Slides?

We've talked about this before in this forum. I think it shows poor parenting by placing very vulnerable children in high risk of serious injury or death. See something, say something.

post the photo on facebook. if it circulates to his wife the dumb ass will get an ear full.

Don't be so dramatic. The kid made it through just fine I bet.

It's not death terrain as long as the snow isn't absolutely terrible. You can get through any of that slowly without an event. What's the big deal?

Honestly, if you I was there with my kid and you made a comment about my parenting I'd tell ya to go beat it like a roach.

JTG4eva! wrote

The mini wet-slabs and sloughing in there was a point of interest for Mike and I, just to observe how the snow was behaving.  Untracked lines in Slide 4 on opening easily got the slope to react, releasing the top 6-8 inches of new snow, 15 feet wide, running for maybe 25 feet until it hit the next stand of trees below.

That's a couple hundred cubic feet of heavy, wet, moving snow that would easily take out the legs of a weak child like that.

Don't want to choose a side on this debate as I:
1.Don't have kids
2.Went in to the slides at a young age (10-ish can't really remember...it was back when they had the entrance where you boot packed up off the summit cat track above Skyward entrance then traversed over higher up).
3.Have skied some pretty sketchy lines at a young age both in the East, and more so out West.
4.Am leaning towards the avy gear all the time requirement from a discussion in another post as a weed out mechanism(now that I own said gear of course!).
5.Experienced some slough pass by my legs on Sunday, which would prob have washed out a little kid pizza-ing pretty easily, and it was only like 8" deep.

Some additional photos showing the mini slabs to add to JTG's (we were 3rd and 4th guys down Slide 4 on Sunday):
I let first half loose

Then JTG broke the 2nd half and the slough went past my legs, definitely could have fell over if I wasn't paying attention, even at such a shallow depth...the snow was pretty heavy and concrete like

Given the stability issues in the snow I'm really surprised Sunday was a Gold status.  It's like it's the end of the yr so what the hell lets open it up when it reality that was probably the most sketchy snow conditions of the year in there.

I waited an hour or so to head in for the lines to get cleared out of what could slide and stuck to a popular route due that factor.  I need to get another set of Avy gear for my son for Christmas

Stability issues?  Those sloughs are stability issues?  They look pretty benign to me.  I could care a less if you take your kid in there.  Pizza Wedge is the way to go if you can't parallel.   If the kid wanted to go and the dad was confident he could I say go for it.   What a confidence builder.  Who are we to tell other people what they should do.  I always find that so hypocritical.

Stability may be the wrong topic concerning the conditions Sunday.  No deep snowpack, no major instabilities with risk of consequential avalanche.  Not that big a deal in general, agreed.  That said, various aspects were pretty active, enough so that it could have presented a small, weak skier caught in the wrong place at the wrong time a problem or a scare. I doubt that possibility is something the dad even considered or thought to discuss with patrol.

Who here thinks that kid really wanted, no....demanded, to go in and who thinks dad wanted to go in and said 'you're coming with me, Jr.'?  Really, what young kid still in pizza-wedges is demanding double-black sidecountry?  How many parents are listening if they do?

I hear you.  It was Gold status, no restrictions, people gotta be free to do what people want to do.  If dad thought the kid could make it down, which obviously he did, who are we to judge or say otherwise?

But what if he didn't make it down ok?  Sure, the probability of a weak skier not making it down ok might have been low, but I think the possibility has to be given consideration in making the choice to go.  Personally, I doubt that father considered that possibility, nor did he consider that if the kid did get hurt it would affect a whole lot more people than just him and his kid.

But you are right, who are we to tell someone else what to do?  

Me, I never brought my young kids in there.  Why?  I'd always been less concerned with injury than with the flip-side of the "what a confidence booster" thinking.  If your best turn is a pizza-wedge you may make it out ok, like the kid did, however there's also a very good chance that you will get into several tight, uncomfortable spots and get the bejesus scared out of you at some point along the way.  At the end of the run those scary moments are what the kid is likely to remember, moreso than confidence of making it out in one piece.  That, for my kids at least, would have been an anti-confidence boost.  There was and will be plenty of time for them to get in there once they are stronger skiers, have a more complete bag-o-tricks than the pizza-wedge, and can appreciate and enjoy the experience.

The kid was in a wedge but it looks like he could have been using the wedge to initiate his turn, which in very safe way to ski.   I understand both sides of the story.  Ultimately who's call is it.  If the kid got hurt such is life.. fix him up and give it a try again tomorrow...if the kid want's to.

tjf1967 wrote

Stability issues?  Those sloughs are stability issues?  They look pretty benign to me.  I could care a less if you take your kid in there.  Pizza Wedge is the way to go if you can't parallel.   If the kid wanted to go and the dad was confident he could I say go for it.   What a confidence builder.  Who are we to tell other people what they should do.  I always find that so hypocritical.

Agree with everything tjf says in this post.

