Skiing and Roller Coasters.

I'd love to try Colorado. As far as Tennessee goes, the only place that comes to mind is Ober Gatlinburg (sp) which is open per its webpage. Was there last summer and the hills looked better than Brandywine/Boston mills. when you live in cleveland, w/a budget, you ski where you can. Hope to hit SnowTrails in January.
Here's another similarity: the lift hill on a coaster and a ski lift. Now i love coasters, hate ski lifts. Those scare me big time. Over twenty five plus yrs of skiing, i've witnessed several fall-offs due to bounce and sway issues. Ohio doesn't mandate seat bars...

I don't ski, but I do board alot. For me snowboarding is a lot more fun in that I can do much more. In San Francisco it is currently about 60-65 deg, but I can load up the ol' truck and in three hours I am in snow. Thank God for South Lake Tahoe.

Flyingscooter, newer ski lifts are VERY safe. Just like coasters, they've added so many safety features to make them fool proof. Just like there are coaster manufactuers, there are lift manufactuers.

Some of the older ones include Hall, Borvig, Riblet, and Yan, which are mainly fixed grip (not high speed). Although the first three are safe for the most part, Yan always tried to make cheap lifts. Killington has many yan lifts, probably like 15 out of their 31, at least. As soon as they tried to make detachable lifts, there were accidents such as grip slippage, and the chairs would even fall of the cable.

There are a few major companies that operate today. There were many but they merged: Poma, CTEC, Garavanta, Doppelmayr, Leitner.

Poma/Leitner are now partners, and Doppelmayr bought out CTEC and Garaventa so now its Doppelmayr-CTEC.

Those companies have introduced many new safety features including sensors on all lift towers as well as a fail proof grip (what holds the chair onto the cable.

These companies have upgraded many lifts worldwide to make them safer.

Here is a YAN lift. Their chairs look kinda goofy so it's easy to tell.

http://www.chairlift.org/pics/k/k35.jpg

Heres a CTEC chair
http://www.chairlift.org/pics/canyons/can2.jpg

Heres a Riblet

http://www.chairlift.org/pics/stowe/st31.jpg

Heres a Doppelmayr
http://www.chairlift.org/pics/brighton/bri5.jpg

Heres a poma
http://www.chairlift.org/pics/br/br18.jpg

Theres your lift lesson for the day, now you can figure out the makers next time ya hit the slopes. ;)

I've been into coasters for a while...but I've never skiied or boarded. I joined my school's ski/board club and I'm going to pick up snowboarding. I'm pretty excited for it, seeing as my friend who volunteered to teach me is the same one that got me into coasters. Also, I definitely prefer a temperate climate, with 4 seasons, kind of like southeast PA. I've always been a winter lover.

I find cable car, ski lift, and chair lift technology really fascinating. The first time I saw MF's lift hill supports I immediately thought of chair lift towers. Does Von Roll of Switzerland still manufacture lifts?

No thriller man, Von Roll itself does not still manufactuer lifts.

Doppelmayr purchased Von Roll and they also purchased CTEC and Garavanta and now they are just called Doppelmayr-CTEC.

They are known for their 'lattice' towers, similar to MF.

All chairlifts built these days with the exception of trams, generally have tubular towers.

Flying Scooter, in all my years of skiing (this will be the 20th year), I have never seen anything other than a pole, or glove, or a ski fall off... and often times, it was due to skier negligence etc. They are tilted back a bit so that as long as you lean back, even if you are going DOWN the steep grade, you won't fall out. If it doesn't have a lap bar, you can always use a ski pole (thats what my parents did when I was a little kid and afraid of the height...).

I've seen some lifts where they come close to the ground and you can safely jump off to cut some time off of your lift, but then again, its just people being stupid (to me)

Some of you may find this interesting...

http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?clip=/media/2004/12/10/video660270&sid=201&hitboxMLC=national&title=Boy

I ski 6 days a week, and yeah, it is a lot like a roller coaster that I control.

read the sig. *** Edited 12/20/2004 9:06:48 AM UTC by Limwarrior***

I love skiing and coasters too. I used to live in Calgary and would ski in Banff every weekend. Since moving to Ottawa, I still ski, but I spend more time on the local hills than the world-class resorts because the crowds and the snow conditions are both much worse on this side of Lake Superior. On the plus side, I've ridden over 50 of coasters within a 1000 km radius of my new home. I could count on one hand the number of coasters within 1000 km of Calgary.

Why ski hills are like theme parks:

• speed and airtime
• people watching is great
• cuties, cuties everywhere!
• slow ride up / fast ride down
• arriving early and planning first 3-5 rides/runs essential to accomplishing everyone's favorites all in one day
• the food is overpriced
• the busiest run / path is always blocked by someone taking pictures
• line-ups (and line-jumpers) suck

Regarding safety issues, theme parks and ski hills have a lot in common, but theme parks are much more controlled. Fatalities occur through either guest misconduct (aggressive skiers not in control, riders circumventing restraint systems) or gross negligence on the part of owners / operators (not properly maintaining facilities, rides and lifts).

However, when it comes to less serious injuries, skiing is more dangerous. At theme parks you have heat-stroke, sunburn, and just about anything that makes people throw up. Skiing, there are many more collision / fall related injuries, which often included concussion, broken bones, or sprains. Tough-guy attitudes towards alcohol and speed don't help things. I've seen too many people get pulled off the mountain in emergency sleds or even helicopter-ambulance.

A year ago, I finally invested in a brain-bucket (helmet) after years of skiing with nothing but googles and a toque on my head. I figured that I always wear a helmet mountain biking, yet I go 2 or 3 times faster skiing, zipping past other skiers and some fairly robust trees -- it should be a no-brainer (pun intended).

I've been skiing for about 40 years. Ski resorts are sort of like wintertime amusement parks, but the sport of skiing is not at all like riding coasters. You are not riding while skiing, this is a sport that requires awareness and skill on the part of the skier, and the skier is responsible for a safe trip down the run. While both are fun and exciting, skiing is a totally different sensation from roller coaster riding, except for maybe the feeling of airtime while skiing moguls.

I've seen people fall from chairlifts, just in Ohio though where, as someone said, they don't mandate the use of restraint bars. At one Ohio resort, after a fall from a chairlift, the ski patrol was covering up blood by putting fresh snow over the blood after the victim was taken down the hill on a toboggan.

Yan made some terrible engineering mistakes in his ski lifts. The fixed grips are OK, if you have one with good welds. Yan welded much of the lift on site, where it was difficult to control the quality of the welds. A high profile accident on a Yan with bad welds occurred when the bottom bullwheel fell off a lift.

Yan's detachables had very poor grip designs. Most of the Yan detachables were modified and made safe by Poma or Doppelmayer. Yan has since gone bankrupt and has left the country trying to avoid legal action.

Skiing is a great sport, I would highly recommend it to anyone living in an area that has snow. Don't expect it to be like coaster riding though, the use of gravity is about the only thing the two activities have in common.