Whitetail Lift
December 19, 2005
Today at whitetail at around 1:30 the main lift stopped (and yes i was on it). We all expected it to resume operation within a few minuets but after about 10 minuets my friend at the base called m and said that they were saying they do not expect the lift to work for a few hours!! It ended up taking the lift crew 40 minuets to get the auxiliary power working (diesel powered that makes you move at about .5 MPH) and we slowly made it to the top. However, at that point the patrollers had already walked up the hill to be able to start rescuing people off the lift with ropes (would have been a good story if we had to be rescued). In the end the resort ended up giving everyone who was stuck on the lift credit towards the resort for the amount of the ticket purchased.
Anyone else have a good lift story?
yeah man that sounded like a whole lot of fun like how many runs could you have taken during that time and how much did your a$$ hurt afterward!
I was at this defunct place called Cherokee in Linden Va the *last* year it was in operation. It was super-cold and the lift broke down while I was on it. It took less than you about 25 minutes before they got it cranked up on aux power. As I came off frozen stiff and very cranky a ski patroller gave me a cupon for a free hot chocolate (it was a dry mountain) whoop-dee-doo I told him I'd rather have a 1/2 pint of Jack Daniels and somebody to beat up actually! He was, as you might guess, not forthcomming with a retort!
When I was working at Wachusett we had a thunderstorm roll in over Presidents Weekend (it was 65 that weekend- ridiculously warm for MA in Feb). The lift attendants asked the manager to close the lifts as this big ol' black cloud came in. The manager said no. Sure enough- lightning started flashing, thunder started rolling, and either for safety or because power got knocked out (can't remember which now) they had to stop the lift before they got everyone off. About a dozen people got stranded on the summit lift during a thunderstorm.
Thankfully, I wasn't on the lift, but oh would that have sucked big time to be sitting on this nice steel lift at the top of a mountain above the trees. I think I would have taken my chances and jumped off.
The problem we had afterwards is while "only" a dozen lifts got stranded (for a total at most of 48 people) we had a couple hundred people at the front lobby claiming they were stuck on the lift and demanding a refund. I'm pretty sure in the chaos I turned a guy away who was actually stuck on the chair... didn't think so at the time but looking back I'm pretty sure I was wrong.
I got stuck on a lift at Timberline last sunday for about 13 or 14 minutes....& that was every time that i rode it!!!!
The Whitetail HSQ stopped for 10+ minutes this Sunday AM; the workers were looking a bit nervous staring at the building crowd. I was getting a bit nervous after reading your post about what happened on Saturday. Fortunately, they were able to restart the lift and I don't think they had any further problems. But soon after that, I headed to the Expert's Choice quad for the rest of the day.
I was on the lift when it stopped. I happened to be sitting with a mountain host and could luckly hear everything that was going on through his walky talkie. Heck, I'm not too sad, I missed and hour of skiing, but a free lift ticket for it, plus I said that I had missed my [free vouchers until dec 23] lesson, and they gave me a credit for the ticket, plus another $30 for my free lesson.
Lift stopped Saturday too and the snowmobile was sent to the top, was running soon after though.