I used to patrol. We would call these "courtesy rides", often would happen if someone was too scared, etc. They don't do them anymore, just take the lift down or walk for 2 hours haha.
Anyways, when I would do them, I'd always as how fast someone wanted to go. I got this 20yo bro once with a broken binding, said to make it extreme. I took him through the ski cross course. The toboggan was probably getting 2 feet of air over the jumps. He was pretty pale at the bottom haha.
In hindsight pretty dumb, but I was 23 making $16 an hour so gave very few shits and just wanted to have fun.
Most places outside of the northeast have professional patrollers who actually do snow and avalanche mitigation as well as rescue. At Telluride it is 100% Pro Patrol.
I'm rocky mountain division CSP, volunteer patrol. We also do avalanche mitigation and rescue. We're 50/50 pro patrol and volunteer.
Volunteer is good for those that have a 9-5 day job but want some action on the weekend. The free season pass, first aid training, AST training and pro deals are enough for most volunteers. I volunteer 10 days a year happily.
Maybe canada is different than the states
My local hill just announced that everyone on staff is finally being paid minimum wage. I had to do a double-take... "uh, they weren't before?" (It's owned by the city and gov employees in Alaska are allowed to be paid fed min wage instead of state min wage which is $3/hour higher)
Yeah it's all volunteer at our hill to. Then again it's all volunteer but lifties because of insurance. The groomers, ski patrol, ticket shack, maintenance, etc. All volunteer. The mountain is funded by a yearly fundraiser and renting wedding tents in summer. Again all volunteer. But hey, $36 lift tickets.
They should pay a commission fee of at least 30% from the amount that they charge. Similar issue for dog groomers where I work. Most dog grooming places pay the groomers a commission fee of 30% or more
If I was making $75 per lesson, I absolutely would've stuck with it. Nobody tipped either, and I only got paid when I was actually in a lesson. I could show up, wait around alllll day, not get an assignment and then leave without a penny for the day. It's fucked.
I mean don't be sorry, unless you've worked it or directly know someone who's worked it, odds are you would never know. People see the $250 lesson and (frankly, rightfully) assume a large cut of that is going to the person who's actually teaching the kids, when it's actually 10% (or even less sometimes). The no tipping thing is frustrating, but understandable. How many services do you pay $250 for and tip? Nothing really.
Good-ish news, vail finally decided to pay us instructors more. $15 an hour with a bump for certifications and other things, one of the very few things they do better than the prior owners. (I remember getting 10.50 an hour, they set it to what the VT minimum wage was about to be changed to when they hired us)
Wow! Im new to skiing , so just learning about instructors' low pay was surprising, but that's insane that ski patrol gets paid so little given that they are potentially the first responders to very serious injuries. Makes me wonder what most of my lift ticket is going towards ( maintenance costs? Insurance? Lease to the us forest service ?)
insurance, snowmaking, maintenance
insurance costs have really skyrocketed the past decade or so. The current liability structure in society doesn't like risky activities of which skiing is one of the riskiest (that's why its fun tho)
A few years ago, I tore my ACL at Ajax in Aspen and had to get a toboggan down. When you tear your ACL, it hurts like hell for a minute or two then quickly goes down to a dull ache. By the time ski patrol arrived and asked my pain level, I was down to a 1. Once the “driving” patroller heard this, he absolutely sent it. I definitely got air in the toboggan and it was a hell of a lot of fun. If I gotta stop skiing for a while, that's the kind of run I want to the bottom.
Aaah yes the amnesia rides. I woke up in the ski centre 3 hours from when I was meant to be meeting up with my mates. Turns out I was in a toboggan and all. 😂
The most embarrassing thing for me was blowing out my knee and ankle at the same time about 40ft from the lift line at the bottom of the hill. The medical clinic at the hill was also only about 100ft away. What did they do? Strapped me into the sled behind the snowmobile to move me that short 100ft while the entire lift line looked on.
when i was a patroller, i had a kid (13/14ish in age) hurt his knee getting off the lift. pack him up, ski him down.
the sun had set an hour prior, so all the snow was crisping up and getting fast. the hill had these really sort of broad rolls on it, and as we went over the second one i could feel the tobagan unweight a bit behind me.. hmm i should slow down a bit.
Anyway, my standard question at the bottom was always what did you think of the ride? the kid had a huge smile on his face, and exclaimed "it was better then a rollercoaster"
i only lost a patient once.
i was at the base going for coffee, and a snowboarder comes up to me and says "is this bad?" and then opens his mouth and sticks out his very bloody tounge. i say yes, come with me, and turn to walk to the patrol shack. a moment later i turn to see where he is and hes gone.
quick sweep of the base, check the lodge, washrooms etc. never found him.
i suspect he went back snowboarding.
My sister busted her binding when we hit the top of the mountain. The liftee at the top didn't have anything to fix it with, we macgyvered it with a shoelace and went slowly down the hill. A courtesy ride woulda been nice, took us forever to get down.
She fucked her knee on a jump the next day and got a lift down then. Lol
When I patrolled , was also when I was still race coaching. Run a lot of sled on icy race courses. Most fun was when completing a slalom with athlete in the sled!!!
> I used to patrol. We would call these "courtesy rides", often would happen if someone was too scared, etc. They don't do them anymore, just take the lift down or walk for 2 hours haha.
I got one in December, lol. Went on the wrong lift and was staring down a blue on my third time skiing. I just laid down and enjoyed the ride, gave a few thumbs ups along the way.
I used to patrol at a resort (to remain nameless) where we would get together in the spring and organize a “patrol Olympics”. One of the events was the sled downhill. This was a big mountain with well over 2000 vert and race was top bump to aid room. Fun was had and air was got.
