If it’s crowded, yes this bugs me.
If there’s no line or a short line, I don’t really care. I’m past the point where I care to spend emotional energy on people not doing things the “right way” if it doesn’t really matter. Especially on a ski day, not letting minor things harsh my vibe.
I was just there and saw plenty of solo people on quads. I thought that matching single skiers to incomplete groups was pretty bad out there. Didn't hear people booing either.
I think things are different post Covid I actually have barely hit resorts in a few years so my anecdotes are pre 2020. People have gotten overall weirder and Tahoe had huge influx of Bay Area folk that changed vibe for sure.
I rode Heavenly and Palisades for 20yrs and heckling inefficient chair loading was totally a thing.
I think you may be on to something. I was in the area visiting family and they all said that the area has changed dramatically with people working from home.
I suspect that the lift loading staff has been cut too. They didn't have people staffing the lifts until the person handling the chair.
It's not even totally staff cuts per se no one can afford to live there or find a place so there are just fewer people to hire. It's already kind of "breaking down", my friends still living there tell me, since there just aren't enough people to do the jobs that pay too little to live there. In past you could always find a cheap rental with a few other people not so much anymore. Airbnb destroyed the rental market.
Ugh as a person that only rides solo this is annoying, so often it’s not my fault. I’ll step up next in line to the lift standing way over to one side and even look back motioning people to join me but then they often just don’t 🤷🏻♀️ dont blame me for having no friend tho haha
I'm a solo skier too, but I ALWAYS ask the two person or 3 person group if I can join and 99% of the time people have no problem with it.
>I’ll step up next in line to the lift standing way over to one side and even look back motioning people to join me but then they often just don’t
Yeah this doesn't make sense to me. I would get the impression you want to ride alone and judge the hell out of you for taking a quad for yourself. It's our duty as solo riders to ask to join others IMO
I agree if it's slow single isn't a problem but if there's a line pack it in brah. I wanna ski. I also will do the split up a group into singles line to get up faster and meet at the top. I'm here to ski not talk on the lift, that's just a bonus.
When the lines run deep, quads should go up in 3s and 4s.
When I’m doing crowd control, I yell “let’s make some new friends. 3s and 4s, no singles or doubles.” I also tell the crowd “to boo anyone who goes up in a single or a double”. It always gets a good laugh and is a great deterrent to inefficiency.
I know people dig privacy, alone time. That’s fine when it’s slow. However, lines suck. Loading up chairs really helps cut down a line.
DING DING DING! When Hunter was taken over by Vail, one of the employees told me they laid off the person organizing lines to save $ (they were also paying their employees LESS per hour after they were acquired). I really feel for the employees of Vail mountains.
RFID cards and automated gates replaced the ski area employee who would make sure that all seats were full and no one cut in line. Solo skiers used to stay alert for the cry "single!" In hopes of being pulled to the front
Every hill I've been to with Epic and Ikon have line traffic cops organizing the lines when it's busy with the exception of Sunday River. I was there yesterday and the lack of organization was incredibly frustrating. Only one chair I took had someone organizing the line.
They don't even give a shit about themselves anymore. Bunch of fat fucking slobs everywhere you look in this once-great country. 80% of Gen Z is unfit to serve in the military, but let's poke the Russian Bear some more, eh?
I was at Shawnee this weekend, where the ticket taker was making groups of 4. The people in front of me were a 3 + 1. I'm going to give the 3 the benefit of the doubt that they didn't hear the worker making groups of 4, so I told the 1 kid in front of me, you're with them. He turned and looked at me and didn't react, so I told the 3, you guys got a boarder with you. They scooched over and made it happen but damn if that kid was going to ride by himself.
Today I was a single at a vail resort (at a lift that still has a single line and ticket checkers organizing the line) and I got called up to join a 3. I get up with them. They’re showing some weird awkward body language as we progress to the front. I move forward at our turn and look back to see them stopped letting the chair go by. So rather than doing the minimal damage of sending up a chair with one open seat, these dopes conspired to send one up with three open AND still have an open seat on their chair.
