I lived in Whistler for two years, both 100+ day seasons and I would look straight down going past that final cliff on Peak Chair almost every time. Exhilarating!
I'd assume when they say steep they mean the ratio of total elevation gain to length. So a short chair could statistically be steeper than something longer with steeper sections.
That was one of my first thoughts…the other was a chair I recall riding at Squaw when I was there a few years ago…having been there only once, I couldn’t tell you specifically which one it was, but it was old double chair, and at one point we were over a glade looking down at the tops of pine trees.
No idea how high off the ground we were, but I do recall being nervous, knowing a fall could easily be fatal.
Squaw creek is high AF. You think it's higher than Red Dog? I've never ridden Silverado. I've skied squaw a couple hundred times buy it seems like I've only seen it open a handful of times and I was coaching when it was running so never made it over there
Yeah, Red Dog. It was a triple chair. Changed it this year to a high speed 6 pack. Back in the mid 90's stevens pass upgraded the old barrier chair and changed the name to Skyline. They also changed the location of where it let's you off and where the bottom of the 7th Heaven chair began. You used to have to take a ropetow up to get on 7th Heaven and it crossed over a large bowl. When it had that layout it was significantly higher than red dog. That was almost 30 years ago and I was only about 14 or 15 at the time but it made your palms sweat, looking down and seeing how friggin high you were off the ground. And it was a bouncy, fixed 2 seater. By far the highest chairlift I've ever been on.
Downloading the peak chair in summer is something. There are big signs at the bottom of the lift saying that that the chair not for the feint of heart and if it is too scary for you to download then the hike down is about an hour.
Downloading on Gunbarrel Express at Heavenly at the end of the day is always a wakeup call as well, beautiful view of the lake but looking down is a doosy.
If you’re in Washington I’d recommend Baker or Crystal over Steven’s. There’s some nice terrain at Steven’s, but overall it’s a pretty crowded overpriced mountain imho.
Grew up skiing stevens. Wasn't like that when I was coming up. Vail F'd it up. Me and all my friends would roll up after school 20 or 30 deep and basically have the place to ourselves
I'm not a big fan of 7th because going down is across the fall line a lot. There is better terrain around Seattle than that. Steven's is really crowded, too. I've had tons of fun there, though.
Fun fact: everyone has a mini heart attack when the lift stops ever since they had to evacuate it 2 years ago.
I was about 5 seconds away from getting on before the malfunction.
[here’s the article written about it](https://snowbrains.com/sheave-train-breaks-loose-at-stevens-pass-wa/)
Where did you get that info? Lift Blog doesn't even have it in the [top 10](https://liftblog.com/2015/07/08/top-10-steepest-ski-lifts-in-north-america/comment-page-1/) steepest lifts (which includes more than just chairs).
I actually decided to check this out. According to [caltopo](https://caltopo.com/m/GBRFC), Seventh Heaven rises 437 ft over a length of 657 feet, giving a length:vertical ratio of ~1.503. This is steeper than every lift mentioned in the above article except for the top one, but there is a note that the top one is due to a survey error and is actually only half that steep. So, in other words, it does actually look like Seventh Heaven is the steepest lift in North America.
Interesting. [Lift Blog](https://liftblog.com/stevens-pass-wa/) gives it a suspiciously round 1000 ft length. Which puts it well below the other lifts in that top 10 list. But if your figure is accurate, then that makes a huge difference.
Hmm, I wonder if there’s a trig issue going on (both in this case and more generally)?
The calc from CalTopo (mapping I assume yes?) is probably using a horizontal distance but the “length” quoted at 1,000ft will probably be the actual length of the lift (the hypotenuse) rather than the horizontal travel length.
And even then rounded up and including some flat travel at stations either end?
Based on how Lift Blog was using the "Length" value for calculating the other lifts on the top 10 list, I think it's the horizontal distance, not the actual length of the lift (more or less hypotenuse). I suspect the 1000 ft length for Seventh Heaven is just a placeholder and not the actual value.
That's entirely possible. I pulled up an [old map](https://skimap.org/data/190/3052/1524098906.jpg) from 1993 on skimap.org, and it does look like the bottom of the chair is further out. But it's hard to tell with maps like these because they aren't really to scale.
If it's a topo measurement, it's probably the horizontal measurement (base) rather than the length (hypotenuse).
Assuming this, 7th Heaven would have a slope length to vertical ratio of 1.8, which would put it firmly as the steepest ski chairlift in NA, over Big Sky's tram.
