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Mountain Operations

HoliMont to work with him to develop their own, in-house Courtesy HoliMont Ski Area
version of the restraint bar lights. After going through
three prototypes, they finally worked out all the kinks, and HoliMont’s signage on the tower closest to each unloading ramp.
installed the lights in 2014. The cost ended up being about
$150 per light for standard components available at an auto not all but many more people now wait until they are much
parts store, except for the divider that shields the two lights closer to the unload ramp, and hence closer to the ground.”
from each other, which Riley made in his home wood shop.
The largest private ski area in the US (not open to the
“The Austrians keep impeccable records, and their statistics general public), HoliMont has ample incentive to increase lift
have shown that the majority of the time when a fall happens on safety and minimize incidents due to improper offloading or
a chairlift that was successfully loaded, it is a child who falls,” inattentive guests. Riley said he is happy to share HoliMont’s
Riley said. “Their statistics also show that if a child falls out of a design with other interested ski areas. Already, the HoliMont
chair, 90 percent of the time it happens when the [restraint] bar has built a light panel for Mammoth Mountain, Calif., and
goes up and the child scoots forward to prepare to unload.” Hunter Mountain, New York, among others.

While some US ski areas don’t have restraint bars, the “This is a simple solution that won’t solve the problem
State of New York requires all of its ski areas to use them. of people falling from chairs, but it will hopefully decrease
(Only New York and all six New England states require the number of falls, as well as the severity of the injuries sus-
chairlifts to have restraint bars.) That said, guests often don’t tained, if they do fall,” Riley said.
use them properly, which is why the lighting system like the
one at HoliMont can help make a difference.

“Since HoliMont has been using the new system for the
last three years there is a noticeable change in where guests
raise the safety bar,” Riley said. “In the past everyone was
raising the bar at the last tower before the unload ramp, and
in some cases they were 25 or 30 feet in the air. Certainly

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48 | NSAA JOURNAL | FALL 2016