Young Males Keep Falling From Chairlifts Out West

ChrisC said:
It's not just young men falling from chairlifts without safety bars.
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American Flyer is possibly the worst lift in Colorado for the possibility of falling IMHO.

Shockingly it is only a few years old, but it is a very high-speed 6 pack bubble with the enormous sofa style seating. The 'hangers'/chairs are made with a slippery material and almost all of the chairs have a slight lean forwards. Also unlike almost any other chairs they have the huge backs that go up to your head so you cannot for example put your arm over the back rest if you wanted to. To add to the fun the top station is built 20-30 feet above ground level coming into the top station so if you open the bar several towers early, that can freak you out/push you out too (as you come rushing at the terminal at 1100 FPM people want to put the bar up very early).

It is the only lift I can think of in Colo where on every single ride I do the culturally rude thing and make sure the bar gets lowered. Not a fan of that lift in any way. My only surprise since it opened has been the relative lack of people falling off it previously. It seems poorly designed at best. Won't be surprised in the slightest if anyone who falls off that one tries to sue Copper over a dangerous lift design.
 
EMSC said:
American Flyer is possibly the worst lift in Colorado for the possibility of falling IMHO.

Shockingly it is only a few years old, but it is a very high-speed 6 pack bubble with the enormous sofa style seating. The 'hangers'/chairs are made with a slippery material and almost all of the chairs have a slight lean forwards. Also unlike almost any other chairs they have the huge backs that go up to your head so you cannot for example put your arm over the back rest if you wanted to. To add to the fun the top station is built 20-30 feet above ground level coming into the top station so if you open the bar several towers early, that can freak you out/push you out too (as you come rushing at the terminal at 1100 FPM people want to put the bar up very early).

It is the only lift I can think of in Colo where on every single ride I do the culturally rude thing and make sure the bar gets lowered. Not a fan of that lift in any way. My only surprise since it opened has been the relative lack of people falling off it previously. It seems poorly designed at best. Won't be surprised in the slightest if anyone who falls off that one tries to sue Copper over a dangerous lift design.
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This style lift seems to be popular in Europe, where use of the bar is not optional. I find it comfortable, however I always use the bar and enjoy the footrest.
 
Skieric said:
This style lift seems to be popular in Europe, where use of the bar is not optional.
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Excellent point. it may not have occurred to anyone at Leitner-Poma that the bar might not be used. I don't recall anything about that lift even though Liz and I skied two days at Copper last season. But with my daypack and EMSC's description, I'm sure I would have insisted upon lowering that bar.

I intend no hostility to James. But he seems to believe that non use of bars in the west is enforced from the bottom up by bro-brah culture and I disagree. Most people out here started skiing at areas with no bars, so we don't think about it at all or use it if we want the footrest or if something about the chair (exposure, American Flyer design) makes not using the bar uncomfortable. Mammoth had no bars until the first high speed lift in 1988 and did not retrofit any old lifts until 2022. It's an out of sight out of mind situation. I couldn't tell you which interior Northwest areas have bars and which don't, except that Great Divide is the only one with a center pole Riblet retrofitted. And I'll bet there are a ton of western areas like Mammoth 1988-2021 where some chairs have bars and some don't. How many people in those environments will think that it's mandatory to lower the bar on the lifts that have them?
 
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EMSC said:
Won't be surprised in the slightest if anyone who falls off that one tries to sue Copper over a dangerous lift design.
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Surely Copper's defense is that the bar is there and the rider chose not to use it. I'd guess that was Alterra's rationale in retrofitting those old chairs at Mammoth.
 
Tony Crocker said:
I intend no hostility to James. But he seems to believe that non use of bars in the west is enforced from the bottom up by bro-brah culture and I disagree. Most people out here started skiing at areas with no bars, so we don't think about it at all or use it if we want the footrest or if something about the chair (exposure, American Flyer design) makes not using the bar uncomfortable
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I'll buy that as a partial explanation and @snowave has pointed out that a bar with a footrest is uncomfortable at best for boarders. Just saying that the "people out here started skiing at areas with no bars, so we don't think about it at all" results in a bit of region-specific parochialism -- kind of like older boomers saying "my generation grew up not using seatbelts in cars and we're still alive!" (they "didn't think of it at all"). It's not just the bro-brah crowd. As @MarzNC mentioned, you can catch grief from grandmothers!

As far as not being able to retrofit older chairs to provide a bar, here's a recent TR from Central NY showing a Riblet center-pole double with a safety bar, so apparently it can be done.

OTOH, as has been noted upthread, there's the opposite issue that occurs mainly in German-speaking regions where skiers overzealously pull the bar down on people's heads.
 
There are exactly two retrofitted Riblets in the entire West as Stuart told me, J1 at June Mt. and the one at Great Divide. I agree the western US attitude is parochial, but it is reinforced by there still being so many chairlifts out here with no bars.
 
Tony Crocker said:
There are exactly two retrofitted Riblets in the entire West as Stuart told me, J1 at June Mt. and the one at Great Divide. I agree the western US attitude is parochial, but it is reinforced by there still being so many chairlifts out here with no bars.
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There must be many more, right? Breckenridge chairs E and 6 for instance. Burlingame at snowmass had bars but oddly, Snowbowl removed them when the lift was installed there. I think many riblets had bars as originally installed too. E.g.campground at snowmass and highline at vail. The below link shows a common riblet center pole bar design.


The number of chairlift falls is still very low given the number of lift rides per year. I always use the bar with kids and often lower the bar if footrest equipped.
 
I noticed Silver King chair at Whitewater is a center pole chair that has bars that fold down from the center pole. Didn’t take photo as it seemed sketchy with low side bars and too cold to take off mittens.
 
The picture nathanvg posted looks like some of Baldy's chairs, which have a similar footrest setup. Baldy's Thunder chair is center pole at the back of the chair like Riblets and does not have a bar. I don't remember Silver King. However Stuart's focus is on the U.S. so it's not surprising he would miss something as obscure as this in Canada. And Stuart's comment was specific to Riblets.
I always use the bar with kids and often lower the bar if footrest equipped.
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That is my rule of thumb also. Having a footrest increases usage but not dramatically. At Mammoth I'm more often than not the one calling "Heads up!" while lowering the footrests.
 
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Vorlage is one of the Ottawa locals. I'd page Patrick but I don't think he checks here that often. Sending that girl down the hill hanging from the lift sounds strange indeed. The article didn't say but I'd guess she was strangled by her clothing.

There is no mention with the 5 year old at Sunday River whether the bar was down.
 
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