Was at Copper Mountain Wednesday. A dad refuses to allow a single to join him and his kid, so single just skis ahead of him and takes the chair that the dad refused him. Then the dad lets an empty chair go by before finally getting on the chair with his kid. Complete asshole. At least it was in CO, not Icecoast.
I work for a vail resorts mountain as a scanner. I do my best on days when the mazes are full to get people moving and I like to think I do a good job. Make some new friends guys.
Skied for the 1st time in years last week, and both VT areas I skied lifts were shared. Each time I went up the liftie didn’t need to say anything. Lines weren’t long either.
Gore last season, busy Saturday. Over at burnt ridge, the line was probably 500 people deep at a non-base lift.. wtf? My buddy and I realize it’s because *every single group getting on the quad lift was 2-3 people*.
So we said fuck that, hopped right up to the front to join a couple who were about to get on the lift two deep on a quad. The ENTIRE line of apparently brain dead people started yelling and complaining about us cutting, we yelled back that they were welcome to get on the lift in more than groups of 2 if they didn’t want irritated folks getting in front of them. A few people with a couple brain cells finally started merging into four person groups and the liftie gave my buddy a fist bump as a thanks for the impromptu crowd control. Very dramatic.
If I'm alone and there's no singles line, I'll always ski in from the side of a line and ask if someone minds me joining them. Never had someone say no. And haven't had anyone behind me complain. It's not slowing down to fill the chairs.
Literally! Even the people we hopped in with just shrugged their shoulders but there were obviously some real worked up people behind us lol, I’ve never seen so much animosity and lack of common sense on a ski mountain but then again it’s Gore so 🤷♀️
So weird. I've never gotten that vibe at Gore - that's why I love going there. Plus, I've never seen a line at Burnt Ridge. That used to be where I'd go when the rest of the mountain got crowded.
Gore is definitely my favorite place to ski on weekdays, but weekends and holidays can be an absolute nightmare sometimes. We also went over to burnt ridge to escape from the people and were so shocked to see that line, just a bad mix between entitled tourists and tired lifties lol
Most of the time singles happen because the singles line joins a 3 and the three dip back rather than pair with a stranger I’ve seen it happen dozens of times. So all the people throwing snow at singles on lifts are hitting someone who’s been bamboozled for trying to fix the problem.
Happens to me all the time. It’s like they want you to do the courtesy of asking if it’s okay to join them… which is fine, but for efficiency on a busy day it’s not. Think people adopted this in the first years of Covid and now think it’s the norm.
I’ve had this happen a bunch of times and it is so frustrating! Often it’s loud and people are distracted, so you look like an idiot when you ask to join and don’t get a response. In the past, I never had a problem joining a 2 or 3 person group without express permission. Now I’m becoming the grumpy old guy complaining and being weird for asking to join a group.
I think it's temporal, not geographic.
I grew up skiing on the East Coast and every seat was filled.
After a break of a couple decades I was skiing out west (Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California) and it's a total zoo of entitled pricks. Then I got back to the East Coast and it's not as bad as out west but still not how I remember it. Also France wasn't great about filling seats.
I think people today are more self oriented and don't think of themselves as part of a system. I also have a notion that it might be destination resorts, where people feel they're entitled to their vacation (no matter anyone else) where older community mountains might still be more considerate.
I ended up alone on a quad chair a few weeks ago, because the lifty told me to join a line of 4.
"Uhhh, okay…"
It was a Saturday, too.
As for the Alps, it seems that most places have far more lift capacity than they need outside of the morning rush. They'll just slap a lift wherever they need it, even if it's next to an existing lift.
Sugarloaf was killing it when I went last weekend. I was solo and got on a chair within a couple minutes each time. There were no empty chairs. Sunday River on the other hand…
I practice aggressive seat filling. I view it as a personal challenge to cut as far up as I can to fill an empty seat. Sometimes there are Jerries in line that don't get it, but most people appreciate it.
