Cable car (matterhorn) trauma!!!

Transportation, Travel and Trips
41
When did they decommission it then; it was a nice and relaxing ride.

42
You are so old skool.

43
Thanks for sharing this! I've experienced -30 F a few times in the mountains where I used to live. The fun of that wears out pretty quick. But stuff like this makes the rest of your life's troubles seem like a joke. I'd say its a great start to your new year since you all came down safe and sound. Its all downhill from there...

44
Unbelievable story... i'm really glad you're OK. God knows what i'd have done in that situation... the cold I could just about manage, but the height and dangling below a helicopter from 12000 feet? Feeling about heights as I do, I think I would have being close to passing out.

It's the type of story you'd get on TV rescue programs!

45
Isn't calming hysterical kids the job of the parents? Rescuers just concentrate on the technicalities of getting everyone down safely and probably use child-sized harnesses for the kids.

46
While I'm glad your safe, this is the kind of story that if it had been a couple of climbers, everyone would be complaining about how they could jeopardize their lives like that and the waste of public resources. Yeah, I'm bitter about that. ;-)

47
Thanks for your story, what an experience. So glad that everyone came out of it healthy and intact. Well done to the rescue workers for getting everyone to safety.

48
wow, quite the story. You'll have something to tell your grandchildren about!

I can imagine it being very cold with the wind and all that, an experience I'm not sure I'd like to have...

49
Thanks for posting (and for videoing the action!!!) - I will be there in a few days so am a bit nervous now...

I wanted to find what was reported officially to possibly learn more about what went wrong, but I can't find any news articles about it. When did it happen? I would have thought it would be widely reported by now.

Can anyone link up some more info?

50
Wow, shocking story and I'm glad that the rescue operation went on smoothly. I am amazed that in such distressing situation you still managed to record the video. Well done and it will be a good for bad memories in the future. (I must have one from bungy jumping in the past but it was all calculated risk).

I have been once to Zermatt last year end of March/beginning of April and it was freezing cold out there above 3000m. Although it was already spring with green grass and early spring flowers start blossoming, it is another world out there with lots of gust, snowing and less oxygene. I remember they said that someone even fainted in cable car on previous day because of thin air. I cannot imagine if something goes wrong with the cable car at such conditions. it must be terrible and I am glad that nothing has happened to anyone.

When I was at Rothorn the other day they use old Gondolbahnen which make lots of screeching noise and at some point I was also a bit terrified that it might fall off. Apparently they are planning to modernize the system next year.

51

It doesn't seem to have been reported, even on specialist Wallis websites. There's an airborne winching that happened in 2007 in similar conditions (strong wind, derailed cable) on the Blauherd gondola that is featured on the very well done SF1 Air Zermatt documentary.

52
Wow, some story.

53
That makes it all the more interesting and makes me even more curious to find out what happened.

I looked in Walliser Bote, zermatt.ch, 20min, swissinfo, Tages Anzeiger, googled etc and only came back to EF/youtube etc.

Weird. Calling all Zermatt EF roving reporters...

54
Thank God you are safe and sound , prayers DO get answered.

55
Maybe it happened at some other time - the skies are quite bright for a typical 5pm-ish January Zermatt.

56
Well, I would LOVE to see a story reported somewhere on it, that's all I've been thinking and talking about for the last 2 days! - it was on the 2nd January the incident happened. If ANYONE finds anything else on the internet, please let me know. I know there is another youtube video, taken long after I exited on the heli, which was filmed by one of the chinese girls that were on the cable car - unfortunately, the video's a little random, but can't really blame the photographer, as she most probably wasn't thinking about filming at the time!! - you can see it here:

We DID go down in an older style cable car, which was red - that took us all the way down to zermatt, rather than going in the smaller ones... never been in that one before. If anyone happens to get a copy of 20 minutes newspaper today, please check it for me!!! - it was frightening, but strangely amazing!! I had mixed emotions, relief, stress, being scared, and complete happiness - weird!!

Yes, it was -28 degrees CELSIUS, but with the windchill it was -54 degrees CELSIUS!!! The condensation on the windows from us all froze on the windows. It was very, very cold. I will never say I'm cold again in such a blaze way!!! We're all fine. Took my dad all of yesterday to recover and get feeling back in one of his thumbs, but all of our party was ok... and it's amazing how these kinds of disasters bring people close together!

57
In response to the people who have commented that they are now scared of riding in cable cars or taking their children in them, I re-state what I said above: Wind is the main thing that can make mountain transport unsafe. If it is windy, and the operators mention a chance of shutting down the cable car due to weather in the near future, then you might want to avoid it, even if it is still currently operating.

So to avoid the dangers, simply only go on calm days, the risks are then extremely low. In fact, if you travel there by car, then the risk of being involved in an accident in the car is much greater than anything happening while in the cable car on a calm day. (I really don't understand why people aren't more scared of travelling by car, it is the most dangerous thing that most people regularly do. If you're scared of going in a cable car on a calm day then you should be TERRIFIED of being in a car most of the time.)

58
Blimey! thanks for posting that together with the videos.

Well done all of you for keeping your cool (sorry );

and relieved that your ordeal had a happy ending.

Your husband & the climber are heroes, not to mention the rescue personnel!!

I've been there dozens of times skiing and immediately recognised

the car, the platforms etc in the video (my wife fainted the first

time we went up there together skiing - gurnies permanently

at the top, you go quite fast to 3800 metres, people often faint)

Not to belittle your experience, but for the sceptics -28C is not at all uncommon for Kl Materhorn & Theodul. No less cold, particularly when you think you're only up for a quick butchers!

I was in Saas Fee until yesterday; the mild snowy period broke on Saturday when temps plunged. I can't believe this wasn't reported; you should contact SF1 or a newspaper!

In Graechen, just down the Matertal from Zermatt, my son & I witnessed helicopter evacuation of a chairlift there just before New Years (technical failure; all chairs had to be evacuated). We'd missed getting on the lift by a few minutes. It was -18C and the wind was again the culprit, rocking the 6er chairs until the engines tripped out. The chairs had bubbles but some people had to wait for hours. There were no serious injuries and only mild frostbite cases. It was in the news (2005, I think).

Again, thanks for putting this up and have another cup of nice, warm tea!

Freebooter

ps, make sure your Rega account is paid up!

59
You where in a beautiful setting doing something you loved.

On the flip side...

You could be dying of Cancer in a lonely ward or drop dead on your key board in the middle of your office?

Perspective can be a wonderful device.

Your one of the lucky one's who really knows I guess the true value of each minute of life. Question is always where do you go from there?

: )

(Ring someone special and tell them what they mean to you)

60
I would think that in such situations, the chairlift operator would be fully responsible for covering all costs involved in getting you back to the base station. You shouldn't need to have Rega coverage when just taking a chairlift or cable car up to have a look around at the top of a mountain.