Used to work for a few ski resorts and still live in town so I’ve got plenty:
*Skiing into the pit of a ski lift (the area right after the chairs leave the loading station that’s roped off for a reason) face first into a thankfully empty chair and asking me “why didn’t it stop?”. Well chief, it did stop, about 20 feet after I pressed the button, you were within 20 feet.
*Grown man cradling his skis sideways in his arms like a child attempting to board a gondola cabin and clotheslining himself.
*Grown men pushing children out of the way to cut in line.
*Jumping off chairs just before the unload station.
*Father attempting to hit his own children in a tube well after I told him they go like 30mph and can fuck people up.
*Walking along the pavement still wearing skis.
*Dropping the comfort bar on a passing chair, resulting in the people who were about to sit in said chair to get bowled over into the pit. I just about lost any semblance of professionalism on that one…
*Underaged girl riding the bungee trampoline asked me if putting the harnesses on guests turned me on. Resulting in me dropping the harness and telling one of the female coworkers that had just been playing with their phones and talking amongst themselves that the harnesses were their fucking job now.
*Lift I was on stopped for awhile because a guy carrying his skis over his shoulder was absentmindedly decking people in the face which resulted in a fistfight the bottom operator had to break up.
*Dropping the comfort bar on a passing chair, resulting in the people who were about to sit in said chair to get bowled over into the pit.
I’m guessing this was a grown adult? I volunteer at my kids’ school and I’ve seen some extremely impulsive behavior from eight year olds where they clearly didn’t think about what would happen if they pulled some stunt that popped into their heads. Dropping the comfort bar sounds like that kind of thing. No thought about who it might affect; just hey, that’s something to do. It’s not even something cool, it’s just something. Like WTF???
Yeah, kids are kids, you can’t entirely blame them for not understanding the consequences of their actions quite yet, somebody older than me though? That pisses me right the fuck off.
Depends on the lift, but yeah extra weight on the bullwheel causes excess wear and with the older ones it can really fling you off to the side during that turn. Saw a guy try to ride the bullwheel on a dinosaur of a fixie and it chucked him out of the chair before I could get it stopped.
For the chairs that’s more of a summer thing, as the ramp isn’t something you should be walking on and it’s not great for the lift to have weight on the chair while it’s going around the wheel up top. The gondola style lifts (enclosed cabin) you can absolutely do that just to hit the bar at the top or whatever, hell, most resorts will give you a cheaper ticket price if that’s all you plan on doing.
Depends on the lift and downloading a guest on most chairs is real annoying for everybody involved, including the people waiting in line at the bottom. On a gondola it’s of course trivial. If you do manage to get yourself stuck somewhere you can’t download from that’s more of a patrol problem than anything ops can help you with.
Used to work for a few ski resorts and still live in town so I’ve got plenty:
*Skiing into the pit of a ski lift (the area right after the chairs leave the loading station that’s roped off for a reason) face first into a thankfully empty chair and asking me “why didn’t it stop?”. Well chief, it did stop, about 20 feet after I pressed the button, you were within 20 feet.
*Grown man cradling his skis sideways in his arms like a child attempting to board a gondola cabin and clotheslining himself.
*Grown men pushing children out of the way to cut in line.
*Jumping off chairs just before the unload station.
*Father attempting to hit his own children in a tube well after I told him they go like 30mph and can fuck people up.
*Walking along the pavement still wearing skis.
*Dropping the comfort bar on a passing chair, resulting in the people who were about to sit in said chair to get bowled over into the pit. I just about lost any semblance of professionalism on that one…
*Underaged girl riding the bungee trampoline asked me if putting the harnesses on guests turned me on. Resulting in me dropping the harness and telling one of the female coworkers that had just been playing with their phones and talking amongst themselves that the harnesses were their fucking job now.
*Lift I was on stopped for awhile because a guy carrying his skis over his shoulder was absentmindedly decking people in the face which resulted in a fistfight the bottom operator had to break up.
I can keep going for a while.
I’m guessing this was a grown adult? I volunteer at my kids’ school and I’ve seen some extremely impulsive behavior from eight year olds where they clearly didn’t think about what would happen if they pulled some stunt that popped into their heads. Dropping the comfort bar sounds like that kind of thing. No thought about who it might affect; just hey, that’s something to do. It’s not even something cool, it’s just something. Like WTF???
Yeah, kids are kids, you can’t entirely blame them for not understanding the consequences of their actions quite yet, somebody older than me though? That pisses me right the fuck off.
Is it a thing at ski places to just ride the ski lifts up and down? I have no desire to ski ever, but I’ve always wanted to try one of those things.
You’re not really supposed to ride them around the wheel at the end
Depends on the lift, but yeah extra weight on the bullwheel causes excess wear and with the older ones it can really fling you off to the side during that turn. Saw a guy try to ride the bullwheel on a dinosaur of a fixie and it chucked him out of the chair before I could get it stopped.
For the chairs that’s more of a summer thing, as the ramp isn’t something you should be walking on and it’s not great for the lift to have weight on the chair while it’s going around the wheel up top. The gondola style lifts (enclosed cabin) you can absolutely do that just to hit the bar at the top or whatever, hell, most resorts will give you a cheaper ticket price if that’s all you plan on doing.
Gondola yes
Oh and a bunch of resorts use a gondola to access parking lots or other areas of the base if you wanted a completely free option.
Many of them do this during the off-season to make some extra money.
Otherwise they do allow people to go back down every place that I’ve been for various reasons like sudden panic/fear or broken equipment
Depends on the lift and downloading a guest on most chairs is real annoying for everybody involved, including the people waiting in line at the bottom. On a gondola it’s of course trivial. If you do manage to get yourself stuck somewhere you can’t download from that’s more of a patrol problem than anything ops can help you with.