13 replies to this topic

[CH3skier]

http://unofficialnet...ckets-to-skiers

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[SkiDaBird]

They take all the fun out of it.
I'm always under control, just perhaps at 60+ mph under certain circumstances.

[woofydoggie]

The snow guns are secretly speed traps!!!!!!

[Peter]

Doesn't every resort do this? Ok maybe not the paper tickets but the same types of warnings/suspensions.

[2milehi]

OK, I'll be the bad guy here. What Vail Resorts is trying to do is to stop this.

http://blogs.westwor...eystone_ski.php

This skier was going down Elk Run so fast that guests riding on Outback were yelling at the out of control skier to slow down.

This post has been edited by 2milehi: 27 January 2015 - 01:48 PM

[Andy1962]

another bad guy stepping in.

Definition of an Accident:

An accident is a sequence of uncontrolled or unplanned events that produce unintended injuries, deaths or property damage. Accidents are usually the result of unsafe acts by persons who are unaware or uninformed of potential hazards, are ignorant of the safety policies or fail to follow safety procedures. Accidents may also be caused by conditions in the physical environment that were not examined or considered as potential hazards. The majority of accidents are predictable and preventable. The occurrence of an accident indicates that someone failed to plan, someone performed an act in an unsafe manner, or an unsafe condition existed.

One can assume that the gentleman involved in the accident cited by 2milehi did not get off the last chairlift ride with the intention to kill himself. He did however make a willing decision to ski fast and out of control, which lead to a slip and fall and gave him a fatal injury.

The question we all need to ask ourselves, every time we arrive at the top of the ski hill is: Do I want to arrive at the bottom of the hill, safe and in one piece? What actions do I need to take to ensure that I get there in one piece. One action that I personally take is to never ski within ten feet of the edge of the treeline, unless I am going slowly and can stop within that ten feet. After making that decision, I relax and 100% enjoy the physical feeling of moving down the hill, knowing that I can do it again and again.

(yes I am a ski patroller, and last time I wore the uniform on an alpine slope, I helped pick up a 65 year old gentleman, life time skier. who cut a corner at the top of two runs that were splitting in a downhill "V" , and caught a ski on a four inch thick tree. The tree broke. So did his femur. A season ended, and six months to a year of recovery, all for the sake of six to ten inches of bad judgement.)

This post has been edited by Andy1962: 27 January 2015 - 04:51 PM

[DonaldMReif]

I skied Elk Run earlier this month. He really was straightlining that run? When you look downhill, it's too steep to straightline. There are some areas where straightlining might be more preferable, like the hill you use once you get off the Rocky Mountain SuperChair and onto Columbine (straightlining can get you enough speed to get over to at least Duke's Run if there's not much of a headwind) or parts of Monte Cristo and Angel's Rest, but almost certainly not Elk Run or Porcupine.

[Andy1962]

DonaldMReif, on 27 January 2015 - 05:15 PM, said:

I skied Elk Run earlier this month. He really was straightlining that run? When you look downhill, it's too steep to straightline. There are some areas where straightlining might be more preferable, like the hill you use once you get off the Rocky Mountain SuperChair and onto Columbine (straightlining can get you enough speed to get over to at least Duke's Run if there's not much of a headwind) or parts of Monte Cristo and Angel's Rest, but almost certainly not Elk Run or Porcupine.

Since I don't know the Elk Run or Keystone Mountain (never been there), I looked up the answers to my questions. Elk Run is served by the Outback Express, built in 1991. The 1991 Construction Survey lists this lift as 5846 feet long to rise 1482 feet. So a skier coming straight down Elk Run , speed unchecked at 25 mph (40 kph) is doing more than 11 meters of distance every second, or about 170 feet every 5 seconds. In that time the skier dropped 43 feet in elevation (on average). Having just taken a "steeps clinic" on telemark equipment at Ontario's iciest private ski club (this past weekend) , I learned that to ski safely on steep runs on hardpack, one must constantly be "dynamic on your feet". A level three telemark instructor taught me this. If you are going do high speed, you still need to be turning the skiis, moving your body in the vertical plane and changing your body position. (ignore the straight meaning of my words, but standing flat on your skiis, body fixed like a log straight up and down, rolling your feet from edge to edge to turn the skiis is not a safe way to ski high speed on a steep run) Straight down the hill, feet flat and not bending and straightening your legs is a recipe to hit "an unknown or unforeseen bump" and crash, because by the time you get off balance , and notice it, you have no time to react. . When you do crash you had better be in the middle of the run, away from trees, because that tree 35 feet away is only one second away in time space. (please ignore the accuracy of my math, it is accurate enough to get the point across)

This post has been edited by Andy1962: 27 January 2015 - 05:53 PM

[DonaldMReif]

What I mean is that Elk Run has a fall line, most noticeable when you're under the lift line, that is pretty constant.

[Andy1962]

DonaldMReif, on 27 January 2015 - 09:54 PM, said:

What I mean is that Elk Run has a fall line, most noticeable when you're under the lift line, that is pretty constant.

I know what you mean. What I mean to say is that the nice videos on Youtube of people using Elk Run cannot possibly demonstrate how easy it is to just point your tips straight down hill and gain some real speed very quickly. called reckless, in my books.

This post has been edited by Andy1962: 28 January 2015 - 06:11 AM

[NHskier13]

I personally find it going a little bit overboard, but then again places near me will literally rip your pass right off if you're committing reckless conduct.

[Backbowlsbilly]

Those guys in the yellow jackets at VR mountains are the ones that hand those out, they warn you first, but if you're going really fast then they pull you over and hand out a ticket. They only give those out in my knowledge in slow zones and that's because of incidents like the one mentioned above. Elk Run is way too crowded to straight line, and the added obstacle of the snow guns right in the middle of the run doesn't help either. Sad story either way.

[Kicking Horse]

it's not out of line, How many people have been hit / killed due to reckless skiing / boarding?

They should be banned for life far as I see it.

[Andy1962]

This week I watched a ski patroller at a ski hill in Ontario, explode out of his skiis while skiing a beginner run. He caught an edge and both skiis went flying. I was two to three ski turns behind him (fortunately because I would have been hit by his debris if I was closer). He was not skiing fast,but then he was not paying attention to his skiing either, just kind of coasting along, and caught an edge. When he fell, his helmet came off because it was not done up.

This patroller was skiing about thirty feet off the tree line. If this patroller had been skiing the tree line or within ten feet of it, He would have hit the trees when he did his tumble. With the helmet loose, it would have done nothing for him.

I know this patroller and the quality of his work, and I will just say that his best years are behind him and it is time he retired as a patroller.

So if a patroller can screw up this badly on a beginner run, you can see how easy it is for the average public skiier to screw up on a slightly steeper pitch going just a bit faster. "Oh he was such a good man. Taken from us way too soon." We decide whether we want our friends to be making that kind of statement about us., (that day or twenty , thirty, fifty years on). We make that choice every time we put our skiis on.

Enough preaching. Last week I got my car pulled out of a ditch by a tow truck because I was driving "recklessly" on a wind swept snow covered road. This week I got pulled over by a police officer for speeding. (He let me off) Yes I see the comparison between safe skiing and safe driving. I will slow down and drive my car below the speed limit.on snow covered roads. I am human too. I know that I have to monitor my own behaviour otherwise I could be that next statistic, on the slopes or off.

This post has been edited by Andy1962: 30 January 2015 - 03:45 PM