries to hold the chair back, both feet braced and he is straining to hold back. The lift snickered at him and kept moving. We got banged hard from behind and were doing all we could to avoid falling thru the seat frame yelling "STOP THE LIFT" on repeat.
The lift does not respond to voice commands.
The lifty and I bump heads as he's getting pulled along. As we reach the end of the ramp, he finally lets go and drops off the ramp right below me.
Sue and I had both been trying to bail off our respective sides of the chair before the end of the ramp but I was blocked by the lifty and the chair was too twisted for her to jump clear and she'd be hit by the chair. When the lifty lets go, the chair swings back hard. I don't know how we both didn't go flying. We are starting to go up and picking up speed as we both are still fighting to keep from falling thru.
Generally there are feet of snow underneath this lift, but this year, it's just some crust and a thick square pad for unfortunates to land in.
I somehow managed to arch up and off and land mostly on the pad. I hit pretty hard and was a bit stunned. Coincidentally, I posted a few days ago one my key skills is knowing how to fall. Although I'd never tried from thin air before. So that was cool.
Now all this probably takes under 8 seconds. The I look over for Sue and she's DANGLING from the front center of the lift held up ONLY by the elastic on her snow skirt (thankfully snapped closed) caught on who knows what. She is somehow miraculously vertical.
The lift was stopped by this time, but is swinging from the hard emergency stop and she screaming because she thinks she still going up. I'm a bit dazed and trying to get my skis out from under me so I can go help. The lifty bolted over to her and wraps his arms around her calves trying to keep her from falling. Two lifties from an adjacent lift race over and one from the shack comes out. A fifth comes over to check on me. One of them figures out to take her skis off. They then get better grip to try to free her from where her jacket she is mysteriously hung up. It takes several efforts because the snow skirt elastic keeps retracting. The tallest guy wraps his arms around her higher up and the others lift up from below on her boots. Freed, they gently lowered her to the snow.
A round of applause goes up from both lift areas. Neither of us appeared to be injured. They asked us if we want a snowmobile or sled to take us down to Ski Patrol to make the report. We declined, put our skis on, took the lift up and skied down to the main patrol building.
Sue started uncontrollably shaking and when she tried to give her report, she burst into tears. She's a tough bird originally from Boston and rural NH (there's not crying in NH!) She was stunned and embarrassed to find herself crying. (Skier for 40+ years, former ski instructor. Her first "incident" like this.) I had been in a serious car accident a few years ago when my car was totaled. It's common to get a massive surge of adrenaline that keeps you from feeling pain for some time, but the shaking and trembling is scary in and of itself. I kept reminding her of the adrenaline surge. An hour later, it subsided by a lot, but she was still shaky this evening.
Powder Mountain took this very seriously. As the should. We got checked out by the medic, made statements to the Safety manager as did everyone involved. Witnesses were also pulled in for statements. They made immediately clear this was not skier error, that this was 100% lifty error, they couldn't be more sorry, and they needed to get to the bottom of what happened so they could prevent a repeat. Each of the lifts has cameras and they'll pull the recordings from both lifts.
We rarely get gusts strong enough to flip the chair seats on the newer lifts -- especially on a sunny day -- but clearly it can happen. We agreed they could use the recordings for training.
I took it as a really good sign that Sue was still on her game enough to say, "Well, I'd feel even better if you'd comp us some access tickets for Davenport." This is a new lift on the exclusive private side of our resort. The manager noted her request. Wait and see.
To a person, every member of the Powder Mountain Ops team was unbelievably comforting and kind. They even offered us hot tea and one of the female staff even hugged Sue (with her permission). Sue had kept declining offers because she was uninjured (we think -- know more tomorrow when the adrenaline wear off). What a great reminder that kindness, compassion, and accepting responsibility really go a long way.
No hard feelings, we just hope it'll be a good reminder that vigilance is the hardest part of a lifty's job.
Sue decided headed home after the reporting/interview. I stayed and skied for 4 more hours. I worked the adrenaline thru my system that way. Feeling a bit sore, but smiling and grateful.
