Accident Avoided (by an inch)

Snowballs wrote

IMO, the things mentioned here are a manifestation of the self-center nature of our society. Many people have become more selfish and have come to disregard common manners/respect/concern for others. I do think it's markedly worse than before. President's week seems to be very replete with it to the point of " OMG!".

Perfectly stated, except, sadly, it's not limited to President's week and it's not limited to skiing.

Benny Profane wrote

Well, I tell you, after this weekend, I can't wait to retire and ski midweek and non holidays again. Holy crap the mountains are full of gapers and their little progeny everywhere you go, and they do the stupidest things. Standing right at the entrance of lift mazes turning the little bugger's go pro on or off or whatever, standing in the middle of slopes just out of sight enjoying the damn view or something, letting two feet tall Bobby or Debby go into a bump field filled with troughs big enough to swallow them and, i guess, just leaving them there (Benny: Are you lost? Where's Mommy or Daddy? I almost killed you.). Let's not even mention that Asian lady who got into a shouting argument with us and others because she was holding three (three!) window tables for her family that was scheduled to arrive "in maybe a half hour" at the Kmart peak lodge around 11:30. Holy jeebus, I hate President's week.

HAHAHAHAHAHAAHHA!  Captain Happy to the Rescue!  

Just wondering. How old are you?

Benny Profane wrote

Well, I tell you, after this weekend, I can't wait to retire and ski midweek and non holidays again. Holy crap the mountains are full of gapers and their little progeny everywhere you go, and they do the stupidest things. Standing right at the entrance of lift mazes turning the little bugger's go pro on or off or whatever, standing in the middle of slopes just out of sight enjoying the damn view or something, letting two feet tall Bobby or Debby go into a bump field filled with troughs big enough to swallow them and, i guess, just leaving them there (Benny: Are you lost? Where's Mommy or Daddy? I almost killed you.). Let's not even mention that Asian lady who got into a shouting argument with us and others because she was holding three (three!) window tables for her family that was scheduled to arrive "in maybe a half hour" at the Kmart peak lodge around 11:30. Holy jeebus, I hate President's week.

The smell of mothballs fills the lift queue....

Face4Me wrote

Snowballs wrote

IMO, the things mentioned here are a manifestation of the self-center nature of our society. Many people have become more selfish and have come to disregard common manners/respect/concern for others. I do think it's markedly worse than before. President's week seems to be very replete with it to the point of " OMG!".

Perfectly stated, except, sadly, it's not limited to President's week and it's not limited to skiing.

+1

dmc_hunter wrote

The smell of mothballs fills the lift queue....

HAHAHAHAHAAHAHHAA  That's funny! These angry white guys in their mid 50's -60s have such a sense of entitlement...  It's unbelievable!

I had the unfortunate experience to cross path with two baby boomer off springs these season.  (Hey your parents saved the world – u didn’t!)  

One angry white male got bent at some of my crew when we were first in line for summit quad at Gore.  He raced to get first chair and we laughed.  Then he shot us a dirty look on top and kicked down chatimac, as we laughed.  Then as we came into the third pitch (a little windblown) he was flopped and we all made sure to kick pow on him as we flew past.  It was too funny watching him choke on it!!  

The other guy could have been Ausable Skier.  He was ranting how horrible the mtn was run as I booted up for that awesome pow day a couple Wednesday’s ago….  I mean who could be all miserable on a pow day…  Ranting about wind holds, dissing AK, saying some political who lives on Long Island makes all the decisions….  I felt so sorry for his poor wife, who was obviously shattered from a lifetime of his anger.  

Oh, so, somewhere around 19, right?

I love it when all the so called "powder skiers" get tired and cranky about 1PM and leave all the goods for me...

You mean the "goods" at Hunter that were cut up by 10:30 last friday?

If I see one more idiot straight-lining Mountain Run this week, all bent over like a lowland Gorilla (no offense to lowland gorillas intended), I'm going to scream!

Congratulations ... You've discovered gravity ... You're sure to be the next Andrew Weibrecht ... What a great skier you are ... What's even more frightening, is that this doesn't seem to be limited to teenagers who don't know any better ... I've seen a number of "older" idiots doing the same thing, then high-fiving each other at the bottom.
What the hell????

God forbid one of these morons has to make an emergency stop or turn, and it's going to be really ugly out there.
Looking forward to the end of the holiday week!

Benny Profane wrote

You mean the "goods" at Hunter that were cut up by 10:30 last friday?

Depends on what you mean by goods...

I'm mostly referring to people on lift lines... tired... beat up...  intermediate pow skiers...
just a lack of people when they get tired..  And this snow was dense. So people were bitching...  :)

Hey Sirskier, I can't believe your post got six pages worth of replies.  When you told me about the post last week in the chairlift line, I thought, "yeah stop where you can be seen from above and keep it moving under those knolls/undulations. to avoid being a target for those bombing from above."  Obviously this is a much bigger topic than I envisioned.

