BC Etiquette

Sorry Joe, I have no doubt that you have more insight into "common skier knowledge and etiquette" than I, but I plainly reject the notion that it is improper to ski over someone's tracks.  (or is it just your tacks?)

If you ski before me, great for you, you can choose, unencumbered, where to lay your turns.  When it is my turn to ski, I will assume my own autonomy as to where to lay my tracks.  I am likely to find as fresh a line as I can, but if part of my chosen line is left of yours and part is right, I will spare no consideration for the preservation of your tracks.  If it is important to you that your tracks are left undisturbed until nature sees fit to erase them, perhaps you should ski last and place your turns in the isolation that they deserve.  

Castles in the sand buddy.

I can bend on the notion that sometimes you have to cross the top of a line to lay down your own stuff like crossing a skin track, but flat out destroying a ski down track is like walking on a golfers line before they putt. Like you said I try to position myself so that does not happen. like going last. Maybe it's the new age rage and I've become an old duffer and out of touch.
I went helicopter skiing once and only once. The two guys in the group we did not know always skied on top of our tracks when there was a ton of untouched powder to be skied all around us. After a while I let it go so I would have a good time and not let my principals get in the way of my happiness.
Do I want to be happy or do I want to be right?

Totally disagree with my friend SnowBell on  leaving a partner to go home alone. When you agree to to do a tour together you agree to look after each other  like the  "esprit de cordee" exhibited in mountaineering. That is why you must be careful in choosing partners with equal aspirations, experience and risk tolerance for a serious tour. However once the pact has been made ..it should be honored.

Good, I thought that you would.

You know me well enough to be comfortable with my loyalty and honor. (I hope)  We have, I seem to recall, come across this situation together with our partners.  Obviously, there will be situations where it is imperative for the group to stay together.  What I object to is the blanket notion that anytime a decenter in the group emerges, that it is required by etiquette for the entire group to retreat to the comfort level of the black bean bearer.   Sometimes, it is plainly reasonable for the group to split, (4 or more) which is a strategy that we have employed in the past.  I have had plenty of experiences when I used to run the side country with rowdy skiers where I demured from a line and had to find my own, less exposed way to the bottom.   That always seemed reasonable to me. If someone is not capeable of skiing a pitch alone here and there, perhaps they have over estimated the protection that their group provides them.

I do not intend to propose a flat "every man for himself" doctrine, rather I believe that when we tour the back country, we should look out for one another but be primarily responsible for ourselves and prepared to accept the terrain and conditions that we are likely to encounter.  I always try to keep the group together and am successful 95% of the time.  I just don't like the presumption that we will be attached at the hip for the day and must ski the exact same slopes all of the time, particularly when stability is solid and getting lost is a non issue.
(not to say that Scotsman does)

Castles in the Sand!

^^^^^I think its an experience thing.   When I was less experienced than I am now( and I know... I'm still a gaper)... I would regularily follow the other person's tracks down a bowl because I was scared of the avy danger and thought that if I skied in the same tracks it would lessen my risk of hitting a pocket ( doesn't make a lot of sense when you understand avy slope more).
I try and pick an independant line now.

Same thing happend last year, when I was putting first tracks down a bowl and we had seen some vicious windslab cracking on the ridge. The others I was with skied down my tracks almost exactly ( not all of them but most of them)and at the bottom they admitted they were worried about the avy conditions and skied down my tracks as they thought that would lessen their risk.

I can bend on the notion that sometimes you have to cross the top of a line to lay down your own stuff like crossing a skin track, but flat out destroying a ski down track is like walking on a golfers line before they putt.

It would seem to be a bit more like walking across a golfers line AFTER they putt, right?  The practical implications are moot.  
If I could lay down as attractive set of tracks as you do, I would probably propose such a standard of etiquette as well; but alas, I am a just a hound looking for powder.  

Is this why we only seem to ski together in the spring?

Maybe it's the new age rage and I've become an old duffer and out of touch.

The only time you have ever seemed old to me was just now when you said "duffer."

Don't sheep farmers use a thing called a raddle (?) to mark with a colored dye which ewes have been "covered" by the rams?

Perhaps a similar device would allow us to pick out the track crossers?

Edit: for Scottie, a picture