Lift bar....up or down?

[bobbutts]

A good portion of the people who leave the bar up in my observation are trying to be cool. Big whoop! Even with the foot rests in place, you can still let your legs hang (if you're doing a real sport).

Who goes up on the lift to play Football, Baseball, Hockey, or Basketball?

 

[SkiDork]

The lifts in CO with no bar scare me...

 

[koreshot]

Anybody find the summit lift at Solitude, UT scary? Old double, I can barely fit on it, and the drop is like over 100 feet at points. Freaks me out.

 

[ctenidae]

I've never seen any lift accident data, but I'm willing to bet the instances where the bar would have been a benefit is a pretty small percentage of overall accidents. Fallling-off accident rates are probably no higher on lifts without bars than lifts with. Not that that's an any more valid reason for not using it than "ZOMG!!1!1 Your'e gonna fall!11!!!1" is a valid reason for telling someone else to use it.

 

[Marc]

Lets see, most lifts are maybe 50 feet in the air, a sudden line/grip failure resulting in the chair plunging to the ground at 9.8meters/second - that will give most folks maybe 2 seconds to say "oh sh*&" and make the mental descision to jump.

Sounds alot like the logic that some folks use to justify NOT wearing a seatbelt for that 0.1% crash where they'll end up with a jammed seatbelt underwater and the initial decelleration of the crash didn't kill them in the first place

Just for clarification, objects in the presence of Earth's gravity (roughly speaking) are accelerated due to gravity at 9.81 meters per second squared (32.2 ft/s^2). Subtle difference, yes, but it makes the difference between a velocity and a rate of acceleration which is a major difference. The rate of descent will be deteremined by the net force affecting the falling body which is the difference between the gravitational force of attraction and the air resistance (dependent on velocity). That being said, no, that difference would not likely change your rough estimate of the available freefall time of the average skier and lift chair from fifty feet off the ground.

I'd also say that I'm not sure a sudden catastrophic cable failure, depending on where the failure is located, would have the same effect of free falling from fifty feet. Especially if the failure happens on the non passenger side.

Then again, arguing what would happen in that instance is probably a waste of time anyway. Cable failures are so rare, that it preparing for one is an exercise in futility. It would be like taking precautions for lightning strikes everyday no matter what the weather.

I only lower the lift bar if someone else on the chair wants it down. I don't really know why... apathy maybe. It just does not strike me as a safety feature that will serve much protection. Certainly no where near comparable to a seatbelt in a car. Not even the same ballpark. I've been on high speed lifts that stop suddenly, and have yet to feel like I'm going to fall off. Most modern chairs are manufactured with a seat angle steep enough that I think falling out is a fairly remote possibility. I do put it down when I'm wearing a pack though.

I also am annoyed when I load a chair and bend down to adjust my pants or boots (with one arm around the back rest) and get clocked in the head with the lift bar, despite the fact I wear a helmet. Some people are just totally clueless. I am tall enough as well, that on some chairs the bar will hit my head if I'm sitting up straight, so a warning is definitely appreciated.

 

[koreshot]

Just for clarification, objects in the presence of Earth's gravity (roughly speaking) are accelerated due to gravity at 9.81 meters per second squared (32.2 ft/s^2). Subtle difference, yes, but it makes the difference between a velocity and a rate of acceleration which is a major difference. The rate of descent will be deteremined by the net force affecting the falling body which is the difference between the gravitational force of attraction and the air resistance (dependent on velocity).

Ok there Mr. Math and Science. We don't need your scientifically accurate opinions to make our decisions!!! Whats next? The earth is round?

 

[ctenidae]

Just for clarification, objects in the presence of Earth's gravity (roughly speaking) are accelerated due to gravity at 9.81 meters per second squared (32.2 ft/s^2).

I wanted to make that point, too, but really didn't feel like taking the time.
It takes about 1.3 seconds to fall 50 feet, at which point you're moving about 27 mph, give or take.

 

[Marc]

I wanted to make that point, too, but really didn't feel like taking the time.
It takes about 1.3 seconds to fall 50 feet, at which point you're moving about 27 mph, give or take.

Which in my estimation, would spell total disaster for one's spine if the resultant impact is taken in the seat position.

