A photo has spread online claiming to show a ski chairlift that operated in the 1960s without a safety bar since at least 2019.
"This thread will make your palms sweat," a X post claimed on Dec. 12, 2024. Attached to the post was a photo that purportedly showed an adult holding one arm in front of a child in a chairlift. Slightly below the two people was a sign that identified the photo as being taken at the Snow King Chairlift in Jackson, Wyoming, on June 29, 1965.
This thread will make your palms sweat ?
One mistake costs life.
I open thread ? pic.twitter.com/JkuYvESYGp— ??..Rai ji..?? (@Vinod_r108) December 12, 2024
The same photo was used in at least one other X post from 2023, as well as other platforms like Reddit, Imgur (from 2020), TikTok and Facebook (from 2019).
We found the photo was authentic.
Buckrail — which describes itself as a media outlet providing Jackson, Wyoming, breaking news and community updates — included a Reddit post about the photo in a March 2023 article about the chairlift, stating that the image was authentic.
The Buckrail article said the chairlift had originally been a single chairlift that was replaced with a double chairlift by the late 1950s. The article stated the lift was again replaced with a Summit Lift (also a double chairlift) in 1981, and was replaced yet again with a gondola that could fit eight passengers in December 2021.
The Cowboy State Daily, a Wyoming news organization, also included the photo in a May 2023 article about the chairlift. The subheadline of the article said:
The internet is buzzing over old photos showing people riding the old Snow King Mountain chairlift without safety bars 1,500 feet above Jackson. They're 100% real.
The Cowboy State Daily article did not give further information about who the people in the photograph were.
While the image we fact-checked was a chairlift used decades ago, some chairlifts today don't have safety bars either, according to a 2023 Outside magazine article. The same article reported that safety bar use is not mandatory within most North America ski areas.