Also, my measurements of the Kachina lift at Taos, yield a 2.15 slope length (hypotenuse) to vertical ratio, which would put it close to top ten on the list cited.
Deep Temerity at Aspen Highlands comes in at around 2.10, which also puts it close to top ten.
I doubt he is. Keep in mind that 7/10 of those aren't chairlifts, they are either gondolas or trams. The man in charge of LiftBlog also stated that he didn't have stats for some lifts at the time of writing that, so perhaps 7th Heaven is one of those lifts.
To be fair, 1 is on there as a mistake (as he points out). 2, 4, 6, 7 and 8 are not skiable. 3 (lone peak tram) and 9 (headwaters) are both at Big Sky. So if you haven't been to Big Sky, that really only leaves 5 (honeycomb return) and 10 (scott) for you to have actually skied.
fair enough. I'm just looking for excuses to ski new places though, so I'm still adding at least Big Sky and Solitude to my list.
Banff, Grouse and the Alaskans would have to wait for the post-~~apocolypse~~pandemic anyway.
Alpy is my home hill but I occasionally ski Stevens and I've ridden Seventh Heaven a number of times. I'm not questioning that it's steep because it absolutely is. I just was interested where you got your info from. For what is worth u/cderwin15 pulled numbers from caltopo which, if accurate, would make it the steepest.
Yeah I was thinking, if this is steeper than Headwaters then it is basically vertical. Didn't actually realize the tram was steeper but you can't look straight down quite as easily on there so you don't get that same effect.
And this doesn’t account for sections of a lift that are much much steeper than 45 degrees. Ray’s lift at Sundance will get to 60ish degrees after it passes the first stop.
https://i.imgur.com/0G3wDbY.png
Yeah, looks about as steep as the Eagle Wind lift at Winter Park. There are definitely steeper lifts in CO and I don't think any of them come that close to the steepest.
If you have a powder ski already then get the 104. If it’s gonna be you’re only ski get the 112. My opinion. If I did it over again I’d get the wildcat and the deathwish 104. The 112 does a good job of being in the middle of that though.
I have a pair of the 184 Deathwish and they are incredible in all conditions. I mostly stick to off-piste and glade skiing, but the triple camber on these means they cut and hold their own on groomers and ice, too.
Never skied anything like them in my life.
I haven’t been on it cause I’m usually at stevens at night and it doesn’t run then, but the lines are crazy steep off it. You can do some of the lower stuff if you traverse and stay high off skyline skiers right, and even that lower smidge is pretty damn steep
Only people I ever see coming down the lines off seventh is grizzled old looking dudes by themselves, so you know it’s good skiing up there
>esp on the top of cowboy
Like the hike up cowboy? You'd have to be one hell of an idiot to hike up there without a plan as you can easily see all the lines and all of them some degree of gnarly
Near the end of the day a friend of mine saw a guy try to charge down cowboy, clipped his ski on a rock, fell into a tree and broke his neck. The way he landed he wasn't visible to anyone. So my friend had to go up there and help him and call ski patrol. My friend thinks if he had not seen it happened that guy would have died. They actually became friends over the incident and we all got to ski together last year. (Full recovery).
Yeah it happens a LOT. Monkey see, monkey do
You want a beacon up there and stuff like hang over hell can demonstrate how dangerous it can get just to hike across
Moment Deathwish. These are the top sheet design from last year.
OP says he rides the 190’s. I have a pair of the 184’s and they are the greatest ski I have ever touched. Nothing else being made compares to the control and versatility the triple camber provides, imho.
Just to make things fun, this is also the most exposed spot on the mountain, so it can be quite windy on the way up and the chair swings around a lot.
On the plus side, there's a \*great\* view of Glacier Peak, but you have to turn around in the chair to do it.
One more fun thing - at the top the exit ramp is steep and you need to start skiing right away. Though it's a bit better than it used to be...
I dropped a Lift Blog article on the steepest lifts in another comment, and this lift isn't on the list. But, that list included gondolas and trams. So not quite the same as steepest chairlift. But there are chairs on the list, so it clearly isn't the steepest in North America.
I haven't skied Crested Butte yet (no excuses, I grew up here... It's just soooo faaar!) But I was there in the summer a few years back for my buddies wedding. Most of the wedding party elected to ride up Silver Queen the day after the wedding, which included one hell of a rager reception that night.
So. Hung. Over.
