TR: Chairlift Evacuation - How do they do it?

[Sinecure]

Last weekend I got to participate in Chairlift Evacuation Practice at Alpine Meadows. It was cold and snowing and not surprisingly there weren't too many members of the public who showed up to volunteer. So we loaded a whole bunch of ski patrollers as well as the volunteers came. I'd never been involved in an evac and so it was fun and interesting to see how its done.

The basics are pretty simple. There's a heavy rope with a T shaped bar attached to one end. The rope is looped over the haul line of the chair (haul line is the main cable that the chairs attach to). The T-bar is raised up to the passengers, one of them puts it between their legs and under their butt. There's a small "safety" line that they put over their head and under their armpits. Once that's on, the passenger scoots off the chair and is belayed to the ground while they hang tight to the T-bar. Raise the T-bar back up and repeat for other passengers. Once one chair is empty, the rescue team whips the heavy line over the top of the chair and slide the line down to the next chair. There is a "line saver" which is a bent metal tube that sits on the cable to protect the rope from the cable and allow it to slide easily. The line saver has a small loop on the top which is tied to a small line that in turn is looped over the Comm line of the lift and down to a rescuer on the ground. The Comm line is the extra set of cables that are typically centered on the lift (inside of the haul lines) and contains the communications cables so the top and bottom chairlift operators can speak to one another. The main purpose of the smaller rope that's attached to the line saver and looped over the comm line is to 1) help position the line saver right on the cable, and 2) help boost the whole assembly over the chair grip when moving down the line from one chair to the next.

Assuming we have enough personnel, we will initiate a rescue from each tower along the line. We start at the tower and work our way down the line. A rescuer (patroller or well trained maintenance person - mostly patrollers at Alpine Meadows) climbs the tower with the rescue lines, loops it over the haul line and drops it to the ground.

Here are some photos of the event. First from a bystander's perspective and then a POV from the passenger.


Getting ready. If you look carefully, you can see the line saver on the white rope protecting it from the haul line cable. The red jacketed patroller on the ground is holding the t-bar and about to let it go up to the passengers.




T-bar goes up and the first passenger is sliding off the chair. There's a patroller out of frame to the right who is shouting clear instructions to the passengers telling them what to do. The guys on the ground are belaying the passenger.





Partway down. Ike the patrol dog is checking out everything and making sure we're doing it right.





Safely to the ground. Ike's not sure what I'm doing out here.





Now for the POV version. Here comes the T-Bar. You can see Ike on the ground and my chair-mate's shoe in the foreground. Two of the guys on the ground will be belaying us. We're pretty high up. I'd say it was a good 40' to the ground for us. We were just below the small cliff skier's right of Banana Chute if you know Alpine Meadows. The ropes used for rescue at Alpine are all approx 250' long. That's 2.5 times the highest point of any haul cable on the mountain (I can't even think of where we have a chair that's 100' off the ground, but maybe Alpine Bowl Chair before it gets to Palisades).




We generally suggest that the smaller, or weaker, or more scared person go first. Claire is a little smaller than me and was a bit scared, even though she's done this a couple times before. Plus I wanted to take pictures of her so she went first. It was wet snow so they'd given us some trash bags to stay dry. In this pic she has the safety line under her arms and she's starting to scoooch herself off the chair. This is by far the scariest part.





Lower away! My knee in the foreground. Patroller shouting instructions on the ground.





There she goes. You can see the two guys belaying her on the ground.





Almost down.








That's about it. If you are ever involved in an actual evac, try to stay calm and help keep your chairmates calm. While it is very rare that we have to do this in real life, we practice it regularly and it can be done very safely. The biggest risk is the risk you pose to yourself if you panic. If you get a chance to volunteer to be meat for an evac practice, try it. Its kind of fun and you'll probably get a free lift ticket out of it (gone2alpine might weigh in on this - I saw him in line as a volunteer - thanks).