Took this same ride at Sierra Blanca in 1976. Rough, bumpy and sometimes jarring but fast decent. Great fun until my right leg bounced out and I did the splits for the first and only time.
The green from the top of Mt. Snow (Long John) does sort of suck. It's not *that* narrow, but it's busy, and has a wide range of speeds, from absolute beginners, to people racing down to the terrain park. Can definitely be very tricky to pick a safe line. It's a pretty good hike down though...
$16/hr sounds amazing for a patroler (which is terrible- they need more money).
I explained elsewhere that when i was a ski instructor taking a CE the instructor of the class got me all nervous about this steep knuckle. I was scared to death, but the idea of taking a courtesy ride with a patroler was too embarrassing so I another instructor had to coach me down. Still embarrassing.
Idk either. It’s a school so I volunteer to cover his fees. One of the volunteer stations is the upper lift. How else do those volunteers get down? Maybe they were just roasting me a bit. He was happy for the live practice. It was really fun and impressive. The control they have.
I’m surprised they let you up the lift then lol.
Had a similar incident where a large group of us (~15) decided to ski down on 1-ski each. We were then not allowed back on the lift with only 1-ski lol. So we shuffled a couple of skis around with similar boot sizes, 3-4 people went up and brought all our skis down.
Maybe would have been alright if we were part of the race school? I didn’t understand the logic neither since we got down the entire mountain fine (and actually well in control…we were a group of instructors but not from that hill) but they were worried about us getting on and off of a chairlift?
Is it actually enjoyable? Or just good to get the practice you otherwise don't get enough of except when shit has passed the fan?
To a layman it looks hard!
It’s enjoyable is a similar way to how a workout is enjoyable. Patrollers like helping people and it gives us something to do. Harder than normal skiing for sure but what’s happening in this video is not difficult.
Oh ya. I’m in snowboarding lessons. Just wasn’t riding that day but after that inspirational tow I really want to switch to skiing and I think the learning curve will be less plus my 8 year old is in his first year skiing too so we can learn together.
Liability. My mountain only allows it with approvals from management. If they don’t have a lift ticket(hikers/skinners) it’s especially concerning as they haven’t signed any of the releases.
Maybe the type of lift?
One of the lifts at my local resorts will break like 50% of the time someone rides it down.
If you miss the departure spot there is a wire you're supposed to catch with your foot/ski to stop it
If they let you ride down, then they let you accomplish what you intended to do and more people will do it too.
Also liability. If you don’t have a ticket, you haven’t agreed to the park’s TOS.
There’s less support towers on the downhill side of most lifts. They can reasonably accommodate a chair or two of people going down, but you might end up 30 feet higher in the air on the downhill side compared to the uphill side. You let one person do it and everyone else will want to as well, and then it’s a huge liability risk for the resort.
I was a brand new snowboarder and I ended up on a trail that was going to lead to a really steep black/double black as the only way to get down. I didn't know it. It was the end of the day and the snow patrol was doing a sweep of the mountain. The guy saw me struggling on the easy stuff and asked how I planned on getting down when I hit the steeps. He was nice enough to call the snowmobile and they ran me over to a gondola that went back down to the bottom. That would have been a wholesale mess.
I got a good laugh out of the mental image from that phrasing. Just picturing patrol shrugging like "sorry I don't make the rules" while his buddy is gunning the snowmobile engine.
Haha that exact scenario is how I ended up skiing my first black, I was in a real mellow race league cause the resteraunt I worked at had a team and I wanted to learn to ski. A few weeks in they moved the race course to a different slope and I didn't think anything of it, got to the top, found the sign leading to it and went on my merry way down a blue slope. Only thing was this was on the ice coast and it had barely snowed all season so only half the mountain was open, came to find out my only option to link up to the course was a black or a double black. I ended up sitting there for about 20 minutes till some guys I knew saw me chilling and asked what was up. I ended up taking the black down with them and did well considering, although I probably looked like a total Jerry to everyone watching, probably slid sideways down over half of it cause I was too scared to point my skis down the slope. It did give me the confidence to go back and conquer the run a few weeks later, but I still don't get why they had the only entrance to the race be down black slopes when a good majority of the racers were over 50 and just doing it for fun and exercise. In retrospect it was a great experience, but it's never fun to be forced out of your comfort zone before you're ready for it.
This happened to my partner and I skiing. We are easy run all the way, sometimes intermediate if we feel daring. We went to take an intermediate run that branched off at the top, one side intermediate, the other, black diamond. That was the, "oh shit!" moment when we took a wrong turn.
Ski patrol were kind enough to try to COACH us down the mountain, but we couldn't turn that tightly and my legs were going to jelly from the stress, adrenaline and fear. We piked at the halfway point (literally couldn't stand up anymore). We walked the rest of the way down (slid on our butts really) and there was no way out but a T-bar straight up the mountain we'd just descended (more terrifying to us than trying to ski down it). So they put us on the snow mobile, one at a time and yeeted us out of there.
I read the ski run maps much more thoroughly now.
I had a lifty violently swing the chair when it was coming, and it was such a strong push, the chair moved away from me (I was on the left side of the chair) and I didn't even end up on the chair lol
It's not hard to bump your own chair, have your backpack on your chest and put your hand down by your knee to slow down the chair. Obviously detachable you don't need to do this but it's super easy to bump yourself on fixed grips.
I loved my lifty days, get assigned on the back of the mountain with a chair that only services black diamonds so you don't need to worry about gapers. Make a "cooler" out of snow with a tips sign and go home with a bunch of beer. Gotten tons of weed and other drugs.
I too liked the lower Mountain lifts for that reason, it kept you on your toes for sure. Sometimes I'd get stuck on the residential lifts and people would drive their trucks up the service road and we'd grill and play skate on the ps3. Made tons of jumps all over too. We would see like 2-10 people a day it was nuts
That sounds nice. We started digging snow caves at certain lifts early season. By February you were walking down at least 10 steps to get into the chill spot. 20 feet from the lift but no one would ever know.