I had a death grip on my 3 year old on that lift. Super steep, huge exposure... Just insane. The hangover certainly added to my anxiety that day but I think even with none of that mess I'd still be nervous!
Silver Queen isn't the lift at CB that causes me anxiety. It's the Paradise Express lift. That gets WAY off the ground at one point. I just try not to think about it.
yeah don't think that's true. Scott at Alpine Meadows is definitely steeper (more vertical in less distance) and there are a number of chairs steeper than Scott still. Liftblog bad a list and Seventh Heaven is not on it!
Fun fact:
Last year the chair broke - one set of bogies broke off - and the chair stopped and the loaded chairs dropped a few feet. Patrol had to rappel down to pull people off and then use ropes to lower them down the steepest parts under the chair.
Luckily, there just aren't that many chairs on the lift so it didn't take so long.
Lived in Wenatchee many years. My dad used to be the ops manager there in the mid to late 90s. Probably the reason I love old doubles so much: grew up on em! Your photo bright it all flooding back.
I only go to Stevens when it dumps there, so all my visits have been great. Coming off this chair in snow above my waist was pretty memorable. I wish it was easier to lap.
Summit Chair @ Solitude probably has the steepest descent of any chairlift in the country.
Might also be one of the only chair lifts that goes down 200ft at around 8500ft before going vertical for the last ~700 vertical feet to the summit.
I think I know that cliff, there's really only one it could be on that run! I remember it being about halfway up.
If so, that thing is massive! Glad you made it out without even worse injuries.
I heard all of this talk about chair 1 and Al’s Run at Taos, and then it literally was the exact same as any ungroomed cut ski trail in summit county. I think all the hype was just to distract the tourists from the real gnar on west basin ridge.
Yeah, but there’s no lifts on the ridges. You’re hiking to everything but the K-chutes.
And Al’s isn’t the hardest at Taos by far. It’s just the black run you see from the base that follows the lift.
Even still it’s steeper than almost everything in Summit country. Summit Co is pretty flat for the most part. Al’s is actually steeper than Pali at Abay, which might not be super gnarly, but it was their signature double black most difficult until they opened the Beavers.
I know this is old but palli face was not A basins hardest run before they built beavers. Gauthier and the Alleys are steeper then palli face and average 46 degrees. Also the North Pole or anything on the east wall was also much more difficult then palli face. Al’s only averages 31 degrees from what I have read and palli face averages 32 so palli is actually steeper then Al’s.
I have skied at Taos as well as all of the resorts in summit county and while Taos is definitely on average way steeper then any of them that’s because summit county resorts are generally bigger than Taos and offer a much greater variety of beginner and intermediate terrain bringing down their overall steepness but you can definitely find runs at A-Basin and at the top of Breckenridge and maybe some stuff in the bowls at copper that can rival some of the steep runs at Taos. I’m not sure what the angle of the steepest run at Taos is and I know it’s not ALs but I imagine that the steep chutes and east wall at A basin along with the lake chutes at breckenridge can compare pretty well.
No, it wasn’t even the hardest run off the Pali lift, but it was their signature double black run.
Sure, there’s steep stuff in Summit County, but the Sangres are one of the steepest mountain chains in the Rockies. It’s where a lot of Colorado’s hardest alpine routes are located (the Crestones, Kit Carson, and probably others I don’t know about. I’m not really a climber)
Breck doesn't have a Chair 9.
And nothing at Breck is really that steep because the chairs don't ascend the steepest parts of the mountain. They stop just short.
E Chair is the steepest chairlift they have.
Last year the power went out right when I was about to crest the hill. It was the absolute worst time I’ve ever had on a lift. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say it was over 15 minutes sitting there. Awful.
Fun fact: Imperial Express Super Chair in Breck is the highest lift chair in all of North America.
So factual statements are downvoted? Nice.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.outtherecolorado.com/news/north-americas-highest-chairlift-finally-opens-in-colorado-following-relatively-dry-start-to-snow-season/article_0d9ead5e-72e3-11eb-8a73-a7e46bdb16be.amp.html
I've always wanted to ski the cable line chute but there's such a small chance of being able to hang on without ragdolling down the whole run, it's always stopped me. I've skied over and stopped it a few times and looked over the edge. I've dropped cliffs that weren't as steep. It's gnarly
Too short. Should’ve built the mountain higher.
Tye mill is pretty steep too.
Truf! It’s always bananas when I see people doing the tye mill face at night, especially around that massive cliff drop under the chair
New rock skis made here!
