Chair to Nowhere

Why is there a chairlift in that one guy's front yard? If you've lived in Bozeman in the last 20 years, you've probably noticed it—Greg Beardsley's two-chair setup in his front lawn on Church Street. As a 30-year veteran of Bridger Bowl (and a skier for 45 years), Beardsley picked up one Bridger Bowl chair in the late 1980s at an auction. Friends brought him another chair from Mammoth Mountain in California. Though Beardsley meant to turn the chairs into a porch swing and a lawn bench, he just hasn't gotten around to it yet. For now, the chairs tempt passing children, who push the chairs around in a circle on their “lift tower,” at least until the chairs inevitably swing into them. “Yeah, it's not OSHA approved,” admits Beardsley.