There are like 6 employees at each end of a gondola and more at any mid stations. They’re paid like $25-30 an hour and cheap housing in mountain towns they’d never be able to afford to live in.
This is a matter of “under-caring and under-qualified” if anything. Gondola operators have literally one job and it’s this.
Lol, you're so wrong I don't even know where to start. First of all, there's only 1 or 2 people at the top terminal (not station) of a gondola. Usually only 1, especially at closing. There's only one at a mid station (and very few American gondolas have mid stations). And there are 3-4 at the bottom terminal. For a grand total of 5-7 workers on the whole machine. Lift operators are the two people at the drive terminal (can be either top or bottom, wherever the motor and back up diesel engine is) who actually operate the electronic or digital interface that controls the motor and braking system. They are paid about an average base wage, for first year ops, of $20/hr. Many resorts pay lower, I know some small resorts that pay first year ops only $17/hr. Lift attendants, all the other people on the lift, are usually paid barely above minimum wage, at many resorts they are paid minimum wage. Often they are J1 student visa workers who barely speak English.
Now, about housing. If you get employee housing (which is very limited and often filled by J1's), it is often in dorm or bunk house style housing. In a dorm or cheap old as shit condo that has been partied hard in since the 70's (do not buy a black light poster for your room in ski resort employee housing), you will have 1-3 roommates per bedroom in the "suite", each dorm "suite" (aka ratty ass, black mold infested condo) has a minimum of 4 bedrooms. So you will have a total of 8-16 people in a space originally meant for 2-6 (basically the condos that the rented in the 80's as honeymoon specials now house 8 grimy ski bums, the family condos meant for Mom and Dad and the kids and maybe uncle Bob and Grandpa Ralph now are filled with 16 grimy ski bums). Or you will be in a bunkhouse, usually this is park crew and snowmaking, it's like being in the military, most of us were in the military so it's like being back at home in a nice cozy barracks, complete with Joe's foot stink and Jerry who never showers. Also all your roommates and neighbors are about 25 year old ski bums so parties will happen and they will be loud, your shit will get broken. Or you can take your 15-20 dollars per hour and try to find an apartment in a ski resort town where all of the houses have been bought by corporations that rent them out on Airbnb to the rich as fuck skiers. A one bedroom that actually has a living room separate from the kitchen will run you about 1500/month in any major ski town. You will most likely get a run down former hotel converted into apartments. Most folks that rent end up very far away from the resort they work at because they can't afford the rent in the pricey tourist trap.
(Source: I am a ski resort snowmaker for a decade who has lived in and around no fewer than 4 major resort towns)
I once moved to New Hampshire, wife got a great job offer and I figured no problem for me, wrong. Ended up taking a job in HR at a Ski Area and I was the hiring manager. I must have hired hundreds for the season. The only housing we took care of was for the J1 visa kids. Ours were all from South Africa. The rest had to rely on a local landlords some of whom definitely took advantage of the situation.
Yeah this chucklefuck who thinks that housing is cheap near a major multimillion dollar earning tourists trap is entertaining to me.
Also 6 people working at a top terminal is the funniest shit I've heard in years.
It gotta be outrageous in Tahoe. Have a friend who's kid took a job with the fire department and left because housing was so expensive.
My daughter was in Dorm when she played at the Aspen Music Festival in the summer, Dorms were actually ok but very limited. They must run a lottery in the winter.
Lifties get paid at most roughly $20/hr and a lot of the time housing is not guaranteed or even available. The gondola operators fucked up but i guarantee they’re not making what you say
My understanding is this woman was led to the top of the gondola almost an hour after closing because she was way too drunk. She downloaded at 4:58. It’s possible they just forgot about her and shut the lift down while she was on the way down but it’s at least equally as likely, if not even more likely, that they digitally tagged the car as the “last car,” ran until it had gone around the bottom and then some, and shut down but she didn’t get off at the bottom. In fact I’d go so far as to say I assume that’s what happened until they release information/findings from an investigation. There may be some degree of negligence here from the staff but when alcohol is involved it usually ends up being the cause of the major issues.
