Had a great night at Whitetail, really needed to get my ski legs back before several trips over the next six weeks. But the amazing thing was that I kept having great conversations on the lift. One guy (in straight skis) had finally been invited to Vail by his cousin, another guy casually mentioned that his wife had just passed away then went on to talk about motorcycle racing.

I may leave the mp3 player at home ON PURPOSE next time. I love meeting these folks for 5 minutes, you get so much info and then they are gone into the night.

Steve

Yeah I always enjoy a good conversation on the lift. It is always good to connect with people through skiing and life. Yesterday consisted of a lot of football talk on the lift (my Mounties just pulled off a big one, so I was excited). I even learned something from a 13 year old boy. He said "I heard that this was like the biggest storm that Snowshoe has ever like got since they have been like open". I was amazed....

The Dude had just killed his wife & decided to get one last ski trip in before he got caught...got to admire his dedication to the sport!

I too love the lifts. In fact, the lifts sometimes make me like a mountain even more than the actual trails.
E.G. A-Basin CO. I've been there twice. Each time, most of the folks I rode up with were from the area, had duct-taped gear and were regular folks. They'd been skiing there for decades. The next day at Vail was filled with high-end gear, GPS, and bragging about the bimbos in the hot tubs. I gotta say, I really was digging on A-Basin.
We took a trip to Andorra a couple years back. One lift trip, I had a Russian couple on my left and a Spaniard on my right. First time in my life I could use both languages (not well, it was high school after all) nearly simultaneously. Kinda cool.
I like to take a big bag of chocolate-covered peanuts or tic-tacs or the like. Break the ice by offering some.
mm

I met the former general manager for the Redskins once skiing at Steamboat... on the lift. Almost wound up meeting two girlfriends from lift rides (once at Boyne Highlands in Michigan, the other at Liberty). Twice in the same day at Loon two different lift travellers wanted to smoke pot while riding up. Those are some of the standouts. By far, the one downside to losing the old slow lifts is that you could usually have a much better conversation on them than you can on the new ones. But meeting people on the lifts is one of the great pleasures of skiing.

But...Did you inhale??

One of my favorite topics.

I met the best lift crowd at Kirkwood - 'locals' that drive an hour or two. Great conversations about all sorts of non-skiing topics. Those duck-tape guys can ski the pants off the Vail hot-tubbers. I think since the ipod revolution, lift conversation has gone down hill. First they have to pause the music, then take out the ear bud, then stare at you, all for just a simple Hello. Drives me crazy. I think I am officially old.

I went to Appalachian yesterday with my 12 year old - we rode a double chair all afternoon. Best conversations we have had in weeks.

Doubles are better for conversation than triples or quads. Long live the double chair.

Yeah I had the same problem on the K1 Gondola at K-Mart. It made for a few interesting rides up though. Not sure why people think it is a good idea to come blazing down ski slopes while they are high.....but that is a different thread....

I agree with Steve. The chairs are great for the gregarious child in all of us. Amazingly so, today I rode about 25-30 chairs on both sides of Snowshoe. Not one person had an iPod wire stuck to their ear.

I am off-the-scale in the gregariousness chart, so I look forward to the experience of meeting people from all over the States, and especially foreigners. In my 10 years of skiing Snowshoe, I've probably have ended up meeting a like number of people and families later for beers or food. That's what makes the world a better place.

My most amazing anecdote is meeting a second cousin whom I didn't know, the branch of my family that went to Florida and had kids and families of their own. This turned into dinner and many many phone calls to family members. My worst anecdote was riding with someone who had just been "born again" and he was intent on sharing his epiphany down everyone else's throats whether they wanted it or not. That one didn't turn out too well.

Jesus loves you Mr Ibotta...Do you know the word of God?..(Smiley not serious face)

If you guys love liftrides, you need to go to Timberline, where you can tell your whole life story by the time you get to the top of the mountain! Conversations can really get exciting when you have twenty plus minutes to talk.

But it was a high-speed quad, so it would have taken at least ten rides to tell him all my sins... My last confession was in 1974, a number of years before I became a Unitarian...

I had an embarrassing one in Italy.
It was a high speed like 6-person lift or something. 2 people ahead of me were about to go through the gate and i guess didn't see me ease in next to them.
Gates opened and they did an immediate split to gather each end of the chair. I almost ate it and dove to grab the middle and not get killed by the chair (no product liability in Italy).
One growls, "Goddamn Europeans. So f ing rude!"
I chuckled and said, "They sure are, but apparently not as rude as this American."
It patched up pretty quick when I explained what happened. But I got to ride in between a husband and wife all the way to the top of the mountain. Ooops.

mm

My friend nixed the first guy in the gondola. I didn't believe he wanted to smoke weed until he showed us the line, and then I was a bit flummoxed. Later, on a chairlift ride, I was going up with this guy and he said "mind if I smoke". I said, sure no problem, and as he's reaching for his pocket I jokingly- JOKINGLY- said "so long as it's not marijuana," thinking ha ha isn't that funny. His hand hesitates, falters, and drops to his lap. Anyway, that sort of killed the conversation, like asking an overweight woman when she's expecting.

One time at Steamboat I rode up the lift with a dude from Breck and we wound up taking a couple runs together. That happened at Stowe, too. Never happened at MRG... the single chair inhibits that sort of thing (unless you're really into each other!). Another time at Jaypeak, I asked this color-haired, nose-pierced snowboarding teenager where her favorite place to ski was, and she said "Smugglers Notch, because it's such a great place for my whole family." I don't think I've ever looked at a nose-pierced teenager the same way since (though she was Canadian). I've also ridden up with racists before.

So many interesting conversations on the lifts, such a great cross-section of people you meet (even if they're not all great people)...

Hmm, that's odd. I only seem to meet boy scouts and church group people. And not ONE of them have offered to share a joint with me...

Places where you have the greatest chances of being offered the same air freshener popular in the Woodstock era(not scientific):

MRG
K-ton
Sugarbush
Loon
Smuggs

Chances increase during heavy College weekends...

Like John Mcain Would say...I bet some some of those lift rides were quite the Pharmacutical Experience!...Now...There are many indulgers here amongst us..you know who you are & you will most likely stay in the Closet...But Did anyone of you ENJOY the old Queen Lift at TL when it had the cover that would drop down over you??!....No need to respond but "Are you experienced?"

can you chop it down with the side of your hand?

Tell a whole life story, take a nape, wake up to whip out some hot coco, then make it to the top to walk off the lift and get back before you are missing for 2 days.