Long Live The Chairlift Chat

The winter sun sank toward the frosted western skyline, painting streaks of pink and orange over the cold firmament as I slowly made my way through the maze at the bottom of the nearly deserted chairlift.

I came to a rest at the familiar red ‘STOP HERE’ line, and basked under the steady rhythm of the haul rope’s endless cycle. There, I was joined by another as I nudged forward to board my chair, the last of the day. It would be a short ride with a stranger I’d never forget. 

I was then a young Steamboat local kid skiing by myself. I must have had my license by that point, but I may have taken the city bus home that day. Either way, I was in my mid-teens, hopelessly and wonderfully idealistic, carefree, and skiing. And I happened to ride the Thunderhead Express that halcyon afternoon–twenty years ago–with a fellow in his 30s.

And I can still recall our modest, perhaps unremarkable conversation; just a couple of guys, chatting on a chairlift.

But it was more than unassuming banter. We chatted on the typically trivial matters, like how the day was going, how good the snow was, things like that. But eventually, near the top of the lift, the conversation turned to deeper things. We talked of time. And in a fashion pure in its earnestness, the fellow skier spoke of the complicated nature of his fourth decade on this planet. Nostalgic but almost befuddled, he spoke in a mellow, contemplative way of his thirtieth birthday a few years before. He couldn’t help but wonder how fast the next three decades might slip by, considering how quickly the previous ones had.

Though I never got the gent’s name, to this day I hold that meeting of the minds close. Because there, on that chairlift, yammering on about things big and small, we got somewhere that day.

Each rivulet of skiing has its essence, what sets it apart from the other forms of transcendence on snow. The staccato rhythm of ice axe and crampon on a steep, firm snow climb brings to light a vertical world of endless beauty and entropy. It’s all its own, just as the mellow searching for turns in the cross-country downhill style–fish scales, skinnies, three-pin bindings and all–itself expansive and contemplative, knows no equal.

But the resort-bound form of skiing–framed by après barstools and the crush of powder morning line-ups–may hold skiing’s grand meeting place, regardless of discipline. At times forced but eminently intimate and fleeting, the fellowship of the chairlift is maybe the true pillar of not only skiing at a ski area, but of the ski experience writ large.

Private but social, anonymous while remarkably close, in those handful of minutes with somewhere between one and seven other folks, often people you’ll never happen upon again in a lifetime, a unique experience that knows no equal emerges on a simple seat and rope originally fashioned as mining equipment.

“When you get on a chairlift with somebody, in that ten-minute chairlift ride, they might tell you something they haven’t even told their own children. It’s almost like a confessional,” eminent ski writer Peter Kray once told me. Reflecting on how skiing acts as a salve against the heavy world away from the slopes, the distinguished writer noted how the simple, chance meeting with a stranger is perhaps the grand commons in skiing.

“It’s fascinating to me that someone could tell you about how they survived cancer, or when they met Elton John or some crazy story. And they’ll tell you that because they feel comfortable in that space and you’ll never see them again,” Kray said.

In a world now defined as much by its divisions as its harmonies, the chairlift chat reminds us that we can still arrive to a situation cold, be acknowledged, and engage positively with a stranger.

But this isn’t simply an admiration of these chance meetings at the ski area. It’s a defense of decency–and perhaps a call to arms. In a world where decorum and deference have taken a back seat, whatever alchemy happens during our chairlift chats pines desperately to be reinjected into the broader world. 

And the chairlift chat itself does at times seem endangered. Armed with AirPods and resolute silence, the stern isolation of the wider world has encroached on that most rarified of airs, perhaps putting the ski world’s humble pleasantry in danger.

But it would take an absolute pessimist to say that something as earnest and innocent as a few nice words to a stranger won’t live on. And as long as we carry the torch of humanity and humility, the chairlift chat will carry on.

No matter how dark the world is away from the slopes; no matter how devolved our political landscape may yet be, there are certain things–eminently human things–that will live on in at least a few brave souls, forever breathing warmth into a cold world.

And the chairlift chat is one of those things.

About The Last Chair Column

This article was written by POWDER writer Jack O’Brien for his bi-weekly ‘Last Chair’ column. Click below to read the previous column, ‘A Skier’s Note To the Satellites.‘

Related: A Skier’s Note To the Satellites