[Sicon]

This is the second incident like this (skier sitting on a chair that had the seat up) at Vail. The last one was about 10 years ago. In that instance, the guy fell through the chair, his belt somehow got caught, and he was left hanging upside down with his pants around his ankles. Embarrassing, but not fatal as in this case.

I am wondering what's going on with that lift, or the people operating it, as I believe it was the same lift in both cases. Normally, the seats on chairlifts are only raised after the lift has been closed. So, either someone (a liftie) screwed up and flipped the seat up when they shouldn't have, or the skier tried to sneak onto a lift that was closing.

[Balding_Eagle]

Local news said it was thought the wind may have blown it up.

[mowowie]

Why do the seats go up?
So snow doesn’t accumulate?