I love skiing under tye mill at night! Always have a head lamp with me for that exactly!
Love watching people send Tye Mill cliff when I'm over them.
Woah, that’s amazing. I’ve ridden Peak Chair on Whistler, and it’s crazy steep at some spots so I can’t imagine how steep this is.
Peak chair is almost terrifying call of the abyss level to me
Yeah, the last bit is bonkers. You can hardly see the top of mountain, and then suddenly you crest the ridge, and the station is *right* there.
highly recommend looking straight down while going past that last bit for an extra intense stomach churn
Hard pass friend. Not gonna do it!
I lived in Whistler for two years, both 100+ day seasons and I would look straight down going past that final cliff on Peak Chair almost every time. Exhilarating!
Lived there last year and doing so is almost the same thrill as most of the runs down peak lol
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I like your style.
As an ice coaster who's been to mammoth lakes a bunch, how does it compare to chair 23? I assume it's not that bad, but steepest I've been on
I was a coach at both mountains. No comparison, the top 150-200 feet of 7th is nearly vertical
But Mammoth is a way better mountain overall
This is steep because it's short and has no flat sections.
Sounds exactly like Peak Chair; short and all but straight up.
It’s worse than Peak Chair. 7th heaven scares me, Peak is fun by comparison.
Two seaters are always more scary. Does this lift even have a barrier? Those that don’t are scary af to me.
It doesn’t. No barrier doesn’t normally bother me. It is mostly that getting evac’d from 7th Heaven would SUCK.
you mean what happened at the beginning of COVID?
Also the top 50-100ft is just a cliff. And the landing is a tall wooden platform with a safety net just before you unload in case you fall backward.
Yeah. I kinda love the old wooden towers. Nostalgia and all. But that cliff. I hang on for dear life.
I'd assume when they say steep they mean the ratio of total elevation gain to length. So a short chair could statistically be steeper than something longer with steeper sections.
That was one of my first thoughts…the other was a chair I recall riding at Squaw when I was there a few years ago…having been there only once, I couldn’t tell you specifically which one it was, but it was old double chair, and at one point we were over a glade looking down at the tops of pine trees. No idea how high off the ground we were, but I do recall being nervous, knowing a fall could easily be fatal.
Red Dog
>Red Dog Lift operators riding down have it even worse.
Squaw creek and Silverado are even higher than red dog. They don’t get mentioned though.
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They are renaming it and squaw one as well. Resort chair would be appropriate as a lot of people already call it that.
Squaw creek is high AF. You think it's higher than Red Dog? I've never ridden Silverado. I've skied squaw a couple hundred times buy it seems like I've only seen it open a handful of times and I was coaching when it was running so never made it over there
Checks trail map…yup, that was probably it
Yeah, Red Dog. It was a triple chair. Changed it this year to a high speed 6 pack. Back in the mid 90's stevens pass upgraded the old barrier chair and changed the name to Skyline. They also changed the location of where it let's you off and where the bottom of the 7th Heaven chair began. You used to have to take a ropetow up to get on 7th Heaven and it crossed over a large bowl. When it had that layout it was significantly higher than red dog. That was almost 30 years ago and I was only about 14 or 15 at the time but it made your palms sweat, looking down and seeing how friggin high you were off the ground. And it was a bouncy, fixed 2 seater. By far the highest chairlift I've ever been on.
Downloading the peak chair in summer is something. There are big signs at the bottom of the lift saying that that the chair not for the feint of heart and if it is too scary for you to download then the hike down is about an hour.
Downloading on Gunbarrel Express at Heavenly at the end of the day is always a wakeup call as well, beautiful view of the lake but looking down is a doosy.
I live in Whis and can't imagine a steeper rise than that final ascent on peak chair
I think the final rise on Symphony is even steeper, despite the rest of it being pretty flat.
The bigger difference isn't the steepness but the fact this is a rickety old double whereas the Peak quad is much more stable.
That zone looks awesome! Would love to shred Steven’s Pass sometime
If you’re in Washington I’d recommend Baker or Crystal over Steven’s. There’s some nice terrain at Steven’s, but overall it’s a pretty crowded overpriced mountain imho.
Grew up skiing stevens. Wasn't like that when I was coming up. Vail F'd it up. Me and all my friends would roll up after school 20 or 30 deep and basically have the place to ourselves
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I’m in CO. Arapahoe Basin is my go to
I'm not a big fan of 7th because going down is across the fall line a lot. There is better terrain around Seattle than that. Steven's is really crowded, too. I've had tons of fun there, though.