Let a parent do his thing, let a kid have his fun. If the kid is terrified and frozen on a slope and the father is shouting at him to "hurry up!", fine, I can see being upset. But if a kid gets down in his own way and is able to brag to his friends that he skied the slides? Sounds like the kind of experience that a lot of kids would love to have.

I can say that as a parent, when my daughter shows some enthusiasm to try new things and push her abilities the last thing I want to do is squash it.

Pretty sure the last time I skied the slides I used a pizza wedge somewhere in there

tjf1967 wrote

If the kid got hurt such is life.. fix him up and give it a try again tomorrow...if the kid want's to.

Yeah, assuming the Slides don't get shut down completely as a result of the lawsuit the parent is likely to file.....

I really don't care what other people do with their own kids, or what happens to the kids.  You make your choices and you live with the result.  I'm selfishly more worried about what happens to my opportunity to ski the Slides, should some idiot get himself or his kid in over their heads on inbounds terrain.

I really like Silver status as a way to keep higher numbers of people who may be more likely to be hurt out of there.  However, the more I think about it, the better solution (if possible) is to put up a backcountry gate and make it painfully obvious that injury and rescue is your personal responsibility should you choose to leave the ski area boundary.  I suspect you'd see less pizza-wedging tykes out there if that were the case.

campgottagopee wrote

Pretty sure the last time I skied the slides I used a pizza wedge somewhere in there

CampGaperSledNeck!

ScottyJack wrote

campgottagopee wrote

Pretty sure the last time I skied the slides I used a pizza wedge somewhere in there

CampGaperSledNeck!

That's making a big assumption about someone that you don't know in any way at all. Not everyone with a kid is going to sue a ski area, shit, there are plenty of high level intermediates that have sued ski areas.

The problem with a back country gate is that no one leaving from the area will ever have to be fully responsible for their recovery/rescue, even if it's signed that way it's not going to work like that. The ski area will always have to send patrol and SARS out after them. If you have a gate but then leave people out there to die you are going to get your (your as in ski management) ass handed to you in court. And beyond that, no one in good conscience that has the ability to do that rescue could turn a blind eye.

This incident aside, I guess in a state like NY or here in Arizona where you have a large population of people that aren't very mountain savvy but have readily access to dangerous natural environments some rules (as silly as they really are) are needed to keep people from making very bad or even deadly mistakes.

This year our back country was "closed" for several days at the height of our really big cycle (95 inches in 6 days or so) because our Patrol and SARS couldn't keep up with the rescues in the south side, side country runs. this happened once before in 2010 during that years mega dump and I called out our head of patrol for that because it was, bullshit. Back then they were using scare tactics about fictitcious or at least unproven avalanche hazards. Our new head of patrol is a great guy and doesn't care to use the scare tactics and was upfront about the decision. It's still kind of bullshit but we got where they were coming from. We still went skiing in the back country on those storm days and you know what...it was killer! We had deep untracked snow all to ourselves. Some of the best shots in my edit this year are from those days. So in a way, some of those silly rules or random closures have been a blessing for those of us that are going to go anyways.

On my way home, I saw a father playing catch with his son.

Father was about 10 feet away, lobbing the ball softly, and the kid was wearing a full face mask/catcher's helmet thing.

I'm thinking that our problem isn't parents giving their kids too much freedom.

There is a huge difference between the Millennial Generation and Gen X Generation in regards to independence.

We were the latch key kid generation, the millennials are the helicoptered generation.

raisingarizona wrote

There is a huge difference between the Millennial Generation and Gen X Generation in regards to independence.

We were the latch key kid generation, the millennials are the helicoptered generation.

17 years ago my good buddy said it best ---

When his son was born I looked at him and said, oh boy are you ever in trouble. Meaning I grew up with this guy and know everything we did as kids. His immediate response was, if he's as bad as I was I'll be OK, if he's worse I'm in trouble.

the crap we did as kids...hard to believe we survived..

I hear you RA, for all I know that dad was like you, someone experienced in the backcountry, with knowledge of snowpacks and how they can behave, with the skills and abilities to guide their young child through such expert level terrain.  There are clues in the photo that would lead me to believe that wasn't the case, but I don't know for sure.  However, if it wasn't this dad, or the next, or the next.....eventually there will be one who does sue the resort and ruin things for everybody else.

Yes, I know resorts with backcountry gates will always dispatch available Patrol for rescue.  However, if the gates make it clear that you can be charged for such rescue, and people are made aware of the dangers and realize they have no recourse against the resort, than people may think a lot harder before they put themselves or their kids out there.

It's all about respecting the terrain.  Unfortunately, I don't think enough people do that when Whiteface assigns the Slides a name, sticks it on the map, and then gives it a Gold status and says it's open to everybody and anybody.  As the description on the map says, it's experts-only terrain and, if you respect it, it will provide you the ride of your life.  Unless you are going to tell me that there are 6 and 8 year olds out there that are expert skiers.....obviously people aren't giving due respect.