Ski Tales Revealed During Chairlift Chats

Chairlifts are great places to swap stories with friends or strike up a conversation with complete strangers to help pass the journey time.

The fact that you are in your own little private bubble (pardon the pun) with a captive audience means you may find people are even willing to reveal a secret or two… a sort of confessional on a cable!
Here are some chairlift chat stories collected along the way. Look out for more in the future.

Out of the mouths of babes…

Lynsey Devon has been promoting skiing and snowboarding to the UK market as a PR for more than 35 years – and during that time she has discovered that a chairlift can be a surprisingly good place to chat with the rich, famous, and occasionally very young.

Her chairlift chat list includes celebrity chefs Marcus Wareing in Courmayeur, Italy, and Heston Blumenthal in Ischgl, Austria, to name just two. She also shared a lift with comedian Marcus Brigstocke, when they chatted about the challenge that lay ahead as they prepared to tackle the world-famous Vallée Blanche in Chamonix, France.

Lynsey even found herself sharing a chairlift with Prince William and Prince Harry when they were children during a family ski holiday to Whistler in Canada.

Lynsey is the UK PR representative for La Plagne in France, through her company Heavenly Publicity, a highly specialised PR outfit catering to the needs of a select handful of clients.

One of her most memorable chairlift conversations took place in La Plagne, but not with a celebrity, a chef, or a royal. It was with a four-year-old.

Lynsey recalls:

“I was on a chairlift in La Plagne when the little boy beside me turned, studied me carefully and announced, ‘You look ugly.’

“‘Why do I look ugly?” I asked.

“He pointed at my ski helmet and explained ‘Because your helmet is naked. It doesn’t have horns like mine.’

“I looked across at his helmet. Two magnificent horns were sticking out of the top. Mine was, apparently, a bald, hornless disappointment to him.

“I was still processing being comprehensively out-accessorised by a four-year-old when he leaned towards me again and added: ‘And you smell.’

“‘I beg your pardon!” I exclaimed.

“He looked at me and said: ‘You smell of cheese.’

“At which point, frankly, I had no defence. I probably did smell of cheese because I had just enjoyed one of La Plagne’s traditional fondues.

“By the time we reached the top, I had learnt three things about skiing with children – they notice everything, they have absolutely no filter, and no self-respecting woman should apparently venture onto a mountain without horns.

“However, despite his persuasive sales pitch, it still didn’t make me rush out and buy a horned helmet.”

Christ on skis

Chris Excel has been involved in the ski industry all his life. A highly respected instructor, he works with several national and international ski organisations, previously ran a ski retail business with his father, and is regularly called upon as a specialist expert in court cases involving skiing and snowboarding. He is also the equipment expert for Skier & Snowboarder magazine.

He has heard various weird and wacky stories while chatting on lifts and here is one from when he was skiing in Tignes.

Chris says:

“I was on a chairlift with one of the local guides, and he told me about a legend involving the ‘Christ on the cross’ outside the church at Tignes 1800. The story is well established among locals but is not widely known by visiting skiers and snowboarders.”

The guide explained how the original village of Tignes was further down the valley, and in the years after the Second World War the French authorities decided to build a huge hydro-electric dam. Despite fierce opposition from local people, the old village was eventually evacuated, and, in 1952, Lac du Chevril flooded the valley. The original Tignes streets and buildings disappeared beneath the water.

The present church at Tignes 1800 was subsequently built as an almost exact replica of the old one, preserving a physical link with the village that disappeared. Outside the church stands a striking statue of Christ on the cross – or, to be more precise, ‘Le Christ accueillant’ (The Welcoming Christ) – which is the work of artist Jean Touret.

Chris takes up the story.

“The guide told me the arms are not raised in the conventional crucifixion pose but hang downwards and extend towards the valley. The poignant explanation for this unusual position, according to local tradition, is that Christ is stretching his arms towards the old village, mourning the Tignes that lies beneath the waters of the reservoir, and to welcome those who came to rebuild the community.”

A rather more playful interpretation has also become part of local legend. The figure’s body and arms make the statue look as if it is carrying invisible ski poles when viewed against the mountain landscape. This has led to the statue being nicknamed ‘Christ on skis’.

The guide did admit that, as far as he is aware, there is no official documentation to prove that Christ on the cross was purposely erected to point towards the old village, but this legend, and the nickname, have been written into local folklore.

The sound of silence

Former British alpine ski racer Sarah Lewis OBE OLY competed at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, and, after a career in PR and management, which included working with me on the Skier & Snowboarder magazine, she became a director and Secretary General of the FIS for 22 years.

In 2018 she was awarded the Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to international sport, and in 2022 was nominated as one of eight in the global iSportConnect Influential Women in Sport.

Sarah remembers the Gefrorene Wand Einersessellift chairlift in Hintertux in Zillertal, Austria’s only year-round ski resort. It took ski racers up from the valley floor to the bottom of the glacier and back again during summer race training.

Sarah recalls:

“The lift was installed in 1968 and was still in good working order in the mid-1980s when I was training there. There was never much chairlift chat – because it was an old-fashioned single-seater, so there was nobody to chat to!”

There were, however, many occasions when racers had to be woken up at the bottom before going around again, having fallen asleep on the way down.

Sarah explains:

“The combination of warm summer sunshine and the exertions of a hard morning’s ski-race training created the right conditions for a quick slumber before the afternoon dryland training sessions.

“There were no mobile phones in those days to film and review training footage, exchange messages, check and post on social media and such like.”

The Gefrorene Wand Einersessellift single-seater chair has now been replaced by a series of more modern-day lifts.

Speak With the Experts

To find out about the ski areas mentioned in these chairlift chats, and the vast choice of other ski resorts and accommodation available through Ski Line, talk to the experts by using the contact details below, or online chat facility. You will find these contact details on the Ski Line website.