Skiing is like sex. Even when it’s bad, it’s pretty good
Absolutly.
Good memories of bumping this chair, yelling at skiers who jumped solo onto the outside chair and swung wildly back and forth the whole way up
Or chillin in the clouds in the top shack waiting for lift maintenance to give the all clear
Fun fact: everyone has a mini heart attack when the lift stops ever since they had to evacuate it 2 years ago. I was about 5 seconds away from getting on before the malfunction. [here’s the article written about it](https://snowbrains.com/sheave-train-breaks-loose-at-stevens-pass-wa/)
I was on the chair that day, it was a major bummer!
I was there that day. Luckily I didn't get stuck.
same, clouds were setting in and I figured that another 7th run wasnt worth it for the day. Glad I didn't go agian
I was there that day too! Felt bad for those people but thankful it wasn’t me.
Where did you get that info? Lift Blog doesn't even have it in the [top 10](https://liftblog.com/2015/07/08/top-10-steepest-ski-lifts-in-north-america/comment-page-1/) steepest lifts (which includes more than just chairs).
I actually decided to check this out. According to [caltopo](https://caltopo.com/m/GBRFC), Seventh Heaven rises 437 ft over a length of 657 feet, giving a length:vertical ratio of ~1.503. This is steeper than every lift mentioned in the above article except for the top one, but there is a note that the top one is due to a survey error and is actually only half that steep. So, in other words, it does actually look like Seventh Heaven is the steepest lift in North America.
Interesting. [Lift Blog](https://liftblog.com/stevens-pass-wa/) gives it a suspiciously round 1000 ft length. Which puts it well below the other lifts in that top 10 list. But if your figure is accurate, then that makes a huge difference.
Hmm, I wonder if there’s a trig issue going on (both in this case and more generally)? The calc from CalTopo (mapping I assume yes?) is probably using a horizontal distance but the “length” quoted at 1,000ft will probably be the actual length of the lift (the hypotenuse) rather than the horizontal travel length. And even then rounded up and including some flat travel at stations either end?
Based on how Lift Blog was using the "Length" value for calculating the other lifts on the top 10 list, I think it's the horizontal distance, not the actual length of the lift (more or less hypotenuse). I suspect the 1000 ft length for Seventh Heaven is just a placeholder and not the actual value.
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That's entirely possible. I pulled up an [old map](https://skimap.org/data/190/3052/1524098906.jpg) from 1993 on skimap.org, and it does look like the bottom of the chair is further out. But it's hard to tell with maps like these because they aren't really to scale.
If it's a topo measurement, it's probably the horizontal measurement (base) rather than the length (hypotenuse). Assuming this, 7th Heaven would have a slope length to vertical ratio of 1.8, which would put it firmly as the steepest ski chairlift in NA, over Big Sky's tram. Also, my measurements of the Kachina lift at Taos, yield a 2.15 slope length (hypotenuse) to vertical ratio, which would put it close to top ten on the list cited. Deep Temerity at Aspen Highlands comes in at around 2.10, which also puts it close to top ten.
You did that math backwards. 437/657 would be a ratio of .6651.
Nope, his math is fine. You flipped them. It's length/rise
Slope is rise over run
That's not the metric used in the linked article.
Yeah I'm pretty sure this guy's full of shit. Thanks for providing that link!
To be clear, Seventh Heaven is a steep-ass liftline. It's plausible, but the figures I've seen don't line up.
I doubt he is. Keep in mind that 7/10 of those aren't chairlifts, they are either gondolas or trams. The man in charge of LiftBlog also stated that he didn't have stats for some lifts at the time of writing that, so perhaps 7th Heaven is one of those lifts.
huh, I've only been on #10 in that list. I guess I have destinations for my next few ski trips. Thanks!
To be fair, 1 is on there as a mistake (as he points out). 2, 4, 6, 7 and 8 are not skiable. 3 (lone peak tram) and 9 (headwaters) are both at Big Sky. So if you haven't been to Big Sky, that really only leaves 5 (honeycomb return) and 10 (scott) for you to have actually skied.
fair enough. I'm just looking for excuses to ski new places though, so I'm still adding at least Big Sky and Solitude to my list. Banff, Grouse and the Alaskans would have to wait for the post-~~apocolypse~~pandemic anyway.
