Deadly collision

What a shame. There is way too much UNNECESSARY carnage at ski areas, and such a big disconnect between the reality of skiing/boarding and the industry's Disney-fied marketing of it. Blows my mind how many people die at Whistler annually. Since the ski industry sells their product as healthy family fun, they ought to be morally and legally obligated to make it as safe as possible.

I know there are inherent, unavoidable risks, but the industry should do more to regulate avoidable patron behaviors that endangers others. I doubt they will until something threatens the bottom line because of the silly ski culture most resort managers came up in. Too many of these managers are jerky, self-important types, the types who use the term "gaper" to refer to people not yet saavy to the flow of things for instance. "Want your ski? Go get it ..."

I grew up surfing crowded spots every day with other locals who called seaborn "gapers" "buoys," to be snaked through at close range and run over if they happened to zig when the should have zagged. Thankfully these guys weren't lifeguards, but at ski areas they are.

I tire of the car analogy.  If the ski area were a freeway, then there would be many cars just randomly stopped everywhere.  Other cars would be erratically swerving from the far left lane to the far right lane and back again without looking.  Cars would suddenly flip over for no reason.  Best of all, if you hit any of them, it would be your fault.  Now, if you were on a freeway like this, would you still drive 70 mph?

Just wanted to second this comment about the incredible absurdity of any possible rationalization for skiing so as to hit someone at a ski area.

    There's been a lot of fine points made in these discussions, particularly the value of wearing a helmet, especially at a lift area. As a lift area and backcountry skier of almost 50 years experience now, who has worked as a full time avalanche tech, propatrolman and instructor at some major and minor ski resorts, I find this discussion almost as sad as the comments following injury or fatality avalanche accidents - "if we'd only (pick one) checked the reports, dug a pit, communicated more, etc, etc"
     As many have pointed out, the skier code, hence legal responsibility, makes it the overtaking skier or snowboarder's responsibility to avoid those below him or her, whether they are traveling down the fall line, or crossing, or going slower, erratically or stopped - or below a roll or jump.  Hitting someone is your responsibility.  We all know the lift areas are a zoo on the weekends - hence we know its a time to throttle it back.  The only time to bomb the slope and downhill it is either early in the morning before people are on the slopes, or late in the day just before the sweep - but even this is risky on a weekend.  It's always been this way though, this isn't a new phenomena.  With perhaps more skiers on the slopes (its hard to tell with high-speed lifts and shorter lines), less educated or trained skiers and snowboarders, and the usual mix of youth, testosterone and bravado - it really raises the need for the areas themselves to up the ante.  25 years ago we'd pull your pass (season or day) if you skied recklessly or negligently on a crowded, or particularly, family run; do it again and you'd be banned for a year.  This got people's attention; as did good signage at the base of each lift, on top, and alongside key runs, pointing out the need for caution, slower speeds or control.  The ski areas need to get aggressive, and better police for the kinds of negligence we've been talking about. 
     I recommend that Charles forward this entire thread to every NW Ski Area's patrol and public relations head.  For our $40-$60 lift ticket, our expectations are pretty minimal - the lifts run, the foods hot and we end our day with a cold beer, not a cold slab under our battered body - for that we've always got the backcountry. 
   

My point is that I don't know that I agree that assuming fault is a one-way street is the only way to look at the situation. Rather, inexperience and a lack of ski etiquette cuts both ways in my experience.  

I think Skip adds a good perspective here. I've been aware of times when my significantly less than perfect technique has me taking lines that might put me in the way of people taking much straighter, faster ones. Try as I might to stay out of the way, it's hard on a tight run. Of course, that would not explain the time I got run over at Stevens... while standing still in the lift line of all places.

In the end this is likely a multifactorial problem. Unfortunately, one of those factors is something that only time can cure... adolescence.

As many have pointed out, the skier code, hence legal responsibility, makes it the overtaking skier or snowboarder's responsibility to avoid those below him or her, whether they are traveling down the fall line, or crossing, or going slower, erratically or stopped - or below a roll or jump.  Hitting someone is your responsibility. 

Very true.

Skiing at Mission Ridge with my son this weekend, I was reminded of the hazard of two skiers colliding with each other "from the side". My son is getting good enough to carry some speed on the groomers, and I'm becoming more aware of how quickly skiers can sideswipe each other when they converge from different sides of the run. Mission Ridge has a lot of runs that split and converge, and you really have to watch it at those convergence zones.

This may not be the sort of collision that results in deaths, but it could cause some nasty falls.

I think a big contributor to the problem these days is the quality of slope grooming. It is SO good that it's really easy to carry speed before you've got solid skills. And even if you do have solid skills, everybody is going faster, so the chance of "blind spot" collisions has gone up.

Slope grooming has caused a systemic problem. We need to think of systemic solutions. The only solution I can think of requires ski patrollers to function as speed cops.

Although I support policies that discourage unsafe skiing behavior and I believe that people should be held accountable for their unsafe behavior, I want to address something easy, and that's the issue of wearing a helmet.

I never wore a helmet for my first 30 years of skiing. For most of the last 8 years I even managed to rationalize not wearing a helmet while I required my 2 kids to wear helmets. As the years went by, however, the weakness of my logic became more evident and I now wear a helmet, both inbounds and backcountry. Here are some of my reasons:

1) I would wear a helmet climbing and biking and not wear one while skiing through narrow chutes past exposed rocks on steep slopes and then weaving through trees. It just seemed inconsistant not to wear a helmet while skiing.

2) I already engage in enough risky behavior (climbing and back country skiing) that it makes sense to minimize the risk whenever possible. It seems like a large percentage of deaths in the mountains are due to brain damage from a fall or a falling object, so why not reduce the odds of dieing that way. In addition, the one thing worse than dieing in the mountains is surviving a head injury that leaves you a vegetable or (worst yet) a drooling, confused, stumbling idiot. I figure a broken bone, messed up knee, or nasty bruise will heal, but a broken brain is the one thing I don't want to live with or have my family live with.

3) Now that my kids are old enough to disagree with pretty much everything I say, my only hope of actually influencing their behavior is to hope that they might model my behavior. So I try to ski, climb, drive, drink, and otherwise behave how I would want them to behave. (Just as long as they don't behave the way I did when I was young.)

I'm sure there are more reasons, but these are three of the biggies.