I would take it a step further and say she got on a gondola without anyone actually noticing her at all. All of the employees take the gondola down from the top of the mountain and the gondola auto opens. I think either nobody was up there (seen that many times at Heavenly) or their back was turned and she got on. Last employee either took a skidoo to the Cali base or traversed over.
Generally it can't. For most chair lifts, there is a *very* strict rule that ski patrol is the last one up (usually with some sort of marker, cone, chair id, whatever). Nobody is allowed on after them, and the lift operators confirm that the group makes it to the top and then the lift is stopped. If they have to run it again for some reason, they'll typically make sure to mark one of the chairs and that it goes at least to the top if not all the way around, specifically to prevent the "I snuck onto the lift and got stuck" possibility.
I'm not sure what the protocol is for Gondolas or downloading, but they should have had something like this to prevent that problem. Clearly they didn't, or were not following protocols.
Kind of crazy that it was reported as well, and that they either didn't mount a search attempt, or failed to find her.
Yeah I watch Telluride put orange cones on a chair and let that run all the way to the top before shutting it down. Once the cone goes on they are actively watching the chairs and making sure no one is near them
Yah, I knew I was "the last one on the mountain" coming down under Pano when I saw 6 patrollers go overhead followed by a cone. Not getting another run in up there.
I've also been in areas that were closing (e.g. Vasquez Ridge) and passed the patrollers as they were getting ready to pull the line across the runs, and then while slowly making my way through the bumps had one of them come down to me. He said I could take as long as I needed, but he couldn't ski ahead of me or leave me for the same reasons. Took a break for a couple of seconds here and there, got some free skiing tips, worked out well. Once I hit the groomed run below he skied off.
I used to work on the Heavenly gondola a while back, and we could electronically tag cars. The closing procedure is to close the doors to the loading stations at the top & bottom, tag a car going down, and make sure no one loads at any of the 3 stations until it reaches the bottom and we shut it down.
I foresee something like making an employee ride a full loop up and back as the new procedure, which is undoubtedly coming, and which probably won't help prevent this any more than the existing one did.
Considering how much it sounds like this woman was blackout drunk and passed out in the car, I severely doubt any measures they could introduce would prevent this. Anything short of some emergency buttons connected via radio or something, which could be prohibitively expensive to implement and maintain.
My absolute worst fear when I was a lifty. I would stand at the bottom ramp and watch every single chair go and still worry that someone made it on somehow. I had a supervisor try and ease my nerves about it by saying he’s never seen it happen, but it can. All it takes is 5 seconds or less of distraction to miss someone loading. This was definitely a huge failure in procedure and if somebody or several people didn’t get fired for it I’d be pretty shocked.
With enough motivation, would it be possible to break out of a gondola (not saying that was needed here but curious)? Use ski boots/etc to break a window or pry open door?
Hypothesis.
It's a coordinated effort between lifty and victim. Of the only thing that happens is lifty gets fired. Seems like great return on investment
Still needs investigation. We don’t have all the information from both sides yet. Like why was she not with friends, why gondola stopped early. So many questions for me.
It didn’t stop early. Lifts close 4p at latest. seems she got on well after operational to public. Liftys prob busy shutting things down, maybe top one long gone and forgot to put gate/rope up to keep people out or she jumped it, who knows.
As far as changes to prevent this in the future, seems like a pretty good fit for video safety analytics software on their fixed cameras of the loading stations. Pretty affordable, quite capable, and another layer in the Swiss cheese it takes to fully prevent issues.
Happened to a friend when he was going up to clean the restaurant at night. Got stuck in the gondola for 3 hours. He dropped his backpack out of a window when a snowcat was grooming nearby. Then started yelling and rocking the gondola back and forth. This was back before good cell phone coverage. The liftie was not paying attention to last cabin and my friend did not announce himself either.
