What's your favorite surface lift?

[billski]

the other one i used to love were the old poma's at okemo, .

+2
They moved fast too. You could get so many runs in that you would burn out before they stopped turning. Of course, this was back before they boulevarded the place, so the trails were more challenging too.

 

[4aprice]

The old Poma's at Aspen Highlands. No attendent to help, one just skied thru a wand like a racer does and it releasesd the disk. Very fast and a flying launch at the beginning.

The old summit poma at Pico was the steepest surface lift I ever rode.

Alex

Lake Hopatcong, NJ

 

[ski63]

The T-Bar at Breck that goes up about 900 vert and takes a 30 degree turn half way up has to the coolest surface lift in the States. Serves some great terrain.
A close second is my Army time in Germany in the late 70's. The Zugspitz in Garmisch was served by a bunch of T-bars. The.Cable car ride to the glacier was something else.

 

[Stache]

+2
They moved fast too. You could get so many runs in that you would burn out before they stopped turning. Of course, this was back before they boulevarded the place, so the trails were more challenging too.

+3

Specifically the Black Poma between Arrow (trail on the right going up and whatever the trail on the left was, that was the race trail). Because it serviced the racers it ran really fast and when you pulled all the slack out before it hooked up you could be 30' up the mountain before your skiis touched the ground again.

 

[from_the_NEK]

I always enjoyed the Poma at Burke.
.

Here's the top 2/3s of it with the bend in the middle.

 

[snoseek]

The T-Bar at the loaf when it storms and the quad/spillway are closed. So many people sit around and assume no major chairs=no skiing while you make laps. A short hike/traverse will get you in some really really nice stuff on a storm day!

North Face at Crested Butte serves up some pretty crazy shit.

 

[dmc]

My favorites are the ones in museums..

 

[powpig2002]

shawnee peak in the 60's.old wooden t bars with monster springs.as kids we'd be riding them like chair lifts.you got out of the unloading zone asap. if people just let them go they could do so serious damage to the brain housing group. how about the ski mobile at cranmore. anyone? anyone? thing came by about 50mph and you jumped on holding your skis and poles. when you are 7 y o and your carrying 205s(you'll grow into them) and the floor of the car was frozen, that was some scary shiet! i think the guy who thought up that one invented lawn darts.

 

[SIKSKIER]

There is just something intimate about surface lifts that run thrrough a narrow cut in the trees like the one shown at Bobcat.I love Sugarloafs for that reason and for the steep sections and the crazy cross over dodging skiers! I really miss Cannons upper t's.The electric(left) one was much faster than the deisel and would scare most of the beginers away.The Highlands in Tilton NH used to have a t-bar that actually ran a little downhill so sometimes you would slide ahead of the grip.Weird feeling.

 

[bvibert]

The Beginner Poma at Sundown. I think it may be the only surface lift I've been on, aside from the magic carpet now at Sundown. Riding that thing was fun, especially as a beginner.

Actually I think I rode the old Poma at the base of Okemo once or twice too.

 

[JD]

Balsams had 2 T bars. First lifts I ever rode. By the time I got those down, skiing was no problem. Only surface lifts I've ever ridden as well.

 

[swampwiz]

There are a pair of T-bars at Bivio in Switzerland, that combined go up a total of about 2700 ft! Talk about some cold feet on a cold day!

 

[Localdog]

Back in the 60s, when I was a kid, my father would take me and my four siblings to Mohawk for the day. He bought himself a chairlift ticket, but he was too cheap to buy us one, So we got rope tow tickets, for maybe $1.50 each. It took four separate ropetows to get to the top. That was work, but we sure loved it.

 

[witch hobble]

From my youth I'll say the Green Poma @ Okemo. I used to lap that thing like nobody's business. Several years earlier I had had a terrible experience on the Red Poma, when I hooked a tip and fell halfway up while skiing with the whole family and there was a long lift line. I cried out of embarassment and was soured towards Pomas for a season and a half or so. I then fell in love with them as they were being replaced one by one. The Green was the last to go and I have lots of good memories of no lift lines and being launched and having snowball fights with the lifties.

I didn't ride Hickory's all that much when I lived in Warrensburg, but Poma 1 and Poma 2 are a ton of fun. I really want to get back there and ride them again.

And I love Bearcub at Gore, just because it was the place my kids really took off. Perfectly pitched trail for learning. Good memories.

 

[Smellytele]

The one at copper does feed some nice skiing. My wife's first poma. She hated it and it took her 4 disks before she could get on. I liked the old ones at Cannon as well.

 

[Johnskiismore]

The Poma lift on the north side of Mount Saint Anne, Quebec. That thing hauled!!

 

[darent]

The T-Bar at the loaf when it storms and the quad/spillway are closed. So many people sit around and assume no major chairs=no skiing while you make laps. A short hike/traverse will get you in some really really nice stuff on a storm day!

North Face at Crested Butte serves up some pretty crazy shit.

the last time I was at the loaf we had a great dump with big wind, all lifts were closed ,hiked up to the T-bar and it was closed too, all th locals new they would use the snow cat and by the time I came back down that line was jammed full

 

[onedkcharette]

LOL! Those things did shred some gloves. Although, back in the late 80's, they did have some pretty burly leather ski gloves on the market.

i remember the days of rope tows as well. there used to be a half leather shell they sold that covered the areas on your gloves the ropes would tear up. they would last ok. in one season you may have gone through maybe 2 sets of those (7-10 bucks back in the day) vs 6 sets of gloves.

the rope would wear a groove in the snow up the tow line and if you daydreamed going up the hill your ski would sometimes get stuck in that groove and well.... you know what happened next.

old school skiing was tough!

 

[polski]

In chronological order:

1. for sentimental reasons, the rope tow at Vernon Valley, NJ (pretty sure the bunny slope was named Chicken Little then), where I first skied ca.1975 - not that I had any love for how that thing managed to wreck not just a pair of gloves but my jacket.

2. the t-bars that were the only lifts at Feldberg in the Black Forest (Schwarzwald) of what then was West Germany, 1984. Wikipedia says the "first ski lift ever" was built there in 1907 but gives no citation or further details, so who knows. Feldberg, with 1650' vert, apparently is the largest ski area in Germany outside the Alps.

3. the old t-bar to the top of Saddleback. As Barbara DeServes of Hallowell, a Saddleback skier for 25 years, put it in a recent Maine Outdoor Journal article: "That T-bar made this place like Mad River Glen; ski it if you can. Only the worthy could get to the top." OK, so she immediately went on to add: "I am surprised by how much we don't miss it. The new quad is a remarkable ride; you can enjoy the scenery now." (to which I would add: As long as it's not on windhold ...)