[maine-man]

Informative, thanks. I will add one thing, as many people here who work at resorts can attest too, it is the emotional side of the process that is hard! The lowering process is easy, simple rigging and climbing gear, more or less fail safe. You were there for the training, mentally prepared to sit on your ass and get cold waiting your turn, and patrol has to do the training for cert.

Now tell that to the 7 year old kid with his 13 year old brother on the double chair hanging 60 feet above the ground, freezing cold after 50 minutes in the air, blowing 35 mph and swinging in the bosom's chair. Having been involved in a full evac on a very cold day, it sucks! and I don't wish that upon my worst enemy!!

[Optimus Prime]

Cool, I've actually always wondered how they do this....

So does a person have to throw the rope over the cable, I mean theoretically how could you throw a rope 100 ft into the air??

[The Dad]

Naah -- patrollers climbed each tower and worked their way downhill. Minimized the wait time.

The worst part was the literal leap of faith, sliding your butt off the seat.

And Ike's not a patrol dog, at least not yet.

[MuleSkinner]

Nice TR!
We had our OEC refresher and chairlift evac this weekend as well.

[Sphinx15]

I had to go through this at Sunday River years ago - they didn't use a T-Bar, they just had a big loop on the end of the rope that you put your arms through and held on...

[Paskier17]

That dogs face is hilarious... he looks confused as hell. Pictures 3 and 4!!!

[Tye 1on]

Cool. Do you guys carry self-evac gear? Was that part of the drill too?

[The Dad]

We carry a harness or webbing, so theoretically, we could self-evac.

[Turd Ferguson]

Interesting TR, thanks.

In a real world scenario with skis and boards attached to you guys - what would the protocol be? Drop all that crap to the ground before the rescuers get in position or get rescued w/ your gear still on?

[Conundrum]

Cool, I've actually always wondered how they do this....

So does a person have to throw the rope over the cable, I mean theoretically how could you throw a rope 100 ft into the air??

Naah -- patrollers climbed each tower and worked their way downhill. Minimized the wait time.

The worst part was the literal leap of faith, sliding your butt off the seat.

And Ike's not a patrol dog, at least not yet.

Depends on the chair. Sometimes a patroller has to climb a tower and OSHA has a shit fit about. Sometimes you can throw, use a launcher with a guide line (like the kind that you use to train hunting dogs) or run the loop down the chair's com line.

[Conundrum]

Interesting TR, thanks.

In a real world scenario with skis and boards attached to you guys - what would the protocol be? Drop all that crap to the ground before the rescuers get in position or get rescued w/ your gear still on?

Throw the poles and keep the skis, board on. It's a liability for both having runaway equipment on the hill plus people leaning over trying to f*ck with gear on their feet. They might fall out.

[barnescli]

Thats how I was evacuated from a lift about 14yrs ago. It was quite an experience for me as a seventh grader. I have no idea how long we were on the lift before they decided to start the evacuation but at the time it felt like hours.

[snoqpass]

Interesting TR, thanks.

In a real world scenario with skis and boards attached to you guys - what would the protocol be? Drop all that crap to the ground before the rescuers get in position or get rescued w/ your gear still on?

Unless you want to walk down the hill looking for your shit you should keep it on.

[Sinecure]

Informative, thanks. I will add one thing, as many people here who work at resorts can attest too, it is the emotional side of the process that is hard! The lowering process is easy, simple rigging and climbing gear, more or less fail safe. You were there for the training, mentally prepared to sit on your ass and get cold waiting your turn, and patrol has to do the training for cert.

Now tell that to the 7 year old kid with his 13 year old brother on the double chair hanging 60 feet above the ground, freezing cold after 50 minutes in the air, blowing 35 mph and swinging in the bosom's chair. Having been involved in a full evac on a very cold day, it sucks! and I don't wish that upon my worst enemy!!

Totally true. That's part of why I posted this. I figure if we show it to our kids, maybe there will be a few who are less terrified and hopefully less paralyzed by the fear.

