How to Ride a Ski Lift

Tomas Sbertoli: Hi! I am Tomas Sbertoli, Director of Snowsports here at Wintergreen Resort in Virginia. Today I am teaching you how to ski. The next piece we are going to talk about is riding a lift. When you are entering a lift, there are two spots that you need to be aware of, the WAIT HERE spot and the LOAD HERE spot. We go to the WAIT HERE spot first, stop and let the chair go by. As the chair goes by, we chase it up. So we are ready for the chair behind it. We go all the way out here to the LOAD HERE spot, we get our poles in one hand and we look over the outside shoulder to the back of the chair, and just sit down like you are waiting for your chair to be pushed in a table of the restaurant. Pull the safety or straining bar down, keep yourself safe, ride the chair comfortably to the top. Once you get to the top, there is a nice flat spot, you can get your skis underneath you. You use that free hand to push up from the chair and glide away. The key part in exiting the chair is making sure that you commit to stand up. Don't get half way, you wouldn't walk away from the dinner table half way standing up. You commit to stand up fully, allow the skis to glide. As you move out away from the chair, go back into that comfortable wedge, slow yourself down, stop and then regroup before skiing on. Another important aspect of riding the chair is making sure you take your pole straps off your wrists before you get there. You can still use your poles to push into the right location. Once you are ready to load that chair, put the poles in one hand, look over the outside chair and prepare for that chair to come up and scoop you up and sweep you away.