Vail’s Mountaintop Express had been stalled for a while when I pulled into line. A group of frenzied ski patrollers was working below the first tower, a pair of crossed skis stuck in the snow above them. I craned my neck just in time to catch the toboggan take off behind a snowmobile, two patrollers kneeling on the sled beside its occupant, and two more holding stabilizing ropes behind. Not a good sign.
I asked the person beside me what happened. “I didn’t see it,” he said. “But I heard people shouting, ‘He fell off the lift!‘”
Later, I’d learn that it had actually been two people: A 59-year-old and a 21-year-old, both from California. The men were hospitalized, though no subsequent reports detailed the extent of their injuries or condition.
Chairlift accidents happen surprisingly often. Resorts don’t publicly release the numbers, but other safety organizations do track them. Data from Colorado’s Tramway Safety Board (CTSB) shared with GearJunkie indicates that an average of 13 skiers or riders have been injured annually in chairlift accidents since the 2014/15 season. So far in 2025/26, there have already been three such accidents in the state.
Anecdotally, I’ve now witnessed two serious chairlift accidents — one of which involved a student in my ski class when I was an instructor. It’s everyone’s worst skiing nightmare: A shift in your seat, a slip, weightlessness, the sensation of gravity, and then, your fate is in the hands of Newton’s third law.
And yet, as a skier of 32 years and someone who spends a lot of days on chairlifts, I still roll my eyes every time someone insists on lowering the safety bar. If I’m with friends or alone, I never use it. I know chairlift accidents happen. I’ve seen them. I’ve been personally affected by them. So why do I harbor so much internal resistance to using that damn bar?
That question has crossed my mind a lot in the days since I witnessed the aftermath of that accident at Vail.
Chairlift Accidents & Safety Bars: A Conundrum
While it is not the case at most U.S. ski resorts, chairlift restraint bars are widely used in other parts of the world. In Japan, many lifts automatically lower the bar when passengers load. In New Zealand, some resorts require people to use the bar.
Here in the U.S., it’s just a recommendation. GearJunkie reached out to Vail Resorts following the December accident to ask about its policy on safety bars. The resort referred me to its Lift Safety page. It lists four main directives: 1) Obey all signage, 2) Heed the Lift Operator, 3) No Horseplay, and 4) Ride Safely.
It does not mention safety bars at all.
Culturally, I can confirm that using the bar is not the standard and can even be construed as uncool. Resort employees are required to use the bar while working, so they get a pass. Families with children get a pass, too. But able-bodied skiers and riders who use the bar every time? They might as well wear “kick me” signs on the back of their jackets.
In the U.S., there was similar resistance to the adoption of seat belts until they were mandated. People also abstained from wearing ski helmets for decades before their use reached critical mass, and everyone started using them.
Chairlift safety bars have yet to gain that kind of widespread acceptance among U.S. skiers and riders. And the numbers back that up.
The Numbers
In 2023, researchers surveyed resorts and collected data to analyze this phenomenon. The study, titled “Factors that influence chairlift restraint bar use in the United States,” observed 24 chairlifts at eight different ski resorts across the country. It logged 6,343 chairs with 16,286 passengers and recorded whether the safety bar was used on every chair.
The researchers reported an average safety bar use rate of 41.6%. Interestingly, the rate of use varied significantly by region. In the Midwest, 9.4% of people used the bar. In the Pacific Southwest, 17.9% used it; in the Rocky Mountain Region, 39.2% used it; and in the Northeast, 80.4% used it.
This data also revealed that the biggest factor affecting safety bar use behind the region was whether or not children were present. The use of safety bars rose to 63.7% when at least one child was on the lift.
The study also broke these numbers down into skiers versus snowboarders (classic). When the lift was boarder-only, the rate of safety bar use was 28.2%. When it was skier-only, it was 46.7%.
Unfortunately, the CTSB data shared with GearJunkie regarding Colorado’s chairlift accidents does not track whether a safety bar was in use at the time of an accident, and resorts won’t disclose that information to the public. GearJunkie requested data from both Vail and Aspen, but neither resort would share it.
However, according to CTSB, a total of 142 chairlift accidents were reported between the 2015/16 ski season and 2024/25 in Colorado alone. Three of those resulted in fatalities.
“Most incidents are caused by skier error and are rarely mechanical in nature,” Lee Rasizer, the public information officer for CTSB, told GearJunkie.
Polling the People
The statistics provided by CTSB are telling, but they reveal only part of the story. So, we conducted our own survey and asked skiers and riders in Colorado: Do you use the chairlift safety bar? And why or why not?
“I kind of hate the stigma against using the safety bar,” GearJunkie ski editor Sean McCoy said. “Especially on large, six-person lifts, I could easily imagine getting distracted and suddenly fall 60 feet. I’m never one to reach for the bar; it just comes across as so uncool. But getting seriously injured or killed in an avoidable fashion is a lot less cool when you think about it.”
“I remember riding old Chair 1 in Vail, I was probably 4 years old,” ski tester and GearJunkie contributor Bergen Tjossem said. “I was scared, probably crying … Yet I remember the words of wisdom from mom and dad — ‘When was the last time you fell out of a chair at home? Sit still. Be aware. You’ll be fine.’ And after enough chairlift rides, you realize that you can just choose not to fall off. It’s a chair. It’s really not that complicated.”
“I typically won’t use it,” skier Rachel Laux said. “And I get pretty annoyed when someone does not alert me that they intend to use it. The instances where I do use it — severe wind, when I have a backpack that I cannot remove in time, or if I need the footrest.”
“Never use it, because Momma ain’t raise no b*tch,” said snowboarder Justin Alicia. “Also, it’s just super awkward on a full lift with skiers and snowboarders, with nowhere to put the snowboard.”
“I don’t use it because it’s not comfortable and an awkward angle for snowboarders,” said Lauren Kelsch, another snowboarder.
“I don’t because I’m too short for the foot bar to even be helpful,” said skier Stephanie Warren.
Chairlift Safety Bars: To Use or Not to Use Them?
Full disclosure: The kid in my ski class who fell off the lift had the safety bar down when it happened; he’d just been screwing around. We were riding a bunny slope two-person chair. He was kicking his skis, one fell off, and then he somehow slipped under the bar. The girl sitting next to him tried to hold onto him, but let go when her strength failed.
He fell about 25 feet, and I watched helplessly from two chairs back.
The kid was all right. But the next day, I walked into my supervisor’s office and turned in my uniform. If that student had been hurt or worse, the guilt of responsibility would have eaten me up. My supervisor, a woman who had been with the Ski School since I was one of its students, tried to talk me out of it.
“It happens all the time,” she told me. “It’s not your fault.”
To this day, that’s the only time I’ve heard that fact acknowledged — that lift accidents happen all the time — by a resort official. I don’t think most people realize how often they happen, largely because resorts won’t disclose the numbers. Of the 145 that have happened since 2015, only a handful have made the news. Even the data reported to CTSB doesn’t show the full picture.
“Ski areas are required to report to [CTSB] falls from lifts which occur outside of the loading and unloading zone, where the person is injured,” Rasizer said. “Ski areas often notify [CTSB] of non-reportable falls verbally or in writing; however, this information is incomplete. Non-reportable falls include incidents where no injury occurs or that occur within the loading or unloading areas.”
Perhaps, if resorts were more publicly transparent about the frequency and severity of chairlift accidents, more people might start using the safety bar, and maybe it could even achieve a similar normalization to ski helmets.
Then again, I still don’t want to be the guy who reaches for it without a reason.
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