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12 Times Snowboarders Tried To Ride the Chair Lift And Failed Miserably

Face-plants, embarrassment, and naked flash... these snowboarders got it all horribly wrong

Ah, chairlift fails. “When life gives you lemons,” as some citrus loving capitalist once said “make lemonade”. But when life gives you chair lifts, what do you do? You make a complete and utter arse of yourself, that’s what you do.

Let’s face it, chair lifts, button lifts, drag lifts… they’re all cruel tricks played on novice snowboarders by malevolent riders of greater experience who just want to watch the world burn. Or, you know, at least watch you flail around at the top of the hill slowly thawing the snow from around you as the heat from your embarrassed face adds a few degrees to global warming.

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But fear not! while the thought of attempting to ride a lift fills you with terror, take comfort in the fact that, to quote the philosopher Jackson; you are not alone. All of these people have tried and failed to successfully manoeuvre their way up the hill.

You can’t possibly get it as wrong as these guys. And if you do, film it, and send it to us. We wont laugh, we promise.

(In the interest of full disclosure, the author once accidentally head butted a Norwegian journalist while falling at the top of a chair lift. Both parties survived)

1) No exit strategy

A video posted by Hannah Middleton (@hannahspm) on

This chairlift fail is made all the more satisfying by the fact that whoever’s holding the camera is so amused by Dan’s misfortune that they lose the power of speech.

2) Jimmy Eat Shit

This single lift in Perisher, Australia appears to have collected many a snowboarder (and the occasional silly skier) who’ve not quite mastered the art of the exit yet.

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Although, arguably, the greatest error here is the use of first-wave-Emo-moaners Jimmy Eat World on the soundtrack.

4) Le Deux Fail

Two fails for the price of on here. First of all, you’ve got the hapless snowboarder who, just when he thinks he’s got away with an ascent via the dreaded button lift, stacks it right in front of a geezer with a camera.

But then you get the bonus, and arguable greater error made by this chap, who’s willingly left the house with this hat on.

Ski lift fail? This is a life fail – Photo: YouTube / Canale di tonatone

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5) Mown down

You know right from the off that this is going to go wrong, and exactly who it’s going to go wrong for. However, the beauty of it is, you don’t realise quite how wrong it’s going to go for our pal in the green and grey coat. Glorious.

6) Le sigh

We’re not entirely sure how this geezer gets this quite so wrong, but for the purposes of collating a humorous list based largely upon snowy schadenfreude, we’re pretty glad he did.

But it wasn’t the fail that made us watch this again. It was how pissed off the liftie looked 10 seconds in, or no discernible reason. Cheer up mate, some people taste dog food for a living. #NoBadDays

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7) from bad, to worse, to frostbite

A video posted by Mountain Locals (@mountainlocals) on

This poor fella goes from losing footing, to losing his board, and eventually losing his trousers. The fact that the whole incident was caught on camera means that he’s almost certianly lost his dignity as well.

In fairness, viewed from the right angle, this could be the genesis of some super creative Scott Stevens style, Yawgoons eqsue edit. No. No it couldn’t, the plonker.

8) Resigned to failure

Could it be that the cheeky scamp waiting at the bottom of this lift, filming this actually wanted to see snowboarders failing on a drag lift? Yes, we think so, and frankly we applaud their efforts. Without the hard work and sacrifice of people like this, this would be a list of drunk otters.

We also applaud the dude getting it so wrong who, through a combination of time and shame, resigns himself to the fact he’s getting dragged backwards up a slope, arse first.

9) Hitchin’

As with so many of these snowboarding chairlift fails, we’re not entirely sure what our hapless here is doing here. After several viewings, we think he’s trying to hang on to the back on his own ski lift, and then decides to try and pop out an ill-advised euro-carve.

Or, you know, he just fucked up. One of the two.

10) “Epic fail”

A video posted by Gabe (@streetrider5) on

Now, this may not be the most calamitous snowboarding chairlift fail on the list, but it’s more the aftermath that got us.

The one dude on screen looks slightly embarrassed  – like when you let a small fart out in the lift surrounded by work colleagues. You know you’ve fucked up. They know you’ve fucked but. You go a bit red, smile, and hope nobody talks about it tomorrow.

But the dude filming? He can’t help but tell the world he’s fell over. He’s loving life flailing on his arse on the ground. He’s like one of Jim Carrey’s more annoying characters, made real.

11) “Next time, I’m gonna have to help”

Okay, so this one is a little out of left field, as it’s not quite a snowboarder failing on a lift, and more of a lift crew failing on a snowboarder. Seriously, it’s like that one episode of The Chuckle Brothers where the budget stretched to The Rockies.

If you notice, the guy who does the damage – the fella who starts on the rocks at the right, is in ski boots. Now, far be it for us to call this some Machiavellian attempt to get one over on a snowboarder, but this looks suspiciously like a Machiavellian attempt to get one over on a snowboarder.

12) Chairman

Okay, so this fella isn’t on a snowboard but A) there are plenty of snowboards in the clip and B) well, it’s just funny watching this guy get things so wrong, so spectacularly.

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