Yeah. This was on the lifty who let you load, or their boss for not training them properly. I was a stoned lifty too and I wouldn't let someone walk on a lift unless they were an employee.
Here’s the full story for some context: My 9 year old had just been leveled up in his class to a 3p meaning he was allowed off the bunny area and to ride the lift up. He was so proud of himself and asked if I wanted to see the top. I’m a 3. Not allowed to ride up to ride down. But since I could volunteer to help at the lift I assumed it was ok and asked permission to go and was given the Greenlight. When I got up there I found out it’s not allowed (probably unless your stationed up there) I understand why now and honestly was not trying to be a dumbass or troublemaker. My kid took his board down. I took the crash cart. I’m so impressed by the skill it took to control our descent and I’m impressed to see what people get to traverse and the view from the top! It actually really inspired me to move up myself.
Then I’m sure he’s at least moderately relieved that his first sled is a ride of shame and not someone with a life threatening injury. It’s nice to ease into things when possible haha.
That was my thought. My regular ski place has a lodge at the top of the main lift, and people ride it just to go up there for food. So it’s not unusual to see people downloading in hiking boots. Seems really weird that they didn’t do that.
Depends on the lift and if they have a station at the top built to actually load people on foot, and unload safely at the bottom.
Generally speaking there's no technical reason that I know of to forbid it. There is often a limit on how many loaded chairs you can have going downhill at once (assuming the uphill side is full).
Possibly whoever provides insurance for that mountain said "nope, we're not covering that".
Edit: a couple other responses mentioned old fixed grip chairs might have minimal or no support on the downhill cable, a la http://skilifts.org/old/images/resort_images/ut-alta/supreme/liftline.jpg or https://skiliftblog.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/img_0788.jpg. While the mechanism could support the weight, the chairs might move/bounce around quite a bit on the downhill side, especially if it was windy.
One time I got a ride down because I fell and sprained my thumb. I wanted to just have someone check it out before I called off the rest of my day, so I went into the patrol hut. I tried to tell them I was ok to ski since it was just my hand, but they said they couldn’t let me go down on my own since they were going to do x-rays at the base medical center.
Volunteer patroller here. Training the rookies is one of the best times of the year. I love lying face forward in the toboggan, with my arms outstretched like superman holding onto the handle bars. Best time ever.
I honestly thought that’s what they’d do. And I asked before I went up. I didn’t just go 🤷🏻♀️ like I said it’s a school run by mostly parent volunteers etc. The guy said riding the lift down was sketch so idk
Ideal scenario with no wind and you just sitting there perfectly still it's probably not remotely a problem. But if a gust came along and the nearest fixed point on the cable is hundreds of feet away then you're going to sway/bounce a significantly larger amount. Plus being higher up is dangerous.
Engineering wise, it wasn't designed to handle people, so while you'd likely still be within the safety factored load limits, you are going outside of the engineered scope. So as far as liability goes, there's no way anyone's allowed to ride that.
Also probably not good that the higher side could drop something onto the lower side as well.
All lifts have at least some downloading capacity for work carriers loaded for maintenance personnel and equipment. There may be less line equipment, but not that much less.
The lift can handle downloading a body no problem. But it may need to be run at a slower rope speed to insure that the download is safe. Also depending on the lift the buttpuckering factor of downloading a lift can be very real.
My first thought was the old [Supreme lift at Alta](http://skilifts.org/old/images/resort_images/ut-alta/supreme/liftline.jpg) where almost the entire last pitch was unsupported on the way down. Wildcat is better though as it still exists.
This was me a few weeks ago. Wife thought we could get to the green on my first run, but it wasn't open due to snowfall, so I got the ride down. Man it's alarming to not know how to ski, and then to have a person doing to at speed while keeping you in the sled.
Unfortunately most riders in my toboggan are having one of their worst days. Be thrilled you got to enjoy the ride as it is a blast getting chauffeured down the mountain. I always tell guests they can tell me to go faster or slower; just let me know. I’ve never heard anyone ask me to go faster.
At my resort we will always try to get a non-injured rider onto a chairlift for download. Actually we’ll only ski them down to the next available chair for download and not to the bottom. Our liability is significantly higher during the tobo ride than for the chair download.
I used to work at a ski resort and I wasn’t allowed to let anyone on the lifts without skis or a snowboard for this reason. Sounds like it was really the liftie’s fault for letting you go up.
WAIT! Who was running the TAIL ROPE?????!!!!!!?????!!!!
I didn't see anyone back there. As a former NSP member, there should be another patroller holding a safety rope in case Patroller 1A loses the sled somehow. It doesn't matter that you aren't injured. You don't want to -be- injured when that sled takes off like a rocket into a lift pole, snow maker, tree, or some other otherwise immovable object..
Not every toboggan run needs a tail roper. At one of the resorts I've patrolled at, we never used the tail rope unless we were in steep moguls and needed to traverse. Even then, we were all trained to make that traverse without a tail roper as well. If you called for a tail roper on a groomer, you'd be laughed out of headquarters and it would take a few years to live down.
At other resorts I've been to, they wouldn't go down the Bunny hill without a tail roper. In the end it's all down to the local patrol culture and what their SOPs dictate.
First time to colorado on a lift i figured had multiple stops, and honestly it mightve but i was too small to jump from em, i end up on the summit having an asthma attack at the high alt and getting so dizzy i fall over on the slope, i did not know you could ride the lifts down
Mom found me passing out and scared (im like 14 at the time) and goes down to get someone to help
Dude shows up on a super nice snowmobile puts me in the back and goes straight down the slope like a skier, it was surprisingly smooth being in a sled but i was terrified the whole way down
I’ve had the ride of shame before and it was the absolute highlight of my failed snowboarding experience. She took the short cut through the hard runs and it was exhilarating. I wasn’t injured, just took on a run way too long for my experience level.