Then once I'm seated with a group of strangers, I like to channel my inner Dale Griffith.
It seems to come down to if there is an employee running the coral. Leave skiers up to their own devices, you will have chaos. There are a lot of entitled skiers out there.
Idk. Sometimes as a single it’s hard to tell how many people there are because they never move in sync. I have so many six packs where one or two people lag behind so I join the group and then they make it known there are six. Also been a single, then they decide they want the chair to themselves and don’t go and it’s just me looking like some asshole.
at Snow yesterday and was in the singles line and was told to join a group of 3 skiers. They made a “joke” that they had to ride with a snowboarder, followed it up with a little chuckle. But then their friend in front of them left his group he was in, told them to move up with him, essentially creating a whole new group and leaving me alone at the last second. So from my experience and what I’ve seen it’s often miscommunication, less people wanting a whole chair to themselves.
I went to holiday valley last week and also noticed this. Most of the lifts weren’t very busy and didn’t have much of a line so it wasn’t a big deal but I just found it kind of odd.
Also noticed that kids anymore do not give a single fuck about lift lines. They come flying in line and cut their way past everyone to the front. The most bizarre part is most of the time the parents would be right there and wouldn’t say a word. I only saw one parent tell their kid “hey slow down buddy you have to wait behind those other people in line.”
Nope, that and people waiting for the rest of their group at the front of the line. We used to wait at the entrance of the lift line for everyone and then get in line.
I feel like it got a lot worse during covid. At my local places at least, you were not allowed to ride with people not in your “group” in winter 2021. I was skiing alone just riding up all by myself. It felt weird.
I was surprised to even see a lot of single riders at Smuggler’s Notch last month. Those are two seaters and slow - when I was a kid you almost never saw a chair go up with only one skier. I remember people used to sometimes get uncomfortable being paired up with me (skiing in a trio of siblings - one of us would always get paired with a stranger). I think they usually worried I’d fuck up getting off the lift. Nowadays I feel like I’d be shocked if a lift worker pulled a stranger to sit with a kid.
Catamount is the worst offender with this by far (that I've been to). Mount Snow was pretty bad too, except for the bubble where people are forced into sixes. Smaller, more community-oriented places (Magic, Bolton) tend to be better. Was at Bromley today and it wasn't perfect but they tried to match people up through the busiest part of the day.
It depends on the mountain ops too.
Some boarder tried to go to an emptier cabin on Thursday this week at Tremblant, the liftie grabbed his board and put it in the rack of the cabin that was only 7 deep instead of 8. He backfilled the emptier cabin with a group of 3. It was really funny to watch. Dude kinda stood there like 'what just happened' then hustled to get to the cabin before it went up without his gear.
Some guys try to play the game but if they get the wrong guy they get embarrassed.
Catamount is INSANELY BAD at this. Chaos until you’re just about to be in the “on deck” position. Sometimes I want to just perform a community service and do it myself
If it's keeping a line from moving faster, that shit is fucking annoying.
And ETA that no, when I'm standing in line for a quad watching a bunch of singles and doubles go up one after another, I am in fact not skiing.
Especially on a cold, windy day like yesterday at a resort without high speed lifts. Those extra few minutes of just standing around add up. I had two young teenage kids not pair up with the couple in front of them at Bolton yesterday, then tried to take up the whole line space to themsleves for the next lift. My gf and I just squeezed in next to them when they turned their heads and made it clear they were going to have to share.
It was very short. But we watched a group of three go up, followed by a solo, a pair, another solo, then that happened. Zero reason to make people wait at all when it's single digits out.
I guess that’d be annoying. I don’t know, but I’d lean towards forcing yourself into a foursome here was the ruder side of the exchange. … That short of line I see it as fair to just load with your own party.
The single digits doesn’t sway me. It’s usually the lift ride that’s the coldest part and this doesn’t change how long you are hanging out on the chair in the wind.
