Drag lifts (skiers, not boarders)

So we are charging down a long red last week, and looking to make it over to a certain sector by a certain time. Best route is to stop half way down, take a short (and I mean short, 100m max) drag up to mid station of a gondola.
I stop and wait for the 3 others to arrive, all agree its the shortest route except my mate who goes nuts, throws his toys out, and says he'd rather ski the left hand side of La Sarenne again (where he got stuck and had a proper paddy) than take this drag.

I had no idea anyone could be so anti drag lifts.

I informed him the alternative is to ski to the bottom, a further few miles, and take the full length gondola back up, wasting approx half an hour. He was delighted, despite his quads buring, to continue down and avoid the drag.

Over my dead body, were words he used to describe how he felt about drag lifts. I am talking about buttons not T Bars. I think a previous experience may be haunting him. He's happy to have a go at a black, but definitely no to a drag lift.

Does anyone else have a similar problem with these?


Personally, I quite like them....gets you involved and feels like youre skiing. IN addition, the drag up the Signal mountain in ADH went twice as fast as the chair...... :mrgreen:

Odd it must be an experience thing, never met anyone frightened of buttons :shock:

Nope, they don't bother me at all - prefer chairs where I can, of course, but I wouldn't take a different route to avoid a button or drag lift. Even my snowboarding husband is pretty good about using them

Years ago, probably in 1981, in Kitzbuhel, I learnt to really love drags...

....these new fangled snowboards were appearing everywhere and it seemed the approved way for boarders to ride T-bars was to fasten themselves to single skiers, by grabbing them around the chest or shoulders.

I was fortunate enough that a truly, truly lovely blonde, who spoke excellent English, attached herself to me for three successive t-bar rides on the way over to Pass Thurn. Gentlemanly convention means I cannot reveal what happened later...... :mrgreen:

It appears this initmate way of getting up a t-bar has passed out of common usage....sadly.

I have to be honest and state that personally I don't like drag lifts. I will try to avoid them, but not to the point of "no way", and will use them if it means there is no option, or like Tony, to avoid a delay.

I think this goes back to when I first learnt to ski in the 70's, and the drag lifts would frequently just stop, at which point you would start to slide back down the groves, with the inevitable result of half the class falling over. Chaos then ensued and we often had to tramp quite a way to get to somewhere suitable for a beginner to ski down and start again.

I was always happiest when the class went up routes with bucket lifts. I do not recall that we even had a chair lift in the resort at the time.

Always found it much easier to light a cigarette on a chair than on a drag !

Tony_H wrote:S
I stop and wait for the 3 others to arrive

Lol, they wouldn't have been waiting for you would they :thumbup:

mjjw69 wrote:

Lol, they wouldn't have been waiting for you would they :thumbup:

That wasn't the point 8)
But no, not when I am always sent out to lead.