So, with the stipulation that falling on snow is probably the only chance to survive an impact from that height without sustaining major trauma, staying in the seated position on the chair is probably one of the more severe ways to experience such an impact, as the chair will experience much more rapid deceleration upon impact with the snow because of the surface area profile of the chair itself being large and flat. But again, that failure mode for a chair lift I think has a very, very low probability of occuring.

 

[ctenidae]

Which in my estimation, would spell total disaster for one's spine if the resultant impact is taken in the seat position.

You would, at the very least, have a nasty bruise on your bum. Not to mention either broken shins from teh chair landing on the back of your legs or two spectacular black eyes from using your face to keep your knees from going through your brain.

But yeah, pretty unlikely event. Not one I generally spend any time worrying about, unless I'm really high up and want to irk my wife "Wow- it would suck if the chair came off the line here, wouldn't it?" That comment is usually followed by me removing a ski pole from my ear.

 

[drjeff]

Of course were making the hypothetical assumption that either us as the riders of the chair or the chair itself would fall perfectly vertical to the ground and not start rotating and expose us to a back first landing.

*Maybe* if you and the chair fell vertically, and the safety bar was down, the footrest impacting first would actually absorb some of the impact and transfer it to the frame of the chair. Of course were also falling onto a flat surface in all this too Bottom line, if a chair experiences a catastrophic failure of the grip and your 50 feet over a stump ladened rock ledge, it realistically doesn't matter what the safety bar position is. Now if your at ALTA during one of those epic 100" in 100 hours storms, well then that suffocation from falling into all that fluff may be more of an issue that decelleration trauma

 

[koreshot]

Does anyone wear a parachute a la ski base jumping? That way if the lift goes you can jump out and open the parachute. Surely the 40 feet in which the parachute has to deploy, it will slow you down by 5%. Totally worth it I think.

Plus you would look pretty hardcore in the lift line...

 

[ctenidae]

Does anyone wear a parachute a la ski base jumping? That way if the lift goes you can jump out and open the parachute. Surely the 40 feet in which the parachute has to deploy, it will slow you down by 5%. Totally worth it I think.

Plus you would look pretty hardcore in the lift line...

I just wear a big puffy jacket with a hood. I figure the drag will be enough to allow me to float gently to the ground.

 

[drjeff]

Here's a you tube vid of a 6 pack in Val d'Isere France that might find the non bar down folks wanting it down! Thsi one looks like it rivals Slidebrook at The Bush!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXU3mTDdxL8

 

[ctenidae]

Here's a you tube vid of a 6 pack in Val d'Isere France that might find the non bar down folks wanting it down! Thsi one looks like it rivals Slidebrook at The Bush!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXU3mTDdxL8

"I need poo-poo"

Classic.

 

[drjeff]

I think I'd want a 5 point harness if I was in this Gondi at Les Arcs, France! Crosswinds apparently were gusting to around 140km/hr - a little under 90 mph!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MqUGkbfnDE

 

[drjeff]

Not quite as extreme, but check out the bounce on this double in Kazakhstan!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgozRGDNlVc

 

[ctenidae]

Not quite as extreme, but check out the bounce on this double in Kazakhstan!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgozRGDNlVc

Heh- I just wasted 15 minutes watching that one, among others, too.

 

[drjeff]

Heh- I just wasted 15 minutes watching that one, among others, too.

I have such a love/hate relationship with you tube some days

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

Youtube is the bomb deezy..so many funny videos and lots of hotties shaking they're moneymaker..

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

Do you lower the bar???

As ski season approaches I've been thinking about all things ski related. In Vermont it's the law to lower the safety bar..at most eastern resorts, ski patrollers and liftees will remind to lower the bar and there are signs as well. I used to go with the flow and sometimes ride up with no safety bar. About 4 years ago at Blue..I was riding the quad and the girl next to me asked me what kind of boots I had..I looked down and the lift came to a sudden stop..luckily my reaction me was great and I was able to grab onto the back of the chair...that had me spooked because that would have been a bad way to die..as I was above rocks and tree stumps..ever since I have insisted on pulling the bar down.


One time at Jackson Hole, when I anounced "Bar Down"..."Coming Down"....this guy asked,"Why do you want it down"..I said..To rest my feet...he asked..Why...and I said cause I just skied 2k of powder..and he said,,,fine...and at the top the asshole I am I waited till like the last possible second to raise it...

Some resorts out west don't have safety bars but the seats are tilted back and are not the slippery padded material that alot of six packs and quads are..so this season lower the bar..