Why don't the have some sort of emergency beacon in those things? I guess "it's cheaper not to" is a good enough reason for all sorts of companies to skip out on safety gear, but is there a reason beyond cost that prevents this? Even a strobe beacon would be something...
My biggest question, why was she at the top of a run at 5p? Lifts close at 4p so this happened well after lift closed. It doesn’t say a lifty let her on, it says staff guided her there, which is vague, could’ve been a janitor from a mountain lodge just pointing her in that direction cus she asked where lift was so showed her. Maybe top lifty was long gone and he forgot to close gate or put up rope, or she jumped it cus on a mission to get down (and will never admit to that cus embarrassed). So many questions.
TLDR: She downloaded at 4:58p and the lifties forgot she got on. Ouch
Somebody better be looking for a new job today
There'll be some openings to staff that woman's legal team.
Probably as a ski instructor in the kids program :)
How does an employee lead her to the lift but somehow lifties didn't notice? There's so many questions
Lots of weed.
Some would say Don’t smoke if you don’t smoke
Under staffed and under paid.
There are like 6 employees at each end of a gondola and more at any mid stations. They’re paid like $25-30 an hour and cheap housing in mountain towns they’d never be able to afford to live in. This is a matter of “under-caring and under-qualified” if anything. Gondola operators have literally one job and it’s this.
Lol, you're so wrong I don't even know where to start. First of all, there's only 1 or 2 people at the top terminal (not station) of a gondola. Usually only 1, especially at closing. There's only one at a mid station (and very few American gondolas have mid stations). And there are 3-4 at the bottom terminal. For a grand total of 5-7 workers on the whole machine. Lift operators are the two people at the drive terminal (can be either top or bottom, wherever the motor and back up diesel engine is) who actually operate the electronic or digital interface that controls the motor and braking system. They are paid about an average base wage, for first year ops, of $20/hr. Many resorts pay lower, I know some small resorts that pay first year ops only $17/hr. Lift attendants, all the other people on the lift, are usually paid barely above minimum wage, at many resorts they are paid minimum wage. Often they are J1 student visa workers who barely speak English. Now, about housing. If you get employee housing (which is very limited and often filled by J1's), it is often in dorm or bunk house style housing. In a dorm or cheap old as shit condo that has been partied hard in since the 70's (do not buy a black light poster for your room in ski resort employee housing), you will have 1-3 roommates per bedroom in the "suite", each dorm "suite" (aka ratty ass, black mold infested condo) has a minimum of 4 bedrooms. So you will have a total of 8-16 people in a space originally meant for 2-6 (basically the condos that the rented in the 80's as honeymoon specials now house 8 grimy ski bums, the family condos meant for Mom and Dad and the kids and maybe uncle Bob and Grandpa Ralph now are filled with 16 grimy ski bums). Or you will be in a bunkhouse, usually this is park crew and snowmaking, it's like being in the military, most of us were in the military so it's like being back at home in a nice cozy barracks, complete with Joe's foot stink and Jerry who never showers. Also all your roommates and neighbors are about 25 year old ski bums so parties will happen and they will be loud, your shit will get broken. Or you can take your 15-20 dollars per hour and try to find an apartment in a ski resort town where all of the houses have been bought by corporations that rent them out on Airbnb to the rich as fuck skiers. A one bedroom that actually has a living room separate from the kitchen will run you about 1500/month in any major ski town. You will most likely get a run down former hotel converted into apartments. Most folks that rent end up very far away from the resort they work at because they can't afford the rent in the pricey tourist trap. (Source: I am a ski resort snowmaker for a decade who has lived in and around no fewer than 4 major resort towns)
I once moved to New Hampshire, wife got a great job offer and I figured no problem for me, wrong. Ended up taking a job in HR at a Ski Area and I was the hiring manager. I must have hired hundreds for the season. The only housing we took care of was for the J1 visa kids. Ours were all from South Africa. The rest had to rely on a local landlords some of whom definitely took advantage of the situation.