AD was there too. He was meat like me. Fluffballs also, but he was one of the people on the ground.

[hemas]

That was cool... But don't the lift there have self-rescue ropes? I know for a fact that in Åre, all the chairs have a rescue-rope fastened to the back of the chair.

[nesta]

Thanks for the TR. We use a similar system for chairs that don't have an engineered eye-bolt or similar belay point on each chair, in which case we use a straw line run down the comm-line to get the belay rope to the guests. This system is way quicker as you don't have to pass the grip on each chair, especially handy when you can bypass empty chairs in a span between towers and get to the chair(s) in need of evacuation pronto ( you could even work uphill from a tower if the haul rope angle isn't too severe). But installing eyebolts on every carrier that doesn't already come manufactured that way ( most modern detachables do) is not an inexpensive proposition. That is something we're faced with, which sucks because you have to train everybody on 2 different evac systems.
What system do you use in the event of somebody not wanting to be evac'ed like everyone else or someone that is incapacitated?
Someone was asking about self evac. There's lots of different methods out there as to what to carry etc, but we find the simplest is for each patroller to carry a full roll of dental floss, a munter biner and webbing customized for fit and tied in a loop with a water knot aka tapeknot aka ring bend. In the event of him/her needing to self evac, a stuff sack of 7mm rope ( we call em bullet bags) is brought to their location by the person hailing the line or other messenger, whereupon they retrieve one end of the rope with the carabiner tied to the dental floss. Works great! And sure beats either having to carry around rope all the time or remembering to load a chair every time with a rope.

[macmahoooon]

We use a large loop of firehose on the person end of the rope which goes over head and under the arms and tightened in place. But other then that same principle. Also instead of a true belay, we have a team of 4 on each rope with arms in certain positions to lower the person. Requires more people but allows less equipment and the use of smaller people on the ground

Like said yeah it can be pretty tough for the people in the chairs waiting so incident control and PR is a big part of the whole thing. Had to do 4 over the years not counting our training ones.

[gone2alpine]

Nice TR Sinecure. Again sorry for not saying Hello. It was freaking cold and there were plenty of shoobies there without proper attire. You can see the white trash raincoats in the pictures. (I include myself in that statement...honest it was sunny when we left Truckee) My wife was pretty sure she was going to have hypothermia by the time we were lowered. Thanks to the calvary that came in for the late rescue at tower 10!

[ak_powder_monkey]

wow do they actually use belay devices there? Pussies

[Fuorilegge]

Well, that way is certainly better than this way!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwPP4i7ENvQ

[Crystal_Mt_Dreamin]

Cool stuff, never seen this done before. Love the look on Ike's face!

[iceman]

Four times I've been on chairs that were evac'd and all four times they got the chair going shortly before they got to me. Which I'm pretty happy about. The idea of my 225-pound self scootching off the chair has always worried me. I always kinda picture patrollers flying into the air on the other end of the line as I plummet towards the ground.

[Sinecure]

Four times I've been on chairs that were evac'd and all four times they got the chair going shortly before they got to me. Which I'm pretty happy about. The idea of my 225-pound self scootching off the chair has always worried me. I always kinda picture patrollers flying into the air on the other end of the line as I plummet towards the ground.

That's why they use an extra heavy line, put a twist or two in it, and use two belayers.

But it would make for entertaining youtube footage if you did the stooges thing dragging them up, then letting go so they plummet to the ground. As long as I wasn't the one belaying your oversized ass.

[PNWbrit]

the simplest is for each patroller to carry a full roll of dental floss, a munter biner and webbing customized for fit and tied in a loop with a water knot aka tapeknot aka ring bend. In the event of him/her needing to self evac, a stuff sack of 7mm rope ( we call em bullet bags) is brought to their location by the person hailing the line or other messenger, whereupon they retrieve one end of the rope with the carabiner tied to the dental floss. Works great! And sure beats either having to carry around rope all the time or remembering to load a chair every time with a rope.

That's ingenious.