(CNN) — Ski lifts, like skiers, come in all shapes and sizes, with varying degrees of technical merit, but only a few have the X factor.
Whether it's a revolutionary design, nerve-jangling ride or historic aura, some lifts offer more than just a fast-track to the top of the mountain. It might even be more to do with the setting and the terrain they access than the cabled-contraptions themselves.
Here are 10 ski lifts that put the "X" into extreme, and give as good an experience going up as gravity does on the way down:
1. Aiguille du Midi, Chamonix, France
Auguille du Midi: High altitude panoramas.
Patrik Lindqvist/Getty Images
The 20-minute journey rewards light-headed tourists with high-altitude panoramas and offers alpinists access to the wilds of the Mont Blanc massif. To reach the famous Vallee Blanche glacier, skiers walk through an ice tunnel and rope up to scramble down a knife-edge before descending 20 kilometers to Chamonix.
2. Skyway Monte Bianco, Courmayeur, Italy
Skyway Monte Bianco: Peering across the roof of Europe.
Enrico Romanzi
The 110 million euro ($131 million) lift, which opened in June 2015 to replace an older gondola, breaks its journey at the Pavillon du Mont Frety (2173 meters) before soaring like a speck of dust through the imposing scenery on the south side of Mont Blanc.
The futuristic top station peers across the roof of Europe toward the big "4,000ers" of Mont Blanc, Monte Rosa, the Matterhorn, the Gran Paradiso and the Grand Combin, plus offering high-altitude access for skiers and climbers.
3. Valluga, St. Anton, Austria
Vallugabahn: Five-person sardine cans.
Tourismusverband St Anton Am Arlberg/Vaude Attenberger
It sounds like a brand of caviar, and the skiing off the Valluga lift can be equally luxurious in the right conditions. Strictly speaking, it's Valluga II, rising to 2,811 meters, that has gained a notorious reputation.
Only groups accompanied by a mountain guide can access this five-person sardine can above the Valluga I cable car. But the reward for investing in professional know-how is to leave behind the patrolled, groomed ski area and access some of the Alps' best off-piste.
The Valluga north face is the "classic" itinerary for advanced skiers, with a steep top section opening into rolling powder fields all the way to Zurs, part of the extensive Arlberg region.
4. La Grave, France
La Grave: Quirky lift to unspoilt ski runs.
La Grave
The lifeblood of the off-piste paradise of La Grave is a creaky old cable car in the shadow of La Meije mountain (3,984 meters) in France's Ecrins National Park.
The quirky lift, more than 40 years old, rises from the 12th-century village at 1,480 meters and trundles, via two intermediary stations, to a high point of 3,200 meters amid a wild and tumbling mountainscape of glaciers, cliffs and crevasses. There's only one rudimentary run up here, and no ski patrol. This is skiing "sauvage." Anyone venturing from the cable car station must trust their skills and their mountain guide to get home safely.
5. Peak 2 Peak, Whistler-Blackcomb, Canada
Peak 2 Peak, Whistler: Across the ravine.
David McColm
Two iconic mountains and one steep, forested ravine in between. The challenge was how to connect the ski areas of Whistler and Blackcomb in British Columbia without causing environmental damage or creating a long series of lifts going down one side of the valley and back up the other.
The answer, opened in 2008, was the record-breaking Peak 2 Peak gondola, a 4.4 kilometers aerial tram that allows skiers and boarders to access both mountains in a single day. The lift was a record-breaker: the longest unsupported span at 3.024 kilometers, and the highest lift above the valley floor at 436 meters.
The gondola, with several glass-bottomed cabins, is an 11-minute ride from Whistler's Roundhouse Lodge (1850 meters) to Blackcomb's Rendezvous Lodge above mid level in each ski area.
6. Titlis Rotair gondola, Engelberg, Switzerland
Engelberg has 22 lifts in all and 82 kilometers of groomed ski runs on mostly north-facing slopes. Experts flock here for the lengthy off-piste powder runs in a high-alpine setting. From Titlis to town, it is a leg-jellying 12 kilometers, or a 2,000 vertical meter descent.
7. Lessieres Express chairlift, Val d'Isere, France
Lessieres Express, Val d'Isere: Up and over
PHILIPPE DESMAZES/AFP/AFP/Getty Images
It might seem like an ordinary chairlift when you get on, but the Lessieres Express packs a stomach-churning punch. It's not called the "up and oh-ver" for nothing.
When the two-way chair crests the sharp ridge between Solaise and Le Fornet and then plunges down the other side, your stomach tends to end up in your chest. Somehow the sense of exposure is much worse going downhill. Plus, often one side is in the lee of the wind -- popping over the top gives you a face-full of spindrift-laden alpine air.
Ski bums have been known to jump off the chair halfway down the Le Fornet side to access fresh powder but it's a highly dangerous maneuver and likely to result in serious sanctions.
Did you know? Val d'Isere can trace its early human habitation back to Roman times, while the old church in the center of town was built in 1664.
8. Jackson Hole tram, Wyoming
Jackson Hole's "Big Red."
Jackson Hole Mountain Resort
At 12,662 meters, it's the largest vertical of any ski resort in the United States, with views of the Tetons, Jackson Hole and the Snake River Valley spread out far below. The tram also flies past the infamous Corbet's Couloir with its mandatory 3-6 meter cliff drop into the chute.
On a powder day, competition for a place in "first box" begins well before opening time and can be an extreme sport in its own right. Rounding out the tram experience, the operators gee-up visitors with pumping tunes and warnings such as "If you don't know... don't go."
9. Lone Peak tram, Big Sky, Montana
Big Sky's Lone Peak Tram.
Cody Whitmer
The Lone Peak Tram revolutionized the expert ski scene at Big Sky when it was built in 1995. The 15-passenger aerial tramway climbs 433 meters up a sheer rock face to land skiers and boarders on the summit of Lone Mountain at 3,403 meters.
The tram tripled the amount of expert terrain on offer, and gave the leg-strong the chance to complete a 4,350 vertical meters, six-mile descent in one run. To prevent nerves on the way up, the inside of the two tram cabins were originally painted pink to have a calming effect on passengers.
10. Jungfrau railway, Kleine Scheidegg, Switzerland
The Jungfrau railway: Climbing the mountain since 1912.
jungfrau.ch
What could be more extreme than a train that bores up through the inside of the feared and revered Eiger?
The Jungfrau railway, which was completed in 1912, is a rack railway running from Kleine Scheidegg above Wengen and Grindelwald to the Jungfraujoch at 3,454 meters, the highest station in Europe. For most of its 9.3 kilometer journey, the railway runs through the Jungfrau tunnel, up through the Eiger and the Monch mountains, to a lofty perch high above the awe-inspiring Aletsch glacier in the Bernese Oberland.
The train stops twice in the tunnel for tourists to gaze through windows onto the mountainscape outside, notably the infamous Eiger north wall at Eigerwand station.
At the Jungfraujoch, daytrippers can visit the Sphinx Observatory, while alpinists can venture into the high-altitude heart of the Bernese Oberland.
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