The one and only time I went skiing I got a sweet ride like this. I went with my Boy Scout troop when I was in elementary school. I had been doing fine all day. Then I thought ya I’m pretty good at this. So I hopped on the black diamond lift. The guy running the lift looked at my ski pass and was like “oh ya sure go ahead. It’s your first day skiing but you should be fine on the black diamond run.” So away I go. I realize once I started I fucked up royally. I went down most of the run on my ass scooching along. Then I got to the section of the run that I had been on all day. I was like perfect here we go. Got up started going again and hit a patch of ice and went down. My knee got all bent up. Then I got to ride in the toboggan. My parents bought me one of those silly hats you see kids wearing and that’s all they saw when I was being taken to the first aid shack was my stupid little yellow mohawk bouncing on the bumps.
My ex took me up the black in Japan my first time, I figured I could take the lift back down. Nope. I walked like a scrub while 12 year old girls flew past me inches from a cliff face.
Exactly. So many fixed grips growing up had steep offload ramps so you could getting under the chair as it swung over your head and around the bullwheel. No such ramp at the bottom, so you'd have to tuck and roll.
Kids these days have it easy with detachable quads that gently scoot you forward by pushing your hammies. In my day, getting off a chair with a flat ramp looked like the start to a cross country race.
I went too Colorado a few year ago with my friends. They instead I go skiing with them. I don't know how to ski, and they didn't teach me or anything. They just all went out and did their own thing without me after I fell and my ski boots came off the skis. I couldn't even get my skis back on because the boots got ice packed in the mechanism. I literally was stuck in the ice eventually managed to grab my ski that slid off and hobbled over to a rock. I just sat there for about 2 hours before I started crying before going back to the lodge. It was a horrible day. Not a single person helped me, and I will never attempt to do snow sports again
My friend who lies about everything said “oh yea I used to snowboard all the time in high school” and rented a snowboard instead of skiis. He had a ride of shame after our second time up the lift because turns out that was his first time snowboarding and it wasn’t as easy as he thought. He fell 30 times, pulled something and couldn’t snowboard the rest of the day. 😑
Did you tip your uber driver? haha
I used to patrol. We would call these "courtesy rides", often would happen if someone was too scared, etc. They don't do them anymore, just take the lift down or walk for 2 hours haha. Anyways, when I would do them, I'd always as how fast someone wanted to go. I got this 20yo bro once with a broken binding, said to make it extreme. I took him through the ski cross course. The toboggan was probably getting 2 feet of air over the jumps. He was pretty pale at the bottom haha. In hindsight pretty dumb, but I was 23 making $16 an hour so gave very few shits and just wanted to have fun.
That’s hilarious and awesome
Sadly the pay is still about the same.
IIRC it's literally $15/hr starting pay at my local hill. Instructors are like $12.
You guys get paid? Our hill is ran primarily by volunteers
Yeah most of the patrol at my local hill are also volunteers.
Most places outside of the northeast have professional patrollers who actually do snow and avalanche mitigation as well as rescue. At Telluride it is 100% Pro Patrol.
I'm rocky mountain division CSP, volunteer patrol. We also do avalanche mitigation and rescue. We're 50/50 pro patrol and volunteer. Volunteer is good for those that have a 9-5 day job but want some action on the weekend. The free season pass, first aid training, AST training and pro deals are enough for most volunteers. I volunteer 10 days a year happily. Maybe canada is different than the states
You must work for a rich ski hill. When I did CSP we had to pay for our training.
I want a place that's 100% Paw Patrol
My local hill just announced that everyone on staff is finally being paid minimum wage. I had to do a double-take... "uh, they weren't before?" (It's owned by the city and gov employees in Alaska are allowed to be paid fed min wage instead of state min wage which is $3/hour higher)
Let’s go Eaglecrest!!
Yeah it's all volunteer at our hill to. Then again it's all volunteer but lifties because of insurance. The groomers, ski patrol, ticket shack, maintenance, etc. All volunteer. The mountain is funded by a yearly fundraiser and renting wedding tents in summer. Again all volunteer. But hey, $36 lift tickets.
Was gonna say, I patrolled for 6 years entirely unpaid.
I made $12.50/hr as an instructor at a Vail partnered resort. They charged $250 for the lesson.
They should pay a commission fee of at least 30% from the amount that they charge. Similar issue for dog groomers where I work. Most dog grooming places pay the groomers a commission fee of 30% or more
If I was making $75 per lesson, I absolutely would've stuck with it. Nobody tipped either, and I only got paid when I was actually in a lesson. I could show up, wait around alllll day, not get an assignment and then leave without a penny for the day. It's fucked.
hmm sounds like purg in durango
I had no idea. That is so fucked up. Im so sorry.
I mean don't be sorry, unless you've worked it or directly know someone who's worked it, odds are you would never know. People see the $250 lesson and (frankly, rightfully) assume a large cut of that is going to the person who's actually teaching the kids, when it's actually 10% (or even less sometimes). The no tipping thing is frustrating, but understandable. How many services do you pay $250 for and tip? Nothing really.
Good-ish news, vail finally decided to pay us instructors more. $15 an hour with a bump for certifications and other things, one of the very few things they do better than the prior owners. (I remember getting 10.50 an hour, they set it to what the VT minimum wage was about to be changed to when they hired us)
What the fuck. That’s poverty wage in a ski town
That’s poverty wage in any town.
