Top 10 Chairlifts to Get Stuck On

Remember Phil Connors, the Bill Murray character who was fated to repeat the same day over and over again in the movie “Groundhog Day”?

What if we were all Phil Connors, but instead of continually reliving the same 24-hour period we had to ride the same chair lift repeatedly into eternity? What lift would you choose?

In honor of Groundhog Day, the semi-holiday that takes place this week, here are our top 10 choices:

This iconic high-speed quad serves as much acreage as many mid-size ski hills that it’s practically a ski resort in and of itself. It also allows skiers and boarders to ride some the most varied and challenging terrain — Eagle’s Nest, Moseley’s, 75 Chute — in North America.

With a vertical rise of  3,142 feet, this high-speed quad is a 10-minute ride to such fast and steep top-to-bottom cruisers as Limelight, Upper and Lower Warm Springs and International. There’s also great tree skiing in between the cut runs.

With 2,047 feet of vertical, this high-speed quad allows access to such famed double-diamond runs as Nosedive, Goat and International. There’s also a screaming fun blue cruiser known as Hayride that will get back to the lift.

Reaching the top of the older, Whistler side of the two-mountain resort, this high-speed quad gains access to a great variety of challenging terrain, including Whistler Bowl and the double-diamond Couloir and Cirque runs. The views are almost as outstanding as the skiing.

One of the two non-high-speed quads to make this list, this triple chair gives riders access to some of the steepest and deepest snowfields and tree skiing in Colorado. It also gets you to the famed double-diamond Highlands Bowl terrain.

You can quickly burn up your legs doing powder laps on this high-speed quad that rises 1,870 vertical feet from the base area. It also is the expressway to High Rustler, perhaps the most iconic run in all of Utah.

The other non-high-speed quad on this list, this double chair, which rises a respectable 1,670 feet, gets you to such classic New England fare as Middle Earth, Lift Line and Rumble, which are classic twisty, steep and narrow bump runs. They are even more of a hoot when there’s fresh snow.

This high-speed quad provides riders spectacular views and some awesome terrain, including access to Delirium Dive, a portion of the mountain so back-countryish that you must have avi gear before you can cross the entrance gates. Added bonus: The lift starts in Alberta, crosses into British Columbia briefly and then returns to Alberta at the top.

This high-speed quad gives you access to great powder skiing in the numbered bowls on lookers’ left of the lift, fun groomers such as Ridge Run and North and South Canyon and show-off riding under the lift on The Face.

This six-passenger high-speed chair on Vail’s “front side” gives access to beautiful runs — such as Avanti, Pickeroon and Lodgepole — that pitch down from the ridge line in a steep, but non-threatening angle.