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clavus · 12-14-2005, 11:41 AM

My then girlfriend (now wife) and I scored some free tickets at our favorite ski resort. Well, not exactly free, but as payemnt for playing sax at the ski resort, but WTF, getting lift tickets for playing sax is like getting paid for drinking beer...But I digress...

Anyway, it was colder than a well-digger's ass and pretty windy up top. As we rode one of the lifts, the whole thing came to a sudden stop and we were left swaying in a little chair high above the snow.

The wind had blown the freakin' cable off the main pulley at the top of the lift. We were stuck. Now this particular lift goes over some super-huge, rock-filled ravines of doom. So we felt very fortunate that we were stuck on the lower portion of the lift - the part that merely hangs fifty feet over the snow.

About 90 minutes after we got stuck, a Kiwi ski partoller who had WAY too much coffee appeared below us and told us he was going to evacuate us off the lift. He had a rope that was slung over the cable. He held one end, and the other had an upside-down metal "T" on it. He shimmied the rope down to us and pulled the T up to out seat. One at a time, we got on the T with our legs on either side of the bar, and were lowered down to the snow. It was a bit hairy, but it must have been a LOT worse higher up.

Once we were safly on the snow, we skied down to the lodge for free hot drinks!!! Then they gave us more free lift tickets.

We managed to parlay a couple hours of sax playing and a couple hours of swinging around in the wind into THREE DAYS of free skiing. Life is good.

12-14-2005, 11:41 AM	#5 (permalink)
clavus pow! Location: NorCal	My then girlfriend (now wife) and I scored some free tickets at our favorite ski resort. Well, not exactly free, but as payemnt for playing sax at the ski resort, but WTF, getting lift tickets for playing sax is like getting paid for drinking beer...But I digress... Anyway, it was colder than a well-digger's ass and pretty windy up top. As we rode one of the lifts, the whole thing came to a sudden stop and we were left swaying in a little chair high above the snow. The wind had blown the freakin' cable off the main pulley at the top of the lift. We were stuck. Now this particular lift goes over some super-huge, rock-filled ravines of doom. So we felt very fortunate that we were stuck on the lower portion of the lift - the part that merely hangs fifty feet over the snow. About 90 minutes after we got stuck, a Kiwi ski partoller who had WAY too much coffee appeared below us and told us he was going to evacuate us off the lift. He had a rope that was slung over the cable. He held one end, and the other had an upside-down metal "T" on it. He shimmied the rope down to us and pulled the T up to out seat. One at a time, we got on the T with our legs on either side of the bar, and were lowered down to the snow. It was a bit hairy, but it must have been a LOT worse higher up. Once we were safly on the snow, we skied down to the lodge for free hot drinks!!! Then they gave us more free lift tickets. We managed to parlay a couple hours of sax playing and a couple hours of swinging around in the wind into THREE DAYS of free skiing. Life is good. __________________ Ass, gas or grass. Nobody rides for free.