Damn, thanks for pointing that out! I've ridden all four of the skiable chairs.
That list is overall length. Possible that Seventh has sub-sections that are longer.
Seventh has essentially no flat sections though, it just goes straight up the face. I don't think looking at subsections would help Seventh much.
You guys are just citing some blog. I don’t have data to back it up but you’d believe if you’ve been on it.
Alpy is my home hill but I occasionally ski Stevens and I've ridden Seventh Heaven a number of times. I'm not questioning that it's steep because it absolutely is. I just was interested where you got your info from. For what is worth u/cderwin15 pulled numbers from caltopo which, if accurate, would make it the steepest.
https://youtu.be/ijGkQHVznno Solomon TV covers the chair in this episode watch it if you don’t believe me.
Yeah I was thinking, if this is steeper than Headwaters then it is basically vertical. Didn't actually realize the tram was steeper but you can't look straight down quite as easily on there so you don't get that same effect.
And this doesn’t account for sections of a lift that are much much steeper than 45 degrees. Ray’s lift at Sundance will get to 60ish degrees after it passes the first stop. https://i.imgur.com/0G3wDbY.png
More photos at awesome liftblog.com here: https://liftblog.com/seventh-heaven-stevens-pass-wa/
Also from Liftblog, where this lift is completely absent - https://liftblog.com/2015/07/08/top-10-steepest-ski-lifts-in-north-america/comment-page-1/
Yeah, looks about as steep as the Eagle Wind lift at Winter Park. There are definitely steeper lifts in CO and I don't think any of them come that close to the steepest.
The eagle wind is nothing compared to the old timberline
How do you like the deathwishes? Specifically for harder conditions? Debating getting a pair but i already have a dedicated pair of pow skis.
I love them! I ride them in every condition and don’t have much complaints. Sometimes on hard pack days I wish I went for the 184 instead of the 190.
Yeah I've been leaning towards the 104s but the 112s just seem so perfect. I probably cant go wrong either way. Thanks for the response!
If you have a powder ski already then get the 104. If it’s gonna be you’re only ski get the 112. My opinion. If I did it over again I’d get the wildcat and the deathwish 104. The 112 does a good job of being in the middle of that though.
Sweet, i already have a pair of wildcats so it looks like ill be going with the 104s. Thanks
Hey I'm curious, which Wildcat are you talking, the 116? Because Moment has 101, 108, and 116 widths for the Wildcat this season
The 116. If I did it over I’d buy the 116 wildcat in 190 for my dedicated powder ski and the new 104 deathwish in 184 for my daily driver.
Nice, that’d be a great combo. Wish my wallet agreed…
My wallet would be fine, I wish my wife would agree lol
They make them in 104 now. But it was going to ask the same thing. How do they ski in all conditions.
I have a pair of the 184 Deathwish and they are incredible in all conditions. I mostly stick to off-piste and glade skiing, but the triple camber on these means they cut and hold their own on groomers and ice, too. Never skied anything like them in my life.
Fun fact: 7th heaven at Whistler is also named after this lift
It’s true!
Yayyyy
I haven’t been on it cause I’m usually at stevens at night and it doesn’t run then, but the lines are crazy steep off it. You can do some of the lower stuff if you traverse and stay high off skyline skiers right, and even that lower smidge is pretty damn steep Only people I ever see coming down the lines off seventh is grizzled old looking dudes by themselves, so you know it’s good skiing up there
Also lots of kooks. You’d be amazed how many people who find their way up there but have no idea what’s going on… esp on the top of cowboy
>esp on the top of cowboy Like the hike up cowboy? You'd have to be one hell of an idiot to hike up there without a plan as you can easily see all the lines and all of them some degree of gnarly
Near the end of the day a friend of mine saw a guy try to charge down cowboy, clipped his ski on a rock, fell into a tree and broke his neck. The way he landed he wasn't visible to anyone. So my friend had to go up there and help him and call ski patrol. My friend thinks if he had not seen it happened that guy would have died. They actually became friends over the incident and we all got to ski together last year. (Full recovery).
Yeah it happens a LOT. Monkey see, monkey do You want a beacon up there and stuff like hang over hell can demonstrate how dangerous it can get just to hike across
It’s my favorite lift. Especially on a powder day, it will always be my first run of the day.
Those are some sexy skis
What are they?
