Teleski swallowed up

**sluffhunter** · 12-01-2003, 01:51 PM

Just got wurd from some La Grave cronnies. Because La Grave doesn't open until dec 21 (financial reasons) they did the one lift up Les Deux Alps and traversed to La Grave.
Nipple deep snow they say.
But the teleski got swallowed up by the warm summer.
A crevass gobbled up the teleski. Been told holes all over the place this year.
Be careful Euro boys and girls. The mountains have transformed.

**CascadeCrudSkier** · 12-01-2003, 02:03 PM

The teleski? Is that their weird gondola thing? If it's gone, how are they going to open at all? It seemed that thing was pretty important, wasn't it the only lift that can get skiers from the town to the upper mountain?

**sluffhunter** · 12-01-2003, 02:10 PM

teleski is the term used for t-bar
I believe their telepheric (wrong spelling) ie gondola is still working.
The teleski access alot of what La Grave is about. It is only a couple hundred metres long. 3200-3550metres.

**CascadeCrudSkier** · 12-01-2003, 02:14 PM

Ah, makes sense. That sucks but it's not nearly as bad as if the gondola had been swallowed up.

**Mulletizer** · 12-01-2003, 02:48 PM

That sounds pretty shitty... Do you mind me asking who it was that saw it? Would be cool if it's running this winter...

Take it easy

**Mulletizer** · 12-01-2003, 03:00 PM

BTW Saw on skipass from the guy that manages the LG site that their top camera is broken hence it isn't showing anything. Assuming for now that's true and it's not because they don't want to show a sorry sight...

**sluffhunter** · 12-01-2003, 04:32 PM

mulletizer, it was Ptor, Doug C, and Mathieu (recovered)
They skied the vallon then skined back up to ski Bannan

**Dexter Rutecki** · 12-01-2003, 06:19 PM

Both t-bars are gone?

**bad_roo** · 12-02-2003, 03:13 AM

Originally posted by sluffhunter
mulletizer, it was Ptor, Doug C, and Mathieu (recovered)
They skied the vallon then skined back up to ski Bannan

C'mon - you can't rely on guys like these. They've got no track record to speak of.

**Mulletizer** · 12-02-2003, 05:21 AM

I posted on a French forum (skispass) and got a reply from the webmonkey for the la grave lifts which I didn't really understand. Kinda serves me right for trying to be smart. I think the general emphasis was that it shouldn't be too tricky to sort out but it's been pretty windy there for the last few days. When the wind dies he'll get the webcam fixed too.

**bad_roo** · 12-02-2003, 05:46 AM

I heard the wind was ripping steady at over 100km/h on the tops yesterday. CAn't wait to see what they cobble together up there. What with the Alpental bridge collapse and now this, we're having a good week for catastrophic failures.

**truth** · 12-02-2003, 07:03 AM

Sure, I book a ticket and you euro's can't keep it together.

**Mulletizer** · 12-02-2003, 07:05 AM

Originally posted by truth
Sure, I book a ticket and you euro's can't keep it together.

If this continues i guess that the French brewers' unions will call a strike the week we're there too...

**truth** · 12-02-2003, 07:06 AM

As long as the french fry and toast unions are working I'll be happy.

**subtle plague** · 12-02-2003, 07:08 AM

The t bar not existing wouldn't change anything for me... ive been there twice and it wasn't open anyway. I guess they open it only in high season ???
But it would be reeaaly sad if it wouldnt't be replaced. (if it really vanquished.)
as far as i know most of the t-bar was on solid rock, and the part that wanders with the glacier can usually be replaced pretty easy.
btw. 30cm of fresh in the last 12hours

and weather models predict massive snowing until thursday.

**Mulletizer** · 12-02-2003, 07:18 AM

They normally open it when visibility's good and the crevasses on the pistes and lift tracks on the glacier are reasonably well filled in. Too big a white open space with loads of gaping holes in the ice to let people ski there with no vis.

The t-bar issue didn't sound too serious - they're used to having to move it as the glacier moves. Might not be too good if the cable broke (that shouldn't have happened) or any of the pylons got bent... Here's hoping.

**subtle plague** · 12-02-2003, 07:30 AM

As i thought, when the glacier is filled, they open. After new year 2000 we had 5 blue bird days in a row and they didnt open. And loads of people actually skied the glacier. I guess their definition of filled in is different from mine.

**bad_roo** · 12-02-2003, 08:02 AM

Dev at La Grave reckons the lift will be operational by 20th December. Whether the glacier will be operational remains to be seen.

**Dexter Rutecki** · 12-02-2003, 07:23 PM

There are two of them, aren't there (past tense, maybe?)?

**Mulletizer** · 12-03-2003, 03:19 AM

Originally posted by Dexter Rutecki
There are two of them, aren't there (past tense, maybe?)?

Two teleskis but run on one cable that loops round. So if one's screwed they both are.

The telepheriques, on the other hand are totally independent. On eof my buds was skiing a pow day early season a couple of years ago and was in the the first cabin on the bottom lift. As they came into the station the lift broke - only they were able to get out of the lift - all the other cabins were still above air and not the ground. The lift boys still ran the top lift for just the six of them for an hour and half until the other lift was fixed. Imagine the burly day that must have been - your own private lift in La Grave. Enougth to give me wood