So I was able to find some Ski Chalet vouchers for Whitetail yesterday. But all the other folks who grabbed the vouchers didn't show up. Actually, turned out to be a good thing for them. Man it was windy. The highest wind gusts I've probably experienced; though sustained wind wasn't too bad. I started off on teles for the first time in two years (4th day on teles total) and I didn't miss a beat somehow. The snow was nice and firm early from the overnight grooming, but turned pretty slushy by 11. After our 4th run, we headed back up the main quad. Just before crossing Homerun, a strong gust roared through, swinging the downloading chairs across from us sideways. I was ready for one to come flying at us. It was a bit scary for a couple seconds. The lift stopped and never restarted. I looked back and noticed a bunch of lifties scurrying around and eying a chair stopped just in front of the lift house. I heard a couple different versions of what happened, so I don't know what exactly what forced the shutdown. After 10 minutes or so, ski patrol started walking up the hill with ropes and harnesses. Since the skiing wasn't that great, I wasn't ticked. I was actually excited to get rescued, since I'd never seen it done. Whitetail's ski patrol, mountain safety folks, and everyone else involved did a great job. Pictures are below.





My friend was belayed down first, so the 2 pics above are her pictures of me roping down. Fun experience. Definitely didn't ruin our day. After being directed to guest services for a comp pass (comped the value of my paid amount, $12!), I switched to my Volkl 5-stars. First run down I was cranking pretty hard and my inside boot ejected. After sliding on my side and then over my ski, I recovered and tried to snap back in but no click. One of the ski breaks had ripped off and the rear step-in piece was pretty bent up. Now my day was ruined. I never had that kind of ejection and my DIN settings were fine. I suspect I torqued too much for the now slushy snow. Live and learn. If anyone has 1 spare, used Marker Motion LT, let me know..haha. Maybe this was a sign I should get more serious about telemark skiing

Cool report, thanks! Looks like you were in a good spot to be rescued.

Wow... that's nuts! Any idea how many people were riding the chair lift when it was shut down? I imagine that would be a very long process if there were a lot of people on it...

markers suck you should know that .

I would get rid of the skis and get something you can put something thats not marker on it.

@ abe

the lift was pretty empty, probably less than 20 folks on the lift. a blessing for the whitetail staff!

@ bush,
yeah i'm working on it; next season i hope to switch to an all-mtn setup and/or tele/at

what broke on my binding was just the ski break piece. i was able to replace the part at ski chalet. so for this incident, I think an improper DIN setting was more to blame than the binding itself.

You deserve 5 stars for that...

Reminds me of my College days in Vermont - Madonna Mountain was 25 below and back then, they had the old tractor diesel engines moving some of the lifts... Anyone remember those days? Well, it broke and all we had was the horse blankets they'd put on people. Took what I thought was an enormous amount of time to get down...

no need to get an At or tele set up aroundd here, but do get rid of the marker and dont buy skis that come with them, well unless its the duke/jester design.

I had that happen to me a Snowshoe years ago. Widowmaker lift broke down and after about 30 minutes or so they started evacuating the folks off the chair.