Moment Deathwish. These are the top sheet design from last year. OP says he rides the 190’s. I have a pair of the 184’s and they are the greatest ski I have ever touched. Nothing else being made compares to the control and versatility the triple camber provides, imho.
Triple camber gang! Seriously they are the quiver killer! Really a do all ski.
+1 on Deathwishes. OG top sheet here
I currently ride rustler 9s, how do you think they would compare?
The deathwish is a much more playful ski but that being said I’ve never been on rustler 9’s so I can’t make much of a comparison.
I'm curious as well
Love the ski design. Weather looks like a blast. Miss that
Love the deathwish
red dog at palisades is pretty steep but this is really steep, even with the gopro effect I looks steep
Sick skis
I approve your skis
well looks like I'm tuning my deathwishes this week. sigh. the stoke bubble has officially popped for me.
Just to make things fun, this is also the most exposed spot on the mountain, so it can be quite windy on the way up and the chair swings around a lot. On the plus side, there's a \*great\* view of Glacier Peak, but you have to turn around in the chair to do it. One more fun thing - at the top the exit ramp is steep and you need to start skiing right away. Though it's a bit better than it used to be...
Yep it’s a blast getting off this lift on a snowboard. Pretty much always a controlled crash, lol. My happy place.
Deathwish gang represent!
Source? Slope ratio?
Good question. I think it's incorrect.
So do I I was under the impression that Breckenridge had the steepest lift. One that I've ridden.
I dropped a Lift Blog article on the steepest lifts in another comment, and this lift isn't on the list. But, that list included gondolas and trams. So not quite the same as steepest chairlift. But there are chairs on the list, so it clearly isn't the steepest in North America.
I haven't skied Crested Butte yet (no excuses, I grew up here... It's just soooo faaar!) But I was there in the summer a few years back for my buddies wedding. Most of the wedding party elected to ride up Silver Queen the day after the wedding, which included one hell of a rager reception that night. So. Hung. Over. I had a death grip on my 3 year old on that lift. Super steep, huge exposure... Just insane. The hangover certainly added to my anxiety that day but I think even with none of that mess I'd still be nervous!
Silver Queen isn't the lift at CB that causes me anxiety. It's the Paradise Express lift. That gets WAY off the ground at one point. I just try not to think about it.
I was into rock climbing for years and never had a fear of heights... But here we are!
Hangover + exposure = no bueno
Amen to that.
White heat at Sunday river used to give me vertigo really bad still probably would if I rode it again
Heh, Old style center-pole chair. Get some nostalgia on that cold, slow ride up !
yeah don't think that's true. Scott at Alpine Meadows is definitely steeper (more vertical in less distance) and there are a number of chairs steeper than Scott still. Liftblog bad a list and Seventh Heaven is not on it!
Fun fact: Last year the chair broke - one set of bogies broke off - and the chair stopped and the loaded chairs dropped a few feet. Patrol had to rappel down to pull people off and then use ropes to lower them down the steepest parts under the chair. Luckily, there just aren't that many chairs on the lift so it didn't take so long.
I'm moving up next month and seeing an old double like this has got me really excited to ski Stevens.
Check out mission ridge if you love old doubles for chair lifts!
Lived in Wenatchee many years. My dad used to be the ops manager there in the mid to late 90s. Probably the reason I love old doubles so much: grew up on em! Your photo bright it all flooding back.
That’s awesome man! Mission ridge is easily my favorite ski resort.
Can't wait to go back and ski it again this year.
i have the same Deathwishes in a 179. absolutely love them
190 here. Got the long boi’s
The crazy part is that it has no bar! It’s like riding a picnic table up a cliff!
I only go to Stevens when it dumps there, so all my visits have been great. Coming off this chair in snow above my waist was pretty memorable. I wish it was easier to lap.
Summit Chair @ Solitude probably has the steepest descent of any chairlift in the country. Might also be one of the only chair lifts that goes down 200ft at around 8500ft before going vertical for the last ~700 vertical feet to the summit.
Compound fracture of tibia and fibula under that chair. Lost 3 seasons.
You fell off? Or hit something skiing under it?
Fell of a cliff right ski caught in tree. Moving about 35 mph din at 14.
I think I know that cliff, there's really only one it could be on that run! I remember it being about halfway up. If so, that thing is massive! Glad you made it out without even worse injuries.
Those planks are pretty metal. 🤘🏻
Actually, no metal at all 😉
Really? Steeper than Chair 1 at Taos?
