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Sell your snowmobile, trade in your SUV and orient to mass transit, it’s the ski lift bus!
I was placing products on the Vintage Ski World webstore today and ran across this image made back in the 1950s by famed skiing fine-art photog Ray Atkeson. To say the least it elicited a chuckle. I don’t know if they ever built a working model of this, it might be mock-up. But what a concept. You climb on a bus in Portland, Oregon. Later you’re still in your bus seat and you notice you’re lifted in the air and sailing up the mountain as a ski lift. Sort of like the car/airplane that futurists used to predict would save our transportation system.
From an engineering standpoint, one can only imagine the structural requirements for a tram that would haul a full diesel bus up a mountain and lower it back down. One also wonders at the wisdom of standing under it.
Fun stuff for Friday. Anyone know if they actually made a working model of this thing? As for Ray Atkeson, I’ll get more of his photos up on VSW this evening after testing some skis today; for now there are some Atkeson posters in their poster section.
WildSnow.com publisher emeritus and founder Lou (Louis Dawson) has a 50+ years career in climbing, backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering. He was the first person in history to ski down all 54 Colorado 14,000-foot peaks, has authored numerous books about about backcountry skiing, and has skied from the summit of Denali in Alaska, North America’s highest mountain.
