powder.COM

In addition to writing for the print magazine Powder, I contributed to its website, powder.com. Here is a recent article from 2020 that ran during the height of the pandemic, about the anachronistic beauty of riding slow double chairlifts to the top of a mountain.

In the Age of Uncertainty, the Double Chair Is Timeless
By Kristopher Kaiyala

The conversation with my teenage son went like this:

Me: “Hey.”

Him: “Yeah.”

Me: “What is it about old double chairs that are so cool?”

Hoping, but not knowing for certain, that he’d respond kindly, I braced myself to hear how lame it is to ride up the hill slowly. To get grease spit onto your goggles and pants at every tower and set of cranky cable wheels.

To sit on a chair that squeaks and groans like the airplane in Lost right before it broke in half midair. To swing side to side haphazardly on a metal contraption, hoping not to crash into the first or second lift tower, or be tossed overboard into a gaping canyon below.

“Tradition,” he said.

“You mean because they’re old, or because they’re always the same when you go back?” I asked.

“Both,” he responded. “They help you feel connected to the mountain. The slow climb up heightens the sense of anticipation for the awesome pow stash below. They have good locals-only vibes. And I like how they lessen the resort feel.”

“These are great, dude,” I replied, my ski-dad heart soaring. “It's like those who appreciate double chairs share a kind of secret connection to things that go deeper than what’s shiny and new.”

“Yeah,” he said. “And of course, to you old-timers, they represent the past.”

Ouch on that last part. But, yeah. He’s right.

But it’s not just the distant past. With most resorts abruptly halting operations early in the spring of 2020 due to coronavirus concerns, nostalgia for riding any kind of chairlift or gondola or tram or T-bar is at an all-time high, especially as skiers and riders brace for a season of uncertainty.

COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on many economies, yet its effect on the snowsports industry in the northern hemisphere remains in question. In the southern hemisphere, New Zealand resorts have operated relatively normally. Yet many resorts in South America have delayed their openings or severely restricted access. Some, like Las Lenas, have chosen to remain closed for the entire season, their chairlift towers standing strangely idle in fields of untouched white.

So let’s take a moment to look on the plus side. The mountains are still there. Gravity hasn’t exited the building. And NOAA is predicting average to above-average snowfall throughout much of the west and midwest. Three big delightful boxes checked.

Yet on the other side, “social distancing” and “lift maze” haven’t been well tested together, especially during the nervous energy of a pow day. But even if lift lines are longer and slower, and even if we’re all wearing face masks up over our noses, some semblance of rightness will return when the person six feet away from you on the six-pack lowers the safety bar on your head without asking first. Because for many dedicated skiers, the ride to the top is as much a part of our sport as the schuss back down.

And I don’t mind admitting that for me and my son, the double chair still symbolizes many things that are right with skiing.

Old doubles and even singles, like the single chairs at Mad River Glen and Mount Eyak in Alaska, may not get the glossy press of, say, the lavish new heated Ramcharger 8 at Big Sky, but one could argue that while convenience and speed are certainly “nice-to-haves,” they can detract from skiing’s more elemental amenities and life teachings.

You know, like being fully exposed to a brutal storm whipping at barely 5 miles per hour without a pull-down cover or anything even closely resembling a safety bar. (Keep your arm wrapped around that center pole.)

No doubt, my love for the double chair is rooted in nostalgia. During my teen years in the ‘80s, my bedroom walls were splayed with torn-out and taped-up pages from issues of POWDER. Skiing was everything to me.

I got my fix at Mount Spokane—a place I’ve returned to many times over the years with my family, a place that changes slowly, a place whose five fixed-grip Riblet double chairs (plus a new SkyTrac triple added in 2018) still chug and spurt skiers to the top to this day.

My hometown’s connection to doubles goes even deeper. Riblet Tramway Company was based in Spokane until it went under in the 1990s. It manufactured and maintained more than 200 lifts for resorts throughout North America, particularly in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and California—including the original two versions of Squaw Valley’s KT-22 lift—but also in Colorado, Michigan, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and even Indiana.

Out here in the Evergreen State, old doubles are as ubiquitous as same-day Prime delivery. Chair 2 at Alpental may get long lines on powder days (and it’s scary to imagine how much longer they could get this year), but it’s hard to imagine it ever getting replaced.

The old Chair 6 at Crystal Mountain would likely still be spinning were it not for a nasty slide that took it out a half-decade ago (it was replaced with a shiny, new—wait for it—double chair).

In the end, the double chair may be remembered as the skis-in-jeans artifact of the old millennia, but for me, I still enjoy the time it takes to ride it. When you get to the top slower, the mountains are bigger.

Sure, you could brew over the vertical you’re not racking up on your altimeter watch because you’re stuck on a mechanical tortoise, or you could sit idly and contemplate the view and the world—or the rad turns and backscratcher you just did down Exterminator.

My advice: if you get the chance, rest your ear on a double’s metal pole as it takes you higher. Through the strange vibrations and echo-y clangs, it may tell you a few things. The world around us may change in strange ways, but it’s important to slow down. Look around. Treasure what we have. And appreciate the ride.