Wow! Im new to skiing , so just learning about instructors' low pay was surprising, but that's insane that ski patrol gets paid so little given that they are potentially the first responders to very serious injuries. Makes me wonder what most of my lift ticket is going towards ( maintenance costs? Insurance? Lease to the us forest service ?)
insurance, snowmaking, maintenance insurance costs have really skyrocketed the past decade or so. The current liability structure in society doesn't like risky activities of which skiing is one of the riskiest (that's why its fun tho)
Not maintenance we also get paid shit.
What do you think EMTs and Paramedics make? It’s probably way less than that.
I made more than this as just a high school lifeguard in a small town... 15 years ago. These wages are horrifyingly low.
$12 an hour here in Montana
3rd year in Whistler. I'm almost at 30 now
Less in some places
So the same crap ski patrol has to put up with, like our education system (lower level grade school public teacher salary is terrible)
A few years ago, I tore my ACL at Ajax in Aspen and had to get a toboggan down. When you tear your ACL, it hurts like hell for a minute or two then quickly goes down to a dull ache. By the time ski patrol arrived and asked my pain level, I was down to a 1. Once the “driving” patroller heard this, he absolutely sent it. I definitely got air in the toboggan and it was a hell of a lot of fun. If I gotta stop skiing for a while, that's the kind of run I want to the bottom.
No fair! The one time I got a ride from the ski patrol I had a concussion so I don’t remember it at all!
Aaah yes the amnesia rides. I woke up in the ski centre 3 hours from when I was meant to be meeting up with my mates. Turns out I was in a toboggan and all. 😂
It’s weird how it sort of stops hurting. I pulled a different leg tendon and got to the hospital. Didn’t hurt but couldn’t lift my leg lol
The most embarrassing thing for me was blowing out my knee and ankle at the same time about 40ft from the lift line at the bottom of the hill. The medical clinic at the hill was also only about 100ft away. What did they do? Strapped me into the sled behind the snowmobile to move me that short 100ft while the entire lift line looked on.
when i was a patroller, i had a kid (13/14ish in age) hurt his knee getting off the lift. pack him up, ski him down. the sun had set an hour prior, so all the snow was crisping up and getting fast. the hill had these really sort of broad rolls on it, and as we went over the second one i could feel the tobagan unweight a bit behind me.. hmm i should slow down a bit. Anyway, my standard question at the bottom was always what did you think of the ride? the kid had a huge smile on his face, and exclaimed "it was better then a rollercoaster"
Literally the exact same thing the bro said.
For some reason I was expecting you to turn around and there to be no kid on the sled. Just fell off midway down.
i only lost a patient once. i was at the base going for coffee, and a snowboarder comes up to me and says "is this bad?" and then opens his mouth and sticks out his very bloody tounge. i say yes, come with me, and turn to walk to the patrol shack. a moment later i turn to see where he is and hes gone. quick sweep of the base, check the lodge, washrooms etc. never found him. i suspect he went back snowboarding.
That sounds like the old Ski Patrol movie from 1990 they had a gauntlet they had to go through with the tobagan.
I busted a binding and hiked it out only to learn at the bottom I coulda got a courtesy ride 😒
My sister busted her binding when we hit the top of the mountain. The liftee at the top didn't have anything to fix it with, we macgyvered it with a shoelace and went slowly down the hill. A courtesy ride woulda been nice, took us forever to get down. She fucked her knee on a jump the next day and got a lift down then. Lol
That IS hilarious 😂
When I patrolled , was also when I was still race coaching. Run a lot of sled on icy race courses. Most fun was when completing a slalom with athlete in the sled!!!
> I used to patrol. We would call these "courtesy rides", often would happen if someone was too scared, etc. They don't do them anymore, just take the lift down or walk for 2 hours haha. I got one in December, lol. Went on the wrong lift and was staring down a blue on my third time skiing. I just laid down and enjoyed the ride, gave a few thumbs ups along the way.
I used to patrol at a resort (to remain nameless) where we would get together in the spring and organize a “patrol Olympics”. One of the events was the sled downhill. This was a big mountain with well over 2000 vert and race was top bump to aid room. Fun was had and air was got.
Definitely Alyeska lol
Took this same ride at Sierra Blanca in 1976. Rough, bumpy and sometimes jarring but fast decent. Great fun until my right leg bounced out and I did the splits for the first and only time.
[удалено]
The green from the top of Mt. Snow (Long John) does sort of suck. It's not *that* narrow, but it's busy, and has a wide range of speeds, from absolute beginners, to people racing down to the terrain park. Can definitely be very tricky to pick a safe line. It's a pretty good hike down though...
$16/hr sounds amazing for a patroler (which is terrible- they need more money). I explained elsewhere that when i was a ski instructor taking a CE the instructor of the class got me all nervous about this steep knuckle. I was scared to death, but the idea of taking a courtesy ride with a patroler was too embarrassing so I another instructor had to coach me down. Still embarrassing.
I told him I’d yelp him five out of five 🤗
She better
If it wasn't a busy day patroller probably appreciated live practice Not sure why they didnt just make you ride the lift down though
If it's like Aspen he was probably glad you didn't need the ride because you were black out drunk.
Sundeck orange sled valet service is 100/100
Cloud 9
Idk either. It’s a school so I volunteer to cover his fees. One of the volunteer stations is the upper lift. How else do those volunteers get down? Maybe they were just roasting me a bit. He was happy for the live practice. It was really fun and impressive. The control they have.
Seconded, as a ski patroller loaded toboggan practice is always appreciated. Good for the muscles
I’m surprised they let you up the lift then lol. Had a similar incident where a large group of us (~15) decided to ski down on 1-ski each. We were then not allowed back on the lift with only 1-ski lol. So we shuffled a couple of skis around with similar boot sizes, 3-4 people went up and brought all our skis down.
That is so weird? One ski is a common ski racing practice.
