Another sad story of a hit and run incident

[François Pugh]

Ripcord – Redpoint Travel Protection

www.ripcordrescuetravelinsurance.com

Skier fatalities: Myths about who dies, and where, debunked

The average person who died on the slopes of U.S. ski resorts during the 2015-16 season was a 30-something experienced male skier wearing a helmet who hit a tree going too fast on an intermediate r…

www.denverpost.com

https://health.ucdavis.edu/children/download/sports_medicine/Skiing%20Injuries.pdf

From ^^: "Snow conditions affect injury patterns, as well. Hard pack snow generally yields high-speed and impact injuries. Powder and heavy snow is associated with more torsional or twisting injuries. Quick changes in snow conditions, such as hitting the line between groomed and ungroomed snow, may cause a fall that leads to an injury."

High speed is how you die. Torsional is how you end a season, but usually not a life.

Gee, maybe I need to stop wearing my helmet . No wait, I'm safe; way over 37 now.

Of course higher speeds are deadlier. We don't need a study to know that.

Lot's of skiers don't sharpen their edges every night. Dull edges matter when the snow is hard and icy, and cause more accidents? Who knew?

As far as the scenario of out of control high speed skier colliding with skier ahead of them (breaking rule 1 and rule 2), I don't think less grooming will cure the problem. Speeders are going to speed, whether they have a groomed run to ski on or not. Also, if speeders have fewer groomed runs to ski on, their preferred terrain, we will just have a higher concentration of them on those runs (along with more beginners on them), making the collisions more likely.

 

[LiquidFeet]

So it's the speedsters who cause the crashes, not the terrain, the groomers, the weather, the snow conditions, the bumps, or the slow skiers in front of them? Who would have thought?

Maybe something needs to be done about the speedsters.

 

[scott43]

High speed is how you die. Torsional is how you end a season, but usually not a life.

This kinda reminds me of my motorcycle years..all bikers rail against cars. left-turners etc...the reality is the #1 motorcycle fatality situation is single motorcycle leaves roadway at high speed... Usually the 18-25 crowd and, somewhat unsurprisingly, the over 50 crowd...

 

[HardDaysNight]

Speeders are going to speed, whether they have a groomed run to ski on or not.

Bumps slow even the most inured speedsters. This is a common observation. As is the fact that most habitual speeders are in reality low-skill skiers whose penchant for speed is owing to the fact that they can’t actually make decent turns! Ungroomed terrain blows them up.

 

[François Pugh]

So it's the speedsters who cause the crashes, not the terrain, the groomers, the weather, the snow conditions, the bumps, or the slow skiers in front of them? Who would have thought?

Maybe something needs to be done about the speedsters.

Yup. Speeding too fast for the conditions.
I got that question wrong the first time I took my driver's licence written test; winter driving accidents are most often caused by driving too fast for conditions, not by ice. I saw the same question years later when I got my motorcycle license and got it right!

 

[François Pugh]

Bumps slow even the most inured speedsters. This is a common observation. As is the fact that most habitual speeders are in reality low-skill skiers whose penchant for speed is owing to the fact that they can’t actually make decent turns! Ungroomed terrain blows them up.

I speak from experience; I am a reformed adrenaline junkie spead freak.

 

[PlainsSkier]

Grooming makes the mountain much more accessible, not sure we need to make the sport more difficult than it already is for beginners. Just start pulling passes if people are going to ski like clowns or make them take a mandatory class to get it back.

 

[crgildart]

Ripcord – Redpoint Travel Protection

www.ripcordrescuetravelinsurance.com

Skier fatalities: Myths about who dies, and where, debunked

The average person who died on the slopes of U.S. ski resorts during the 2015-16 season was a 30-something experienced male skier wearing a helmet who hit a tree going too fast on an intermediate r…

www.denverpost.com

https://health.ucdavis.edu/children/download/sports_medicine/Skiing%20Injuries.pdf

I've seen more than one pretty good skier hook an edge of a high performance shaped carving ski and hurtle in to the woods while frantically flailing totally unable to disengage the ski because they're then too far off balance. A modern shaped ski is way harder to unhook or bail out on than old straight skis were, and also radically changes direction sending the rider in a different direction than the straight skis did. So, it's grooming and shaped skis both contributing to that perfect storm of death in to the woods.

 

[SBrown]

So it's the speedsters who cause the crashes, not the terrain, the groomers, the weather, the snow conditions, the bumps, or the slow skiers in front of them? Who would have thought?

Maybe something needs to be done about the speedsters.

Speed doesn't cause a crash. Speed causes injury if/when you crash. There is some in-between-ness here, too, in that speed makes it more difficult to recover from a bobble, but I'm not comfortable saying that speedsters cause crashes. Speed makes crashes worse. And it's harder to get "up to speed" on ungroomed slopes. That is the argument.

 

[Goose]

Um, not really subjective. Words have meanings. "Minor" injuries are those that don't threaten your life or livelihood.

"Anyone" would think this who has been around skiing for a while. I'm inching up on 50 yr on skis, with relatives and close friends who are patrollers, paramedics, nurses, etc. Shall we ask our resident patrollers?

Thanks for the vocab lesson but a word like "minor" by its very nature is indeed subjective and certainly mostly only relative to something else and or a given level of comparison.
Some would consider a broken leg a major injury in its own right or also when vs other things. But a minor injury vs other different things. And since you (at first) were not more specific it then left some question as to just what you considered "minor" and how it would relate to the rest of your post/s. Hence my question on that part.
Your place of relevance for using "minor" is now more clear as being an injury of no threat to life or livelihood and thats better understood now.

