Psst! Want to Buy a Ski Lift?

Recently, I mentioned Wildcat Mountain was for sale, but if you can’t buy a mountain you may be able to afford a ski lift. Invented in the 1990s and patented by Anatoly Pivarunas, a Ph.D from Moscow University currently living in Toronto, the Portable Ski Lift is now catching on. Selling at $950 this ski lift is less than the cost of many top-of –the-line season passes.

Advertised as able to be put in a car trunk, the lift can transported on sled to the pristine slope you intend to ski and assembled in fifteen minutes. The whole unit consists of a small gasoline-powered engine, pulleys and a cable. The screw anchors are hand drilled into the top and bottom of the run to hold the engine (top) and the pulley (bottom) and then loop the cable on start the engine and your off.

Dr. Pivarunas may just be filling the bill for many would be backcountry skiing families. Well, maybe more like backyard skiing, but still you could print your own tickets.