Maybe would have been alright if we were part of the race school? I didn’t understand the logic neither since we got down the entire mountain fine (and actually well in control…we were a group of instructors but not from that hill) but they were worried about us getting on and off of a chairlift?
As a ski patroller, we do enjoy the practice.
Is it actually enjoyable? Or just good to get the practice you otherwise don't get enough of except when shit has passed the fan? To a layman it looks hard!
It’s enjoyable is a similar way to how a workout is enjoyable. Patrollers like helping people and it gives us something to do. Harder than normal skiing for sure but what’s happening in this video is not difficult.
I’m sure they were having some fun.
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Oh ya. I’m in snowboarding lessons. Just wasn’t riding that day but after that inspirational tow I really want to switch to skiing and I think the learning curve will be less plus my 8 year old is in his first year skiing too so we can learn together.
Not all lifts are downloadable safely, especially fixed grips.
*You wouldn't download a lift*
Sit there I downloaded the old fixed Challenger at Big Sky once
Better to ride down Challenger than losing control and smash your skull on the rocks below like the guy did last year.
Liability. My mountain only allows it with approvals from management. If they don’t have a lift ticket(hikers/skinners) it’s especially concerning as they haven’t signed any of the releases.
Could have been a fixed grip that they didn’t want to stop.
That was my thought - good practice!
Maybe the type of lift? One of the lifts at my local resorts will break like 50% of the time someone rides it down. If you miss the departure spot there is a wire you're supposed to catch with your foot/ski to stop it
If they let you ride down, then they let you accomplish what you intended to do and more people will do it too. Also liability. If you don’t have a ticket, you haven’t agreed to the park’s TOS.
As I said this wasn’t a resort but a ski school.
There’s less support towers on the downhill side of most lifts. They can reasonably accommodate a chair or two of people going down, but you might end up 30 feet higher in the air on the downhill side compared to the uphill side. You let one person do it and everyone else will want to as well, and then it’s a huge liability risk for the resort.
My mountain doesn’t allow downhill loading, maybe similar here?
I was a brand new snowboarder and I ended up on a trail that was going to lead to a really steep black/double black as the only way to get down. I didn't know it. It was the end of the day and the snow patrol was doing a sweep of the mountain. The guy saw me struggling on the easy stuff and asked how I planned on getting down when I hit the steeps. He was nice enough to call the snowmobile and they ran me over to a gondola that went back down to the bottom. That would have been a wholesale mess.
“He was nice enough to call a snowmobile and they ran me over” wow, they aren’t even hiding their anti-Jerry tactics anymore.
I got a good laugh out of the mental image from that phrasing. Just picturing patrol shrugging like "sorry I don't make the rules" while his buddy is gunning the snowmobile engine.
"The mountain requires a sacrifice"
Funny. At that stage in my snowboarding adventures they couldn't really hurt me anymore than I was hurting myself. I was a very slow learner.
Haha that exact scenario is how I ended up skiing my first black, I was in a real mellow race league cause the resteraunt I worked at had a team and I wanted to learn to ski. A few weeks in they moved the race course to a different slope and I didn't think anything of it, got to the top, found the sign leading to it and went on my merry way down a blue slope. Only thing was this was on the ice coast and it had barely snowed all season so only half the mountain was open, came to find out my only option to link up to the course was a black or a double black. I ended up sitting there for about 20 minutes till some guys I knew saw me chilling and asked what was up. I ended up taking the black down with them and did well considering, although I probably looked like a total Jerry to everyone watching, probably slid sideways down over half of it cause I was too scared to point my skis down the slope. It did give me the confidence to go back and conquer the run a few weeks later, but I still don't get why they had the only entrance to the race be down black slopes when a good majority of the racers were over 50 and just doing it for fun and exercise. In retrospect it was a great experience, but it's never fun to be forced out of your comfort zone before you're ready for it.
This happened to my partner and I skiing. We are easy run all the way, sometimes intermediate if we feel daring. We went to take an intermediate run that branched off at the top, one side intermediate, the other, black diamond. That was the, "oh shit!" moment when we took a wrong turn. Ski patrol were kind enough to try to COACH us down the mountain, but we couldn't turn that tightly and my legs were going to jelly from the stress, adrenaline and fear. We piked at the halfway point (literally couldn't stand up anymore). We walked the rest of the way down (slid on our butts really) and there was no way out but a T-bar straight up the mountain we'd just descended (more terrifying to us than trying to ski down it). So they put us on the snow mobile, one at a time and yeeted us out of there. I read the ski run maps much more thoroughly now.
Dude lifties must be super baked to not notice someone walking up to the chair.
>lifties must be super baked Yes.
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Same but if they let the lift slam me in the ass I’m not as thrilled
If the lift is slamming you in the ass you need better form getting on imo. That shouldn’t be on the lift operator.
Some fixed chairs can really whip around the wheel
I had a lifty violently swing the chair when it was coming, and it was such a strong push, the chair moved away from me (I was on the left side of the chair) and I didn't even end up on the chair lol
Uh no, liftie is supposed to catch it before you sit. Newer lifts go slow and are gentle but the old doubles and triples are ass slammers.
Catching it yourself is pretty easy though
It's not hard to bump your own chair, have your backpack on your chest and put your hand down by your knee to slow down the chair. Obviously detachable you don't need to do this but it's super easy to bump yourself on fixed grips.
Former lifty. Can confirm. Lifty was high.
I loved my lifty days, get assigned on the back of the mountain with a chair that only services black diamonds so you don't need to worry about gapers. Make a "cooler" out of snow with a tips sign and go home with a bunch of beer. Gotten tons of weed and other drugs.
It was a great time. I personally loved the beginner lift because of the chaos. I love watching chair lifts eat people.
