Skilifts.org / SORT Forum

Sometimes when loading a hooded chair I've seen people pushing the hood up as it lowers as they don't want the hood down for the ride.

Someone has told me that this action can break the auto closing mechanism on the hood. Is this the case?

Unfortunately yes. There's a rail in the terminal that pushes on a small lever that's connected to a cable that closes the bubble. In some designs, it's on a pivot point and its own weight holds it down and pushes on the lever as the chair passes it. Theoretically holding the bubble open (or trying to re-open it while it's closing) would just lift that rail up momentarily to prevent it from breaking anything. In practice though things can get bound up and the cable that connects that lever to the bubble itself breaks instead.

But, most lifts with bubbles also have sensors at the loading platforms and move the closing rail out of the way automatically when a chair is loaded to prevent closing them on people to begin with.