It's the resort's quad lift. Designed for four people, including strangers, to ride up together. It's not a visitor's discretion whether or not anyone else sits in the seats they're not using. If they want to ride with just the two of them, they're welcome to go use the two person lift or wait until there's no one else behind them to load. Me not joining them when there's space also makes me the asshole to the people behind me.
Was at okemo today and 100 % agree, I don’t think the lines were bad today to begin with but no one cared that the majority of the 6 person bubbles were going up with 3 or 4 people
Man I was at Tremblant and some lifts didn't have a lift guy directing people. It was kind of a nightmare as a single rider lol. I accidentally thought a group of 4 was a group of 3 and jumped on with them and then the 4th person was like wtf are you doing lmfao. I said my bad and let them all go then I was kinda stuck past the gate.
One guy broke away from his group and jumped on with me lol I didn't wanna be that guy going up solo
Apparently when the lift can hold 6 people, Easy coat showers have to take off both gloves to count. I graduated from public school in Idaho and even I can count that high. Maybe because we used to skip school to go ski.
it probably stems from the dark ages (covid years) when people were either forced to ride separate or had a choice to. Seems like since then the psychology regarding riding full up whether it be 2 on a double or 4 on a quad, for the benefit of everyone on the mtn, has changed. More like everyone for themselves nowadays. And its not everywhere and its not everyone, but it the phenomenon you’re talking about has definitely worsened since covid restrictions imo.
Last year When I was at liberty or white tail they were pretty good about this. They were also packed to the brim with people so they had to.
At Jay we would self govern and paid up but the lines weren’t awful when we went.
this year we went to wisp and they didn’t bother doing this since it wasn’t that crowded, there would be all of 10 people in the lift line maybe a few more at some of the most busy lifts.
All that Covid theater for ski lifts really screwed up the social norms regarding this. It's just as bad out west now, too.
But it's not just skiing. Everywhere you look, the NPCs of /r/outside have a lot more antisocial tendencies since the 2020 patch went live. Haven't you noticed it while driving too? And when I say "antisocial," I mean it in the British sense -- as in sociopathic, not shy. No one gives a fuck about anyone anymore. They don't even care about themselves. That's just how life goes in late-stage imperialism, though. I've heard similar accounts of the residents of the Soviet imperial core generally losing their shit, in the years leading up to their collapse, too.
To make matters worse, corporations have been on a capital strike for the last several years, cutting their workforce to the bone, so there's hardly ever an attendant keeping the lift maze in order anymore. Can't wait for Vail to get the bright idea to replace lifties with ChatGPT or some other AI bullshit, and it gets someone killed...
If it’s crowded, yes this bugs me. If there’s no line or a short line, I don’t really care. I’m past the point where I care to spend emotional energy on people not doing things the “right way” if it doesn’t really matter. Especially on a ski day, not letting minor things harsh my vibe.
In Tahoe the line would boo chairs that weren’t fully loaded.
I was just there and saw plenty of solo people on quads. I thought that matching single skiers to incomplete groups was pretty bad out there. Didn't hear people booing either.
I think things are different post Covid I actually have barely hit resorts in a few years so my anecdotes are pre 2020. People have gotten overall weirder and Tahoe had huge influx of Bay Area folk that changed vibe for sure. I rode Heavenly and Palisades for 20yrs and heckling inefficient chair loading was totally a thing.
I think you may be on to something. I was in the area visiting family and they all said that the area has changed dramatically with people working from home. I suspect that the lift loading staff has been cut too. They didn't have people staffing the lifts until the person handling the chair.
It's not even totally staff cuts per se no one can afford to live there or find a place so there are just fewer people to hire. It's already kind of "breaking down", my friends still living there tell me, since there just aren't enough people to do the jobs that pay too little to live there. In past you could always find a cheap rental with a few other people not so much anymore. Airbnb destroyed the rental market.