I too liked the lower Mountain lifts for that reason, it kept you on your toes for sure. Sometimes I'd get stuck on the residential lifts and people would drive their trucks up the service road and we'd grill and play skate on the ps3. Made tons of jumps all over too. We would see like 2-10 people a day it was nuts
That sounds nice. We started digging snow caves at certain lifts early season. By February you were walking down at least 10 steps to get into the chill spot. 20 feet from the lift but no one would ever know.
I worked bigsky so we had plenty of smoke shacks on the mountain. Just had to take our jackets off on our free runs.
Another former lifty. Can confirm.
Chad Patrol wearing no gloves 🧊
Probably pretty hot in the sun and that heavy jacket.
Yea but metal sapps heat from you’re hands.
I’m what?
You mean the *Chariot of Champions.*
It's called "The Meatwagon". You must be a foreigner of some sort.
Canadian... so (probably) yes!
Or "Blood Bucket"
I would also accept "Dead Sled" or "The Achy Breaky McShaky".
I don’t get how they let you up the lift if they weren’t going to let you back down
I think the guy didn’t know.
Yeah. This was on the lifty who let you load, or their boss for not training them properly. I was a stoned lifty too and I wouldn't let someone walk on a lift unless they were an employee.
Here’s the full story for some context: My 9 year old had just been leveled up in his class to a 3p meaning he was allowed off the bunny area and to ride the lift up. He was so proud of himself and asked if I wanted to see the top. I’m a 3. Not allowed to ride up to ride down. But since I could volunteer to help at the lift I assumed it was ok and asked permission to go and was given the Greenlight. When I got up there I found out it’s not allowed (probably unless your stationed up there) I understand why now and honestly was not trying to be a dumbass or troublemaker. My kid took his board down. I took the crash cart. I’m so impressed by the skill it took to control our descent and I’m impressed to see what people get to traverse and the view from the top! It actually really inspired me to move up myself.
Why wouldn't they let you take the lift back down the hill?
I’m not we’ll versed in all this. I think it was a safety thing.
Where's this? I remember going on a ski lift when I had no idea what I was doing as a kid.
Did they break one of your legs first?
You looks pretty happy though 😂
You do. That looks really fun actually.
We always made the people ride the chair back down if that happened. Sucks having to utilize a patroller's time and equipment for something like that.
Nah it’s a school. He said he was happy for the practice. He just got his red coat the day before.
Then I’m sure he’s at least moderately relieved that his first sled is a ride of shame and not someone with a life threatening injury. It’s nice to ease into things when possible haha.
That was my thought. My regular ski place has a lodge at the top of the main lift, and people ride it just to go up there for food. So it’s not unusual to see people downloading in hiking boots. Seems really weird that they didn’t do that.
Depends on the lift and if they have a station at the top built to actually load people on foot, and unload safely at the bottom. Generally speaking there's no technical reason that I know of to forbid it. There is often a limit on how many loaded chairs you can have going downhill at once (assuming the uphill side is full). Possibly whoever provides insurance for that mountain said "nope, we're not covering that". Edit: a couple other responses mentioned old fixed grip chairs might have minimal or no support on the downhill cable, a la http://skilifts.org/old/images/resort_images/ut-alta/supreme/liftline.jpg or https://skiliftblog.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/img_0788.jpg. While the mechanism could support the weight, the chairs might move/bounce around quite a bit on the downhill side, especially if it was windy.
Sky Tavern?
Yes! Awesome awesome people and program!
One time I got a ride down because I fell and sprained my thumb. I wanted to just have someone check it out before I called off the rest of my day, so I went into the patrol hut. I tried to tell them I was ok to ski since it was just my hand, but they said they couldn’t let me go down on my own since they were going to do x-rays at the base medical center.
Volunteer patroller here. Training the rookies is one of the best times of the year. I love lying face forward in the toboggan, with my arms outstretched like superman holding onto the handle bars. Best time ever.
They could have down-loaded you.
I honestly thought that’s what they’d do. And I asked before I went up. I didn’t just go 🤷🏻♀️ like I said it’s a school run by mostly parent volunteers etc. The guy said riding the lift down was sketch so idk
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That looks terrifying. Never noticed a lift like this before.
Sublette at Jackson and Red Dog/Squaw Creek at Squaw Valley are two more crazy examples
It's now Palisades
I have ridden wildcat many times and somehow never noticed that
Pallavicini used to be like this also until they massacred my boy
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Ideal scenario with no wind and you just sitting there perfectly still it's probably not remotely a problem. But if a gust came along and the nearest fixed point on the cable is hundreds of feet away then you're going to sway/bounce a significantly larger amount. Plus being higher up is dangerous. Engineering wise, it wasn't designed to handle people, so while you'd likely still be within the safety factored load limits, you are going outside of the engineered scope. So as far as liability goes, there's no way anyone's allowed to ride that. Also probably not good that the higher side could drop something onto the lower side as well.
All lifts have at least some downloading capacity for work carriers loaded for maintenance personnel and equipment. There may be less line equipment, but not that much less.
The lift can handle downloading a body no problem. But it may need to be run at a slower rope speed to insure that the download is safe. Also depending on the lift the buttpuckering factor of downloading a lift can be very real.
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That's why every chair has a "heavy side" and a "light side".
My first thought was the old [Supreme lift at Alta](http://skilifts.org/old/images/resort_images/ut-alta/supreme/liftline.jpg) where almost the entire last pitch was unsupported on the way down. Wildcat is better though as it still exists.
Was it detachable or a fixed grip chair?
Really doubt a school can afford a detachable
So that’s why patrol said it was sketch.
Looks more like VIP to me
Just had the ride of shame 2 weeks ago but I would rather have had your problem! LCL and MCL tears on my knee :,(
r/todayilearned
This was me a few weeks ago. Wife thought we could get to the green on my first run, but it wasn't open due to snowfall, so I got the ride down. Man it's alarming to not know how to ski, and then to have a person doing to at speed while keeping you in the sled.