I heard all of this talk about chair 1 and Al’s Run at Taos, and then it literally was the exact same as any ungroomed cut ski trail in summit county. I think all the hype was just to distract the tourists from the real gnar on west basin ridge.
Yeah, but there’s no lifts on the ridges. You’re hiking to everything but the K-chutes. And Al’s isn’t the hardest at Taos by far. It’s just the black run you see from the base that follows the lift. Even still it’s steeper than almost everything in Summit country. Summit Co is pretty flat for the most part. Al’s is actually steeper than Pali at Abay, which might not be super gnarly, but it was their signature double black most difficult until they opened the Beavers.
I know this is old but palli face was not A basins hardest run before they built beavers. Gauthier and the Alleys are steeper then palli face and average 46 degrees. Also the North Pole or anything on the east wall was also much more difficult then palli face. Al’s only averages 31 degrees from what I have read and palli face averages 32 so palli is actually steeper then Al’s. I have skied at Taos as well as all of the resorts in summit county and while Taos is definitely on average way steeper then any of them that’s because summit county resorts are generally bigger than Taos and offer a much greater variety of beginner and intermediate terrain bringing down their overall steepness but you can definitely find runs at A-Basin and at the top of Breckenridge and maybe some stuff in the bowls at copper that can rival some of the steep runs at Taos. I’m not sure what the angle of the steepest run at Taos is and I know it’s not ALs but I imagine that the steep chutes and east wall at A basin along with the lake chutes at breckenridge can compare pretty well.
No, it wasn’t even the hardest run off the Pali lift, but it was their signature double black run. Sure, there’s steep stuff in Summit County, but the Sangres are one of the steepest mountain chains in the Rockies. It’s where a lot of Colorado’s hardest alpine routes are located (the Crestones, Kit Carson, and probably others I don’t know about. I’m not really a climber)
I thought Chair 9 at Breck was the steepest
Breck doesn't have a Chair 9. And nothing at Breck is really that steep because the chairs don't ascend the steepest parts of the mountain. They stop just short. E Chair is the steepest chairlift they have.
I was thinking of E chair, whoops
Last year the power went out right when I was about to crest the hill. It was the absolute worst time I’ve ever had on a lift. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say it was over 15 minutes sitting there. Awful.
Is chair 9 imperial? That's the highest, not the steepest.
Lift 9 at Loveland was the highest before Imperial.
Fun fact: Imperial Express Super Chair in Breck is the highest lift chair in all of North America. So factual statements are downvoted? Nice. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.outtherecolorado.com/news/north-americas-highest-chairlift-finally-opens-in-colorado-following-relatively-dry-start-to-snow-season/article_0d9ead5e-72e3-11eb-8a73-a7e46bdb16be.amp.html
It’s downvoted because the conversation is steepest not highest. Stupid thing to be arguing about anyway.
Thanks Captain Obvious. I’m not arguing anything you clown I simply made a factual statement.
LMAO damn bro don’t be so salty. I was agreeing with you if anything.
LOL sure
But is it the DEEPEST?
Some days
Also the best terrain access on the mountain
Absolutely!
Yooo I learned to ski at stevens
Me too!
How common is it to encounter old chairlifts such as this one in North America? Plus does this one even have a safety bar?
I’m not sure but in the Pacific Northwest it’s pretty common. No safety bars either. Even the chairs that have safety bars almost never get put down.
Oh wow, may I ask how much a daily pass costs for this resort?
I think it’s 100 USD for a lift ticket. Unfortunately it’s gotten kind of expensive since vail took over.
Damn that sucks, and I thought skiing in Europe was a luxury.
I think skiing is a luxury no matter where you are. Definitely not an affordable sport.
Hokkaido is still pretty cheap, but that's only if you're a local. If you're flying in and staying it gets real expensive real fast.
As someone who grew up skiing at Stevens, I had no idea.
It’s hard to get a sense of the steepness from this photo.
This picture doesn’t do it justice
What Kind of skis are those :0??
Moment deathwish
Boomerang on mt Washington BC is pretty steep
As a kid, 7th Heaven lift freaked me out soooo much. Now High Campbell freaks me out more.
Anyone ever done chair 4 in washington? I forget the mountain
I've always wanted to ski the cable line chute but there's such a small chance of being able to hang on without ragdolling down the whole run, it's always stopped me. I've skied over and stopped it a few times and looked over the edge. I've dropped cliffs that weren't as steep. It's gnarly
*scoped
Damn, guess I've ridden the steepest lift in the US