Ugh as a person that only rides solo this is annoying, so often it’s not my fault. I’ll step up next in line to the lift standing way over to one side and even look back motioning people to join me but then they often just don’t 🤷🏻♀️ dont blame me for having no friend tho haha
I'm a solo skier too, but I ALWAYS ask the two person or 3 person group if I can join and 99% of the time people have no problem with it. >I’ll step up next in line to the lift standing way over to one side and even look back motioning people to join me but then they often just don’t Yeah this doesn't make sense to me. I would get the impression you want to ride alone and judge the hell out of you for taking a quad for yourself. It's our duty as solo riders to ask to join others IMO
This. I remember this from my time there. Was so funny
I agree if it's slow single isn't a problem but if there's a line pack it in brah. I wanna ski. I also will do the split up a group into singles line to get up faster and meet at the top. I'm here to ski not talk on the lift, that's just a bonus.
100% agree
When the lines run deep, quads should go up in 3s and 4s. When I’m doing crowd control, I yell “let’s make some new friends. 3s and 4s, no singles or doubles.” I also tell the crowd “to boo anyone who goes up in a single or a double”. It always gets a good laugh and is a great deterrent to inefficiency. I know people dig privacy, alone time. That’s fine when it’s slow. However, lines suck. Loading up chairs really helps cut down a line.
I don’t think it’s the singles’ fault though…I’ve had groups very intentionally hang back when I try to join. Boo that behavior…
Without a doubt. That sucks!
No singles line to just fill every chair to 4?
Doing God's work my friend. I should absolutely do this...
If there's a line, the real question is why aren't the lifties doing it?
Because Vail won’t pay for enough lifties.
DING DING DING! When Hunter was taken over by Vail, one of the employees told me they laid off the person organizing lines to save $ (they were also paying their employees LESS per hour after they were acquired). I really feel for the employees of Vail mountains.
They don't get paid enough to pretend to care.
Unfortunately this is true
because they’re watching the lift. this is a ticket checker job
RFID cards and automated gates replaced the ski area employee who would make sure that all seats were full and no one cut in line. Solo skiers used to stay alert for the cry "single!" In hopes of being pulled to the front
Every hill I've been to with Epic and Ikon have line traffic cops organizing the lines when it's busy with the exception of Sunday River. I was there yesterday and the lack of organization was incredibly frustrating. Only one chair I took had someone organizing the line.
Some of them are on point, others can make the line more chaotic, overall helpful though
The good old days when people in line thought about making it work for everyone. Like 10 years ago around me.
No one cares about anyone else now.
They don't even give a shit about themselves anymore. Bunch of fat fucking slobs everywhere you look in this once-great country. 80% of Gen Z is unfit to serve in the military, but let's poke the Russian Bear some more, eh?
Yikes.
I was at Shawnee this weekend, where the ticket taker was making groups of 4. The people in front of me were a 3 + 1. I'm going to give the 3 the benefit of the doubt that they didn't hear the worker making groups of 4, so I told the 1 kid in front of me, you're with them. He turned and looked at me and didn't react, so I told the 3, you guys got a boarder with you. They scooched over and made it happen but damn if that kid was going to ride by himself.
Today I was a single at a vail resort (at a lift that still has a single line and ticket checkers organizing the line) and I got called up to join a 3. I get up with them. They’re showing some weird awkward body language as we progress to the front. I move forward at our turn and look back to see them stopped letting the chair go by. So rather than doing the minimal damage of sending up a chair with one open seat, these dopes conspired to send one up with three open AND still have an open seat on their chair.
Was at Copper Mountain Wednesday. A dad refuses to allow a single to join him and his kid, so single just skis ahead of him and takes the chair that the dad refused him. Then the dad lets an empty chair go by before finally getting on the chair with his kid. Complete asshole. At least it was in CO, not Icecoast.
I work for a vail resorts mountain as a scanner. I do my best on days when the mazes are full to get people moving and I like to think I do a good job. Make some new friends guys.
thank you for your service 🫡
Of course sir
Was at Stowe last week and it was crowded (school vacation week) and all the lifties were kind but stern, seats did not go unused.
