Iced-over cables can be a serious issue for chairlifts, gondolas, and tramways. When the cables become weighed down and frozen they’re usually unsafe for riders, so ski resorts tend to take steps to deice the system. This could include slowly driving the cable at night to prevent the icing in the first place, special ice scrapers, or careful work done by hand. The folks at Åre, Sweden, take a rather unique, helicopter-based approach to remove the ice.
As you can see in the video, a large log is hung from the bottom of a helicopter and the pilot simply taps the cable with the log, knocking off the ice that built up through storms or overnight. This likely isn’t the only thing they do to deice, with more action likely going on behind the scenes, but it’s still a seriously impressive sigh to see.
