Chairlifts and Scary Wind

[SallyCat]

No, not that kind of wind, ya goons!

Today was crazy windy at Mt. Snow, and though I don't have any issues with heights or chairlifts in general, I found myself a little anxious as the wind picked up late morning and the gusts really started to hit the chairs hard and make them lurch, both vertically and horizontally.

I've read about accidents in which the wind blows the chair so hard that the chair pulls the cable off the sheaves and a whole lot of chairs go crashing down. So naturally that was all I could think of today. Thanks a lot, brain!

Can anyone convince me that we live in a modern technological wonderland in which that sort of failure can no longer happen?

 

[pchewn]

Nope, it can happen. Did happen to me at A-Basin in the 70's. The cable came of 3 towers of rollers going downhill and 1 tower going uphill. Spent about 2 hrs in cold wind waiting for ski patrol to get us down using ropes. Accidents can happen.

 

[slowrider]

If it's +40 mph I don't ride lifts or for that matter be around trees.

 

[SnowCountry]

While I'm sure it can happen, a lot of engineering goes into chairlift design and I would expect that a cable coming off a sheave is a rare event.

If you like, I can look up the specification that standardizes the design of chairlifts to see what kind of wind rating they have for chairlifts. It's about 400 pages long so it might take a little looking to find the part of the spec that covers wind loading, but I'm sure it's in there.

 

[Monique]

Do you have access to surface lifts? No such problem on a T Bar!

 

[SallyCat]

Yikes, ok. It sounds like I was perfectly reasonable to be nervous. Not that the situation was unsafe, just that it felt scary.

While I'm sure it can happen, a lot of engineering goes into chairlift design and I would expect that a cable coming off a sheave is a rare event.

I chatted a bit with some lift mechanics while waiting out the rain. They told me that the Mt. Snow bubble chair has an automatic shut-off that the operators cannot override, and it's triggered by wind speed, but also wind direction. (They slow the lift in high wind, but I'm not sure how that helps make it safer?)

I'm sure a cable detaching is rare but just quickly looking at the sheaves, I didn't see anything physical that would prevent it.

EDIT: Also, I'm well aware that from a risk-management standpoint, driving to the mountain is immensely more dangerous than riding on a chair. But situational anxiety isn't always rational!

 

[MikeS]

http://abcnews.go.com/US/skiers-tra...ountain-ski-lift-derailment/story?id=12492517

It happened at Sugarloaf in 2010, although the lift it happened to was old, and it appears that the sheaves failed altogether, rather than the cable being lifted off of them.

I've been on an old double chair at Stowe when there were gusts of over 80mph. A little harrowing, but not dangerous. We could hear the roar of the gusts coming up the valley, and the lifties would stop the lift, you'd put your head down on the safety bar and your hands over your head. The only thing I was worried about was some of the little kids with low DIN settings getting their skis ripped off, or with oversize boots having the ski and boot get pulled off altogether. Neither happened, although I've watched snowboards get lifted out of the rack on the Stowe gondola, land on the trail below, and go flying down the mountain at mach 3.

 

[Jack skis]

Because the wind does blow at Big Sky, the lifts have (or did in our 10 years there) automatic shutoffs for excessive gusts as well as steady winds. We were on our way up Andesite Mtn on one of the detachable quads on a really windy day, a slow ride with lots of stops and starts as the wind swung the chairs around. Exciting and not in a good way. We'd gotten at least 3/4s of the way to the top when we experienced a very long stop. Below us out of the blowing wind driven snow appeared a patroller skiing down the lift line. He stopped below us and said the wind was just too much and we'd be evacuated from the lift. They'd do it by running the lift backwards and getting us off down at the bottom loading platform! The two of us on the chair had many, many years of skiing and lift riding but no experience with riding one backwards and it didn't sound comfortable. After everybody had been warned we started backing down the mountain. Since the lift wasn't above trails or runs we were really on our own. Was I scared? Me scared? Maybe someone else but not me, no siree, my wife finally told me to quit screaming as it was really getting on her nerves.

At the bottom we were told to jump out of the chair before to made the turn to head back uphill. The jump was fun too. In recompense for our troubles we were given a coupon for a free hot beverage (non-alcoholic). Management was quite generous with all of us who'd gone through a pretty tough, very cold hour dangling in the air topped off by a backward lift ride into the unknown.

I believe this account to be almost entirely true.

 

[DonC]

Don't the newer lifts have a set of rollers on top as well every three towers or so? I think the coldest I've been skiing was on lift stopped for 25-30 minutes for high winds with icy snow coming at me sideways. Might have been at Mt Snow - definitely somewhere in NH/VT

 

[Chris Walker]

I mean, sure it can happen, but it’s incredibly rare. After the lift accident at Granby Ranch last year (which I don’t think was wind related) I read some statistics on lift accidents and I don’t remember the rate exactly but it was rare enough that I remember thinking it would be like worrying about lightning on a sunny day. I understand that statistics aren’t very comforting in the moment (like severe airplane turbulence), though. Sorry I’ve got nothing for that.