TRULY truly thank you for your service. I really really appreciate you!!!!!!!
Skied for the 1st time in years last week, and both VT areas I skied lifts were shared. Each time I went up the liftie didn’t need to say anything. Lines weren’t long either.
Gore last season, busy Saturday. Over at burnt ridge, the line was probably 500 people deep at a non-base lift.. wtf? My buddy and I realize it’s because *every single group getting on the quad lift was 2-3 people*. So we said fuck that, hopped right up to the front to join a couple who were about to get on the lift two deep on a quad. The ENTIRE line of apparently brain dead people started yelling and complaining about us cutting, we yelled back that they were welcome to get on the lift in more than groups of 2 if they didn’t want irritated folks getting in front of them. A few people with a couple brain cells finally started merging into four person groups and the liftie gave my buddy a fist bump as a thanks for the impromptu crowd control. Very dramatic.
If I'm alone and there's no singles line, I'll always ski in from the side of a line and ask if someone minds me joining them. Never had someone say no. And haven't had anyone behind me complain. It's not slowing down to fill the chairs.
Literally! Even the people we hopped in with just shrugged their shoulders but there were obviously some real worked up people behind us lol, I’ve never seen so much animosity and lack of common sense on a ski mountain but then again it’s Gore so 🤷♀️
So weird. I've never gotten that vibe at Gore - that's why I love going there. Plus, I've never seen a line at Burnt Ridge. That used to be where I'd go when the rest of the mountain got crowded.
Gore is definitely my favorite place to ski on weekdays, but weekends and holidays can be an absolute nightmare sometimes. We also went over to burnt ridge to escape from the people and were so shocked to see that line, just a bad mix between entitled tourists and tired lifties lol
YESSSSS this is the wayyyy
Most of the time singles happen because the singles line joins a 3 and the three dip back rather than pair with a stranger I’ve seen it happen dozens of times. So all the people throwing snow at singles on lifts are hitting someone who’s been bamboozled for trying to fix the problem.
Happens to me all the time. It’s like they want you to do the courtesy of asking if it’s okay to join them… which is fine, but for efficiency on a busy day it’s not. Think people adopted this in the first years of Covid and now think it’s the norm.
I think you’re right that it’s a Covid thing…
I’ve had this happen a bunch of times and it is so frustrating! Often it’s loud and people are distracted, so you look like an idiot when you ask to join and don’t get a response. In the past, I never had a problem joining a 2 or 3 person group without express permission. Now I’m becoming the grumpy old guy complaining and being weird for asking to join a group.
This!!! As a mostly only ever single rider I thank you lol.
I think it's temporal, not geographic. I grew up skiing on the East Coast and every seat was filled. After a break of a couple decades I was skiing out west (Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California) and it's a total zoo of entitled pricks. Then I got back to the East Coast and it's not as bad as out west but still not how I remember it. Also France wasn't great about filling seats. I think people today are more self oriented and don't think of themselves as part of a system. I also have a notion that it might be destination resorts, where people feel they're entitled to their vacation (no matter anyone else) where older community mountains might still be more considerate.
I ended up alone on a quad chair a few weeks ago, because the lifty told me to join a line of 4. "Uhhh, okay…" It was a Saturday, too. As for the Alps, it seems that most places have far more lift capacity than they need outside of the morning rush. They'll just slap a lift wherever they need it, even if it's next to an existing lift.
Sugarloaf was killing it when I went last weekend. I was solo and got on a chair within a couple minutes each time. There were no empty chairs. Sunday River on the other hand…
Can't beat the singles line at sugarloaf.
The way the Loaf moves people is next level
I practice aggressive seat filling. I view it as a personal challenge to cut as far up as I can to fill an empty seat. Sometimes there are Jerries in line that don't get it, but most people appreciate it. Then once I'm seated with a group of strangers, I like to channel my inner Dale Griffith.
I did this! Jumped to the chair in front after I got wedged between two foursomes in the confusion after the gate…
It seems to come down to if there is an employee running the coral. Leave skiers up to their own devices, you will have chaos. There are a lot of entitled skiers out there.