That aside Im still uncertain if Id agree that resorts were to scale back groomed that there would be so many less injuries and danger. But I could be wrong .
Though I still feel we may be limiting one aspect for injury but adding other aspects.

But regardless which opinion is correct, there may be a whole other side to consider as well.
I think we have to remember that most people among the masses ski on groomers most the time. especially in the east. So where there are more people there will by default be more fails. Hence more collisions. And if we scale back the grooming we add more people to more crowded groomers therefore increasing collision rates. So indirectly related reasons the idea even if correct still may not work and probably doesnt.

Not even to mention on a totally separate note, the reasons ski participation would drop if grooming were scaled back or never would have expanded as much as it did in the first place through the years but thats a whole other subject I suppose.

 

[Goose]

Also being from the east and at my age now vs my younger days I love groomers. I enjoy carving groomers and different various turn radiuses and timing and different steepness's in slope. and like to ski technical (as i can..lol) etc,etc.
I do not run the Streif (although downhil is my fav event to watch).
and even my younger days when i payed anywhere I could on the mountain I still was never one to blast down a groomer like bat out of hell. Was always more into turning, controlling technique. But thats just me.
Point being is that especially here on the overcrowded zoos of the small hills why should I or the countless skiers like me suffer the loss of grooming which results in having less choice of runs/trails to explore all because some percentage of idiots just cant respect everyone else?

 

[Brad J]

I disagree with the premiss that if there was more un groomed slopes the groomed slope would be busier. If the snow is good most good skiers flock to the un groomed mostly for the challenges that off piste skiing gives you. IMO speed by the unskilled skier or rider is the problem on the groomed slopes especially in the morning when the groom is fresh. By 3 pm speeds are way down as the trails get bumped up and icy. The un skilled can't handle the conditions and the skilled use the deteriorated conditions to work on turn shape, balance from Ice to dense granular piles, ect.

 

[SBrown]

Point being is that especially here on the overcrowded zoos of the small hills why should I or the countless skiers like me suffer the loss of grooming which results in having less choice of runs/trails to explore all because some percentage of idiots just cant respect everyone else?

Well, overall death rates are quite low, so I don't argue that they necessarily should reduce grooming. Personally, as I said, I wouldn't mind, but I respect your point. That doesn't mean that fewer groomers wouldn't end up in fewer deaths. I still think that is definitely true, and that is what I was addressing. It's like debating speed limits ... we have accepted higher rates of death in return for more efficiency while driving. If everyone never drove faster than 35 mph, there would be far fewer deaths. If the universal speed limit were 5 mph, there would be very very very few deaths from auto accidents. We don't do that, but it would work. That's all.

 

[Blue Streak]

Skiing out of control is like pornography.
You know it when you see it.

 

[Goose]

Well, overall death rates are quite low, so I don't argue that they necessarily should reduce grooming. Personally, as I said, I wouldn't mind, but I respect your point. That doesn't mean that fewer groomers wouldn't end up in fewer deaths. I still think that is definitely true, and that is what I was addressing. It's like debating speed limits ... we have accepted higher rates of death in return for more efficiency while driving. If everyone never drove faster than 35 mph, there would be far fewer deaths. If the universal speed limit were 5 mph, there would be very very very few deaths from auto accidents. We don't do that, but it would work. That's all.

LOL but oh please dont get me started on the topic of highway speed limits vs failing to keep right and a whole bunch of other driving stuff. Ive got a whole world of $#!t i could ramble on about so i wont go there. At least not now not in this thread. . thats one tender topic that gets me going. LOL

 

[SBrown]

LOL but oh please dont get me started on the topic of highway speed limits vs failing to keep right and a whole bunch of other driving stuff. Ive got a whole world of $#!t i could ramble on about so i wont go there. At least not now not in this thread. . thats one tender topic that gets me going. LOL

I agree, PLEASE don't get started. It was just an illustration to make a point.

 

[crgildart]

Speed doesn't cause a crash. Speed causes injury if/when you crash. There is some in-between-ness here, too, in that speed makes it more difficult to recover from a bobble, but I'm not comfortable saying that speedsters cause crashes. Speed makes crashes worse. And it's harder to get "up to speed" on ungroomed slopes. That is the argument.

This s the same thing as saying the fall off the bridge doesn't kill you... It's the sudden stop at the bottom hitting the ground that kills you..

 

[scott43]

I once argued with a relatively smart rational person that higher speed crashes have more energy and cause more damage. He could not agree with that and nothing I said could convince him. I don't know what you do with someone like that. Drop them off a building several times at differing heights maybe to prove the point...

 

[crgildart]

I once argued with a relatively smart rational person that higher speed crashes have more energy and cause more damage. He could not agree with that and nothing I said could convince him. I don't know what you do with someone like that. Drop them off a building several times at differing heights maybe to prove the point...

Well, once you're beyond terminal velocity, a little higher makes no difference..

 

[dovski]

Interesting reading this thread and very sad. Many skiers do not realize how dangerous it can be to ski at high speed on a crowded hill.

We have a friend who is a good skier, but he likes to go straight down the hill to try a set speed records sometimes getting as high as 70 mph. Now his go to ski is an older soul 7 and he leans back when he skis. Last year a group of us held an intervention where we called him out for both his own good and the good of those who are skiing on the same mountain with him. Long story short he adjusted his skiing for a bit, but based on the data from his slopes app this season he is back at it again ... time for intervention number 2.

For some reason some people have this Super Man syndrome when skiing and think they are invincible. Unfortunately this eventually leads to disaster as everyone catches an edge or hits a rut in flat light from time to time and at high speeds when that happens you are going to hurt yourself and likely someone around you.