There are a lot of people who would love to take off and just hang around ski resorts in Europe.  But hundreds of skiers in the Dolomites really wish it hadn’t happened quite that literally.  They were stuck in cable gondolas as strong winds battered Italy’s Tyrolean region.

The wind toppled a 40-meter tall tree, which cut the power supply to the Ciampinoi cable car system in the popular Val Gardena resort.  It immediately shut down.  Some 200 skiers who were in the Gondolas heading for the top of the run were suddenly stranded in mid-air.  They waited for hours as the wind gusts grew as strong as 135 kilometers an hour.

The rescue effort was amazing.  Helicopters managed to lower mountain rescuers and firefighters onto the 20 suspended Gondolas, and the rescuers lowered the skiers to the ground one by one.  Despite the obvious danger, not one person was injured.  And let’s face it, some people were there for a thrill anyway, so they recorded it on their mobile cameras.

But the same inclement weather claimed two lives elsewhere in Italy.  A falling tree crushed a woman in the Emilia Romagna region, and falling rocks killed a motorist in Tuscany.