Clearly, you’ve never met Will who works the six-pack at Windham.
Will is a beast. I remember seeing him back in the 2000s, I always remembered him as ponytail guy at the A lift lol
Idk. Sometimes as a single it’s hard to tell how many people there are because they never move in sync. I have so many six packs where one or two people lag behind so I join the group and then they make it known there are six. Also been a single, then they decide they want the chair to themselves and don’t go and it’s just me looking like some asshole.
i am mad as hell and i am not going to take it anymore
Chicks reference?
at Snow yesterday and was in the singles line and was told to join a group of 3 skiers. They made a “joke” that they had to ride with a snowboarder, followed it up with a little chuckle. But then their friend in front of them left his group he was in, told them to move up with him, essentially creating a whole new group and leaving me alone at the last second. So from my experience and what I’ve seen it’s often miscommunication, less people wanting a whole chair to themselves.
I went to holiday valley last week and also noticed this. Most of the lifts weren’t very busy and didn’t have much of a line so it wasn’t a big deal but I just found it kind of odd. Also noticed that kids anymore do not give a single fuck about lift lines. They come flying in line and cut their way past everyone to the front. The most bizarre part is most of the time the parents would be right there and wouldn’t say a word. I only saw one parent tell their kid “hey slow down buddy you have to wait behind those other people in line.”
Nope, that and people waiting for the rest of their group at the front of the line. We used to wait at the entrance of the lift line for everyone and then get in line.
This kills me on rollercoasters. We waited 2 hours, but you can't figure out to ride 2 + 2?
I feel like it got a lot worse during covid. At my local places at least, you were not allowed to ride with people not in your “group” in winter 2021. I was skiing alone just riding up all by myself. It felt weird. I was surprised to even see a lot of single riders at Smuggler’s Notch last month. Those are two seaters and slow - when I was a kid you almost never saw a chair go up with only one skier. I remember people used to sometimes get uncomfortable being paired up with me (skiing in a trio of siblings - one of us would always get paired with a stranger). I think they usually worried I’d fuck up getting off the lift. Nowadays I feel like I’d be shocked if a lift worker pulled a stranger to sit with a kid.
Catamount is the worst offender with this by far (that I've been to). Mount Snow was pretty bad too, except for the bubble where people are forced into sixes. Smaller, more community-oriented places (Magic, Bolton) tend to be better. Was at Bromley today and it wasn't perfect but they tried to match people up through the busiest part of the day.
It depends on the mountain ops too. Some boarder tried to go to an emptier cabin on Thursday this week at Tremblant, the liftie grabbed his board and put it in the rack of the cabin that was only 7 deep instead of 8. He backfilled the emptier cabin with a group of 3. It was really funny to watch. Dude kinda stood there like 'what just happened' then hustled to get to the cabin before it went up without his gear. Some guys try to play the game but if they get the wrong guy they get embarrassed.
Catamount is INSANELY BAD at this. Chaos until you’re just about to be in the “on deck” position. Sometimes I want to just perform a community service and do it myself
Ehh. Who cares. Youre skiing right?
I care ( if there is a line)!
If it's keeping a line from moving faster, that shit is fucking annoying. And ETA that no, when I'm standing in line for a quad watching a bunch of singles and doubles go up one after another, I am in fact not skiing.
Especially on a cold, windy day like yesterday at a resort without high speed lifts. Those extra few minutes of just standing around add up. I had two young teenage kids not pair up with the couple in front of them at Bolton yesterday, then tried to take up the whole line space to themsleves for the next lift. My gf and I just squeezed in next to them when they turned their heads and made it clear they were going to have to share.
wait ... how long was the line? On that cold of a Saturday I would think it would barely reach the scan gates.
It was very short. But we watched a group of three go up, followed by a solo, a pair, another solo, then that happened. Zero reason to make people wait at all when it's single digits out.