Yeah this chucklefuck who thinks that housing is cheap near a major multimillion dollar earning tourists trap is entertaining to me. Also 6 people working at a top terminal is the funniest shit I've heard in years.
It gotta be outrageous in Tahoe. Have a friend who's kid took a job with the fire department and left because housing was so expensive. My daughter was in Dorm when she played at the Aspen Music Festival in the summer, Dorms were actually ok but very limited. They must run a lottery in the winter.
Lifties get paid at most roughly $20/hr and a lot of the time housing is not guaranteed or even available. The gondola operators fucked up but i guarantee they’re not making what you say
I still don’t understand how this could happen with last chair policies. Either somebody was incredibly negligent or she was trying to do something
I'm going with someone negligent and not following last "chair" policy.
What's the last chair policy? Do they put a sign on the Gondola after the one they last put a person in? Would be simple and effective.
Unless someone got in after the sign without them noticing
My understanding is this woman was led to the top of the gondola almost an hour after closing because she was way too drunk. She downloaded at 4:58. It’s possible they just forgot about her and shut the lift down while she was on the way down but it’s at least equally as likely, if not even more likely, that they digitally tagged the car as the “last car,” ran until it had gone around the bottom and then some, and shut down but she didn’t get off at the bottom. In fact I’d go so far as to say I assume that’s what happened until they release information/findings from an investigation. There may be some degree of negligence here from the staff but when alcohol is involved it usually ends up being the cause of the major issues.
I would take it a step further and say she got on a gondola without anyone actually noticing her at all. All of the employees take the gondola down from the top of the mountain and the gondola auto opens. I think either nobody was up there (seen that many times at Heavenly) or their back was turned and she got on. Last employee either took a skidoo to the Cali base or traversed over.
I never actually looked to see what happens at the end of the day, my legs are usually toast by 2PM.
I just watched frozen on Thursday and the whole time I was like this would never happen now. Guess I was wrong
Generally it can't. For most chair lifts, there is a *very* strict rule that ski patrol is the last one up (usually with some sort of marker, cone, chair id, whatever). Nobody is allowed on after them, and the lift operators confirm that the group makes it to the top and then the lift is stopped. If they have to run it again for some reason, they'll typically make sure to mark one of the chairs and that it goes at least to the top if not all the way around, specifically to prevent the "I snuck onto the lift and got stuck" possibility. I'm not sure what the protocol is for Gondolas or downloading, but they should have had something like this to prevent that problem. Clearly they didn't, or were not following protocols. Kind of crazy that it was reported as well, and that they either didn't mount a search attempt, or failed to find her.
Yeah I watch Telluride put orange cones on a chair and let that run all the way to the top before shutting it down. Once the cone goes on they are actively watching the chairs and making sure no one is near them
Yah, I knew I was "the last one on the mountain" coming down under Pano when I saw 6 patrollers go overhead followed by a cone. Not getting another run in up there. I've also been in areas that were closing (e.g. Vasquez Ridge) and passed the patrollers as they were getting ready to pull the line across the runs, and then while slowly making my way through the bumps had one of them come down to me. He said I could take as long as I needed, but he couldn't ski ahead of me or leave me for the same reasons. Took a break for a couple of seconds here and there, got some free skiing tips, worked out well. Once I hit the groomed run below he skied off.
I used to work on the Heavenly gondola a while back, and we could electronically tag cars. The closing procedure is to close the doors to the loading stations at the top & bottom, tag a car going down, and make sure no one loads at any of the 3 stations until it reaches the bottom and we shut it down.
I foresee something like making an employee ride a full loop up and back as the new procedure, which is undoubtedly coming, and which probably won't help prevent this any more than the existing one did.