One more thing about crowded weekends and collisions, it's not just the "Type A" male. You (Sirskier) witnessed me being taken out by a teenage girl where Hawkeye turns to go under Straightbrook.  I was minding my own business waiting for you and the kids to come down the steep at the edge of the trail and here comes this girl flyihg out of control who target fixates on me and blows straight through my chest.  If she wansn't so cute and apologetic, I would have been mad.  

Gore is still 10X better than anywhere else I've freeskied/taught at when if comes to crowd absorption.  

Benny,

That is facinating.  You can't make that stuff up.  

Saturday was icy at my home mountain Gore, but the idiots were still bombing not giving a shit about anyone, but themselves. We were on Quicksilver (blue) and a boy fell (friend of mine son) he is 7. I was right by him helping him get up when a boarder 200lbs comes flying down and plows right into his lower back at full force. It was in slow motion for me to watch and I felt his pain. The individual said sorry like 20 times and I think he meant it. From what I heard he was flying down and had no real control, when he got into trouble and needed to stop the boarder could not. My point is being sorry is great, but try to ski or board in control. The boy Alex endend up with a big laceration on his back. It could have been worse spinal injury or if hit his head a full blown cuncushion (which could lead to death)

All the posters that joke or don't take this seriously should really think about this thought. How would you really feel if you seriously hurt someone and it was determined that due to your unchecked speed and out of control riding/skiing you killed someone? I leave it at that.

It does seem to me that there are more out of control (when I say that I mean skidding (which is basically being out of control) mixed with speed it is deadly.

I truly believe that Gore Mountain and most other mountains are not doing enough to educate their customers on the Skier/Rider Code. There is so much they can do, even if that means showing photos at the lift of people in the hospital that were hurt by unchecked speed. Or had the mountain hosts hand out flyers, etc.

This all sounds OLD and LAME I know. Something has changed on the mountain I don't know what it is. Maybe it is the headcams, the music (played in helmets)? The need to show off? Self centeredness. What ever it is the mountain seems more dangerous then ever. I am 44 and have been doing this for 39 years so I have earned the right to speak my mind.

I have posted a video taken later in the day on Saturday around 3pm on Cloud, coming out of a blind turn. This is not meant as a negative to snowboarders (skiers can do this too) I was standing on the side of the mountain when this guy came pretty close to me. I felt that he could have taken me down. Maybe I am just being bias. Tell me what you think did he really have to come this close to me??

Bomber Boy from sirskier on Vimeo.

sirskier wrote

Something has changed on the mountain I don't know what it is.

I didn't know if it was just me feeling this way or not.  My home mountain is now Wachusett in Central MA.  It is most likely not going to be my home mountain next winter, even though I'll still be living in the area.  I'm ready to hang up the on-piste skiing at Wachusett and stick to fat biking and back country skiing when I need to stay closer to home. It seems like every time I've gone up there this season, I've almost gotten taken out by out of control yahoos.  It's not because I'm standing somewhere where they can't see me; it's always been WHILE I'm skiing!! The last time I was there a girl actually hit me, but she'd slowed down enough that we just bumped and both managed to stay upright, and then a little bit later a kid ran over the tips of my skis.  I called it quits after that and went inside while my boyfriend took a few more runs. The weird thing is, we've been exploring all these other ski resorts on weekends, and I haven't really noticed this sort of craziness at other mountains.  I can't figure out what the heck is going on at Wachusett.  

There is a new mentality on the mountains that is what it is.  A "me" first attitude.  My whole point of this post is to just make sure every one who skis in "control" and with kids be super super aware that the game has changed!

sirskier wrote

  Tell me what you think did he really have to come this close to me??   <nabble_embed>https://vimeo.com/87986599</nabble_embed>

You're in the middle of the trail

i agree with most of, if not all of what you said,
but the boarder in the video really isn't out of control. that's about par for the course , for a trail merge on busy mountain..

no different than driving on the Cross Bronx at rush hour..your head needs to be on a swivel..
i ski with the mind set that i'm going to be hit at any time..

At song mountain I got leveled  by a boarder on a green trail, was staying on a tight line, testing snow conditions on my first run,  I hear a skid from behind, lower my head befor flying 100 feet through the air, took 10 minutes to get back up, couldn't figer out up and down for a while

The snowboarder who hit me was caught on the neck my my helmet, lucky we both walked away, ( slowly at that) as it almost was a helmet to helmet

No ski patrole to be seen,

Skiied on blacks the rest of the night to avoid the reckless friday crowd  

kenneywallace wrote

flying 100 feet through the air

Impressive. Must have one of those Iron Man suits