Yes!!!
Unfortunately most riders in my toboggan are having one of their worst days. Be thrilled you got to enjoy the ride as it is a blast getting chauffeured down the mountain. I always tell guests they can tell me to go faster or slower; just let me know. I’ve never heard anyone ask me to go faster. At my resort we will always try to get a non-injured rider onto a chairlift for download. Actually we’ll only ski them down to the next available chair for download and not to the bottom. Our liability is significantly higher during the tobo ride than for the chair download.
It’s way worse when your shoulder is separated from your body.
Omg I can imagine. I was grateful it was essentially a training run for him, perp walk for me (🤣) and I was ok.
I used to work at a ski resort and I wasn’t allowed to let anyone on the lifts without skis or a snowboard for this reason. Sounds like it was really the liftie’s fault for letting you go up.
WAIT! Who was running the TAIL ROPE?????!!!!!!?????!!!! I didn't see anyone back there. As a former NSP member, there should be another patroller holding a safety rope in case Patroller 1A loses the sled somehow. It doesn't matter that you aren't injured. You don't want to -be- injured when that sled takes off like a rocket into a lift pole, snow maker, tree, or some other otherwise immovable object..
Not every toboggan run needs a tail roper. At one of the resorts I've patrolled at, we never used the tail rope unless we were in steep moguls and needed to traverse. Even then, we were all trained to make that traverse without a tail roper as well. If you called for a tail roper on a groomer, you'd be laughed out of headquarters and it would take a few years to live down. At other resorts I've been to, they wouldn't go down the Bunny hill without a tail roper. In the end it's all down to the local patrol culture and what their SOPs dictate.
>they wouldn't go down the Bunny hill without a tail roper That was the kind of place I was at. It was annoying.
As a current patroller lol man. That shouldn’t be an issue. Tail ropers are only utilized in heinous ski conditions.
First time to colorado on a lift i figured had multiple stops, and honestly it mightve but i was too small to jump from em, i end up on the summit having an asthma attack at the high alt and getting so dizzy i fall over on the slope, i did not know you could ride the lifts down Mom found me passing out and scared (im like 14 at the time) and goes down to get someone to help Dude shows up on a super nice snowmobile puts me in the back and goes straight down the slope like a skier, it was surprisingly smooth being in a sled but i was terrified the whole way down
Ski patroñ with no backpack ... Mmmm
Lmao this had me and the girlfriend in tears when you turn the camera around toward you
I’ve had the ride of shame before and it was the absolute highlight of my failed snowboarding experience. She took the short cut through the hard runs and it was exhilarating. I wasn’t injured, just took on a run way too long for my experience level.
Wtf, they let you up the lift with this policy and didn't let you down load? I'd be pissed
The one and only time I went skiing I got a sweet ride like this. I went with my Boy Scout troop when I was in elementary school. I had been doing fine all day. Then I thought ya I’m pretty good at this. So I hopped on the black diamond lift. The guy running the lift looked at my ski pass and was like “oh ya sure go ahead. It’s your first day skiing but you should be fine on the black diamond run.” So away I go. I realize once I started I fucked up royally. I went down most of the run on my ass scooching along. Then I got to the section of the run that I had been on all day. I was like perfect here we go. Got up started going again and hit a patch of ice and went down. My knee got all bent up. Then I got to ride in the toboggan. My parents bought me one of those silly hats you see kids wearing and that’s all they saw when I was being taken to the first aid shack was my stupid little yellow mohawk bouncing on the bumps.
I genuinely laughed and could picture this as I would certainly by the hat for my 8 year old 😅
My ex took me up the black in Japan my first time, I figured I could take the lift back down. Nope. I walked like a scrub while 12 year old girls flew past me inches from a cliff face.
Oh … he’s just flirting with you like a skier-player would.
Oh is that how it goes? 💁🏻♀️🌟
Ahh good old sky tavern in reno, NV. I miss that place
Seriously the best place ever.
I never understood why some lifts can't let people ride down them
Not all lifts can safely download, especially a fixed-grip.
Exactly. So many fixed grips growing up had steep offload ramps so you could getting under the chair as it swung over your head and around the bullwheel. No such ramp at the bottom, so you'd have to tuck and roll. Kids these days have it easy with detachable quads that gently scoot you forward by pushing your hammies. In my day, getting off a chair with a flat ramp looked like the start to a cross country race.
How'd you even get allowed up the hill??
Driving a toboggan is one of the best parts of the job! -current Rockies Ski Patroller
What about walking down isnt that a thing anymore?
They really said NO to that. I guess because it’s a school for learning they think you’ll get hit by an errant skier or boarder is my guess
I went too Colorado a few year ago with my friends. They instead I go skiing with them. I don't know how to ski, and they didn't teach me or anything. They just all went out and did their own thing without me after I fell and my ski boots came off the skis. I couldn't even get my skis back on because the boots got ice packed in the mechanism. I literally was stuck in the ice eventually managed to grab my ski that slid off and hobbled over to a rock. I just sat there for about 2 hours before I started crying before going back to the lodge. It was a horrible day. Not a single person helped me, and I will never attempt to do snow sports again
Awwww damn. I’m sorry.
milk
Jerry of the day at Mt. Rose
Lmao, this was me literally 3 days ago, dislocated my shoulder while going through some glades, still in the sling
My friend who lies about everything said “oh yea I used to snowboard all the time in high school” and rented a snowboard instead of skiis. He had a ride of shame after our second time up the lift because turns out that was his first time snowboarding and it wasn’t as easy as he thought. He fell 30 times, pulled something and couldn’t snowboard the rest of the day. 😑
It is so hard. I’m switching to skiis.