But I did once meet a guy who got blown off of a chair at Loveland. Luckily he was near the top so he didn’t fall far. I’m sure that’s rare too but at least it’s somewhat under your control, unlike a malfunction. When it gets really windy I put down the safety oops I mean comfort bar and I’m careful to hang on to the chair.

Where I ski they usually close the lifts when wind gusts get above around 50 mph I think. Windy days mean a lot of wind stops and slow-downs. I’ve tried to figure out why it’s safer to be going slower in the wind, but for now I’ll take their word for it.

 

[coskigirl]

The scariest lift ride I've ever had was at Loveland on chair 9. I was alone and as they ask I was sitting in the middle of the chair when the wind really started picking up and swinging me all over the place. I was so scared that I inched my way over to the side of the chair and locked my arms around the side upright to hang on for dear life. I got to the top and could see absolutely nothing. Shortly after I got off the lift stopped so I was obviously the last person they allowed to load. I stood at the top for what seemed like forever trying to get up the nerve to attempt to ski down. I did eventually but it took forever and I had horrible vertigo the entire way down. In retrospect I should have just gone into the upper lift shack and waited it out with the liftie. Needless to say, when I got down below treeline I headed straight for the bar and called it a day.

 

[Primoz]

Unfortunately it can happen. With older lifts even easier then with new ones. New ones have, next do a bit different technology of those rollers where cable goes, also whole bunch of electronics, which regulates lift speed based on wind conditions. So once it gets more windy it automatically lowers speed of lift, and if it gets too windy it basically stops lift. Still not much of fun if you are caught on it, but normally wind doesn't rise from 0 to "too much of wind for lift to operate" in second, so there's very few chances you will still be on lift, when lift will shutdown automatically. Well at least over here in Europe, but with your culture of "lets sue everyone for everytihng" I would say there's even less chances for this in USA

 

[KevinF]

I had a chairlift ride at Sugarbush Vermont one time that had the chairs swinging. I had my poles in one hand, one arm wrapped around the chairlift, and my feet on the foot rest to keep the safety bar down. The unload station was approaching and I realized I didn't want to let go of anything. I think I raised the safety bar about when my ski tips touched the unload ramp. By the time I got back down they had shut the lift down for wind hold... I must have been one of the last people up.

I've had various times at Stowe where I thought the wind would pull a ski right off my foot, but they've always stayed on.

I was on the King Pine chair at Sugarloaf many years ago when the cable derailed. The cable wound up sitting on the lift tower arm, so nothing really happened -- we just ground to a halt. It was a nice day, which was good because we were stuck for a while.

 

[DanoT]

When a cable comes off a sheave there usually is cable catcher which is a small tab of metal beside the sheave that prevents the cable from sliding off the tower head. If someone jumps off a chair it can result in a cable rebound that jumps the cable catcher, usually resulting in chairs smashing into the snow pack.

 

[Philpug]

The scariest time for me was at of all places Okemo. I was going up the Jackson Gore list and just as it crested the top I hit a headwind that pulled my skis back so far that it threw me against the safety bar. If that bar was not down, I would have been pulled off of the chair. Colded/windiest chair I have been on is the Flyer (Freezer) at Jay Peak. Most disconcerting chair is SkyPeak at Killington, for some reason, near the top gives me the willies...not sure why, I have been on higher chairs but that one just does it to me.

 

[Wilhelmson]

Why wouldn't the cable catcher have a longer tab that would prevent a rebounding cable from falling completely off?

 

[Johnny V.]

Colded/windiest chair I have been on is the Flyer (Freezer) at Jay Peak.

Yep, I can remember coming over the crest of the hill on that chair and being blown back at least a foot or so. Kept the crowds down though!

 

[KingGrump]

In recompense for our troubles we were given a coupon for a free hot beverage (non-alcoholic). Management was quite generous with all of us

Talk about cheap.
Last season, @Lady_Salina , Mamie and I were stuck on the Harmony chair for over a hour in the middle of a blizzard at Whistler. It was the end of the day. The patroller that greeted each of us in the patrol shack with a smile and couple $50 coupons. Everybody left happy. We didn't get down until way after five.

Now, that's the way to do it.

 

[DanoT]

Why wouldn't the cable catcher have a longer tab that would prevent a rebounding cable from falling completely off?

I would think a hinged metal hoop over top the sheaves with a pin type quick release for for maintenance access would do the trick, but I have no idea why a better system of some type is not deployed.

 

[Lauren]

I would think a hinged metal hoop over top the sheaves with a pin type quick release for for maintenance access would do the trick, but I have no idea why a better system of some type is not deployed.

While I don't disagree that something could be engineered...the chairs need to ride over the sheave wheels, so a hoop over the wheel wouldn't really work. I believe this is the same reason the cable catchers aren't bigger. They're probably as large as they can be without interfering with the chairs.