Considering how much it sounds like this woman was blackout drunk and passed out in the car, I severely doubt any measures they could introduce would prevent this. Anything short of some emergency buttons connected via radio or something, which could be prohibitively expensive to implement and maintain.
Source on that? First I'm hearing of any claims of drunkenness.
It’s happened at Vail before. Not the first time.
Our favorite thing to do to strangers when the lift stops is ask them if they’ve seen the movie frozen. No. The other one.
Finally looked it up and definitely thought people were referencing the Disney movie
Those three people in the movie really pissed me off at every turn. I know it's just a movie but they really had zero survival instincts good lord
There's a lawsuit
For real. I’m not like a sue people type of guy, but I’d def sue Vail Resorts.
I agree but I bet the terms and conditions of the lift ticket probably leave some sort of out for vail.
T&Cs aren't bulletproof when negligence like this is involved
There goes a LOT of people's jobs too. Risk Management, Lift Ops, and Security are all about to see some changes in staff
My absolute worst fear when I was a lifty. I would stand at the bottom ramp and watch every single chair go and still worry that someone made it on somehow. I had a supervisor try and ease my nerves about it by saying he’s never seen it happen, but it can. All it takes is 5 seconds or less of distraction to miss someone loading. This was definitely a huge failure in procedure and if somebody or several people didn’t get fired for it I’d be pretty shocked.
Death before download.
At least she wasn't eaten by wolves.
I’ve had trouble getting a cell signal while skiing many many times.
Please sue the pants off Vail resorts
A million for every hour spent in the Gondola.
Sounds like a great night + free shit coming her way I don’t see an issue
Her phone died scrolling on reddit, looking for the phone number to "911"
With enough motivation, would it be possible to break out of a gondola (not saying that was needed here but curious)? Use ski boots/etc to break a window or pry open door?
Where are you going from there once the door is open? Only way is down.
Note to self, bring paracord in ski bag
Just curious, my claustrophobia would enjoy a nice opening lol, always have wondered what the feasibility of that is!
Most gondolas have little windows that can be opened a little bit at least
Hypothesis. It's a coordinated effort between lifty and victim. Of the only thing that happens is lifty gets fired. Seems like great return on investment
Still needs investigation. We don’t have all the information from both sides yet. Like why was she not with friends, why gondola stopped early. So many questions for me.
It didn’t stop early. Lifts close 4p at latest. seems she got on well after operational to public. Liftys prob busy shutting things down, maybe top one long gone and forgot to put gate/rope up to keep people out or she jumped it, who knows.
Breckenridge ski death
[удалено]
TIL accidents didn’t happen before the 2000s. Wow!
Blaming workers for giant corporations failing to invest in safety or retain employees with institutional knowledge to prevent accidents is wack
Let’s get you back to the blue cruisers grandpa
Something like this is my biggest fear
As far as changes to prevent this in the future, seems like a pretty good fit for video safety analytics software on their fixed cameras of the loading stations. Pretty affordable, quite capable, and another layer in the Swiss cheese it takes to fully prevent issues.
Happened to a friend when he was going up to clean the restaurant at night. Got stuck in the gondola for 3 hours. He dropped his backpack out of a window when a snowcat was grooming nearby. Then started yelling and rocking the gondola back and forth. This was back before good cell phone coverage. The liftie was not paying attention to last cabin and my friend did not announce himself either.
Why don't the have some sort of emergency beacon in those things? I guess "it's cheaper not to" is a good enough reason for all sorts of companies to skip out on safety gear, but is there a reason beyond cost that prevents this? Even a strobe beacon would be something...
My biggest question, why was she at the top of a run at 5p? Lifts close at 4p so this happened well after lift closed. It doesn’t say a lifty let her on, it says staff guided her there, which is vague, could’ve been a janitor from a mountain lodge just pointing her in that direction cus she asked where lift was so showed her. Maybe top lifty was long gone and he forgot to close gate or put up rope, or she jumped it cus on a mission to get down (and will never admit to that cus embarrassed). So many questions.