Photo: @coleclaussen
A video posted to social media claims there was a five-hour wait in a Palisades Tahoe chairlift line. Freeskier Cole Claussen, who posted the video and says it was sent to him by a friend, appears to show the excruciating wait on Saturday, December 27, after the Tahoe Basin received between four- to seven-feet of snow throughout the holiday week.
“This is the most insane thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life from a ski resort. These resorts are literally becoming theme parks,” he says. “It’s no longer even skiing at some of these resorts. It’s just a theme park where literally tens of thousands of people line up for one lift.”
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The video is definitely missing context. Namely, the incredible amount of work lift operators, ski patrol, and other mountain employees have to go through to get a resort open safely after storms. In all likelihood, the time-lapsed footage weaving along a massive line at the Palisades village was probably taken before first chair, but it still shows an impressive (or exhausting) crowd of people at the resort waiting to ride. As one commenter who says they were at Palisades on Saturday pointed out, chairlifts didn’t run until 10 that morning and the resort still only has a limited number of trails open.
“Once things got going the lines were like any other Christmas pow day,” said the commenter.
Another person claiming to be a ski instructor at Palisades offered a bit more context, saying, “This was the most extreme time to be in the line…when the majority of Tahoe’s ski tourists were on one of two lines – the Funitel and the Air Tram. Keep in mind, we’ve had no snow until this week, and then we got 64 inches in 2-3 days. So this was the first time the upper mountain would be opening. You can report on extreme lift lines, but maybe also mention the extremely unusual lack of snow and late-in-the-season opening. Those who chose to stand in line for hours to get at the fresh snow made that choice knowing the mountain was opening limited terrain for the first time.”
It’s not unheard of that skiers and boarders do endure outrageous crowds and lines. Just a week before the Christmas holiday, a similar video from Italy showed hundreds of skiers stranded at the mercy of the chairlifts and no snow.
Gotta love social media though, where even footage of a lift line can get the blood boiling.
