Mother and child forced to walk down ski slope after lift failure
A resident of Chelyabinsk and her 10-year-old daughter had to walk down a steep slope at the «Sunny Valley» resort for nearly an hour because they could not ski down. They could have ridden down on the chairlift, but it had temporarily stopped working. The woman asked employees at the summit for help but was repeatedly refused. In the end, the result of the expensive trip was stress and pants worn almost to holes. «Sunny Valley» reviewed the situation and responded whether their employees were at fault.
«I literally begged the employee»
The family from Chelyabinsk arrived at the ski resort on the morning of Saturday, 17 January, to take advantage of a promotion—three hours of lift and rental for 1,400 rubles ($18 at current rates). The mother and her 10-year-old daughter took skis and immediately went to the chairlift leading to the mountain summit.
Upon seeing the steep slope, they realized they could not ski down and returned to the lift to ride back down to the base and go to the beginner slope, but this turned into a big problem.
«I thought the chairlift operated in a loop, the employee at the bottom didn»t warn us about anything, so we got on and went up to assess the slope,« stated the resort»s client. «At the summit, we were told the only way down from here was on skis, but it»s a very steep slope, and I«m an amateur—I couldn»t have skied down from there, let alone with a child who was on skis for the second time.«
The woman approached Sunny Valley employees stationed at the summit several times and asked them to arrange a safe descent—on the lift, by snowmobile, or by other means. But they were refused each time.
«I literally begged the employee to send a snowmobile, or someone else. But I heard »no,« »we don«t take people down,» and that a snowmobile is only sent if there are injuries. They sent us back to the chairlift, but it broke. They just abandoned us; we stood there in the cold for 20 minutes, and in the end, I slid down the steep slope with my child on my rear end. I ruined my clothes—there«s a big white stain on my pants, they got worn out from such a descent. We had to descend along the edge because skiers were flying down the main run; only halfway down could we descend on our own feet. The child was stressed,» recalled the reader of 74.RU.
The resort client added that parts of the slope were icy, which also frightened them during the walk down.
The limited liability company «Sunny Valley» Mountain Ski Center was established in 1999. 66% of the company belongs to Oleg Sirotin, the remaining 34% to Dmitry Yakovlev. According to data from the «Kontur.Fokus» service, the company«s revenue in 2024 was 178 million rubles ($2.3 million at current rates), with a net profit of 12.9 million rubles ($166,000).
«They were offered to wait»
At Sunny Valley, at the request of 74.RU, they reviewed the complaint from the mother and daughter regarding the work of the ski center«s employees but found no violations in their actions.
«We regret that the guest found herself in such a situation. Beginner guests should not use slopes that do not match their skill level—for this, we have free rope tows with a very easy slope and beginner runs. We also recommend using the services of instructors. In this case, there were no violations on the part of the employee; he acted according to protocol,» claim representatives of the ski resort. «The guests were offered to wait and descend on the chairlift, but she decided not to wait and descended the slope independently. For our part, we can offer the guest to visit us again, together with her child, and take a lesson with our instructor at our expense.»