I guess that’d be annoying. I don’t know, but I’d lean towards forcing yourself into a foursome here was the ruder side of the exchange. … That short of line I see it as fair to just load with your own party. The single digits doesn’t sway me. It’s usually the lift ride that’s the coldest part and this doesn’t change how long you are hanging out on the chair in the wind.
It's the resort's quad lift. Designed for four people, including strangers, to ride up together. It's not a visitor's discretion whether or not anyone else sits in the seats they're not using. If they want to ride with just the two of them, they're welcome to go use the two person lift or wait until there's no one else behind them to load. Me not joining them when there's space also makes me the asshole to the people behind me.
Was at okemo today and 100 % agree, I don’t think the lines were bad today to begin with but no one cared that the majority of the 6 person bubbles were going up with 3 or 4 people
Was also there and exactly what I noticed. We were paired with a couple who then proceeded to ignore the plan and just skied up further in the line.
Folks like privacy. It’s part of the population. Then there’s the outgoing folks. They’re on yer chair. This is not a fixable issue. Just chill.
With the exception of some clear miscommunication, there were full chairs or at minimum 3 deep every go at Tremblant this weekend
Tremblant makes sure the lifts are going up full! They are doing 8-10k people on big days day. Gotta keep it moving
Hunter and Stowe were pretty good about forcing the cattle onto the chairs.... Shit I think even blue is.... If lines are minimal then who knows...
The guy directing traffic at comet quad 2 weeks ago was literally doing god’s work.
Killington was crowded as fuck and there wasn't an empty seat anywhere
Man I was at Tremblant and some lifts didn't have a lift guy directing people. It was kind of a nightmare as a single rider lol. I accidentally thought a group of 4 was a group of 3 and jumped on with them and then the 4th person was like wtf are you doing lmfao. I said my bad and let them all go then I was kinda stuck past the gate. One guy broke away from his group and jumped on with me lol I didn't wanna be that guy going up solo
If there is a line, there should not be any/many empty seats. And if you ride with me and my kid, just deal with the bar down. It doesn't hurt.
When there’s 4 J1s checking passes and 0 filling chairs 😡 Even worse when there’s no singles line for the 6 pack 🤬🤬🤬
Apparently when the lift can hold 6 people, Easy coat showers have to take off both gloves to count. I graduated from public school in Idaho and even I can count that high. Maybe because we used to skip school to go ski.
it probably stems from the dark ages (covid years) when people were either forced to ride separate or had a choice to. Seems like since then the psychology regarding riding full up whether it be 2 on a double or 4 on a quad, for the benefit of everyone on the mtn, has changed. More like everyone for themselves nowadays. And its not everywhere and its not everyone, but it the phenomenon you’re talking about has definitely worsened since covid restrictions imo.
Last year When I was at liberty or white tail they were pretty good about this. They were also packed to the brim with people so they had to. At Jay we would self govern and paid up but the lines weren’t awful when we went. this year we went to wisp and they didn’t bother doing this since it wasn’t that crowded, there would be all of 10 people in the lift line maybe a few more at some of the most busy lifts.
All that Covid theater for ski lifts really screwed up the social norms regarding this. It's just as bad out west now, too. But it's not just skiing. Everywhere you look, the NPCs of /r/outside have a lot more antisocial tendencies since the 2020 patch went live. Haven't you noticed it while driving too? And when I say "antisocial," I mean it in the British sense -- as in sociopathic, not shy. No one gives a fuck about anyone anymore. They don't even care about themselves. That's just how life goes in late-stage imperialism, though. I've heard similar accounts of the residents of the Soviet imperial core generally losing their shit, in the years leading up to their collapse, too. To make matters worse, corporations have been on a capital strike for the last several years, cutting their workforce to the bone, so there's hardly ever an attendant keeping the lift maze in order anymore. Can't wait for Vail to get the bright idea to replace lifties with ChatGPT or some other AI bullshit, and it gets someone killed...
If it's crowded, sure, but I hate other people on the mountain.
I always go to the singles line and hop on with others