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Mt Bachelor being sued over death of 9yr old

crgildart

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"There's no such thing as ice in Colorado."

I skied Blue Knob many times, including at night.....you are so on target!
Ya I've been there when Extrovert was closed due to the icy ruts and a few rocks.. Then they opened it up for a minute.. Half the posse, mostly pretty good skiers, were picking up yard sales.. They closed it again an hour later.. There are definitely post ice storm or severely windblown terrain that isn't reasonably skiable and gets closed. It's usually obvious to everyone though, not a should we or shouldn't we close it situation.
 

KingGrump

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Might see banning people skiing in icy conditions; might see banning children from taking lifts that serve non beginner slopes. I mean just look at the newly regulated gas cans.

It's not the children. It's the clueless adults.

When the Kachina Peak chair first open. There were several signs at the lift corral entrance. Expert Only, No Easy Way Down, Skull and Crossed Bone and No Courtesy Ride. Gapers still insisted on riding the chair because they paid for their lift ticket. :nono:
Kept patrol very busy there for the season.

This is Kachina Peak. Not the most difficult terrain by far at Taos, but most visible. Oh yeah, it's new.
1659752531798.jpeg

Second year, management figured out they can't fix stupid so they moved the lift corral to the other side of the lift. It now requires a hike to get to the corral entrance. Where the fun begins.
The new lift corral can probably be rated as a solid black at most resorts. The corral is on a fairly steep downhill section. Usually icy with bumps and divots. Liberally strewed with sticks and rock. Then a hard left on the bottom. Totally intentional. Part of the weeding out qualification process.
Can't make it through the corral, you really don't belong on the chair.

Things are a lot more under control after the change.

Sometimes, I think the only one that can fix stupid is my good friend Chuck. :ogcool:
 
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aveski

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One time I was skiing Right Stuff at Sunday River after they had made snow on it. The top third was nice snow. Something had gone wrong with the bottom third. It was frozen over and extremely difficult to set an edge. We made our way down, but it was scary. They had closed it by the time we took the lift up.
Last season Barker was on wind hold or something and I decided to skin up. One of the patrollers said it was kind of sketchy but I decided to continue. Right Stuff didn't look too bad, but it's a good thing a groomer had gone down it. The only place I could set an edge was on the track.
If I had fallen either time, I probably would have been unable to self-arrest and the consequences would have been severe.
20211217_114701.jpg
 
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slowrider

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It's not the children. It's the clueless adults.

When the Kachina Peak chair first open. There were several signs at the lift corral entrance. Expert Only, No Easy Way Down, Skull and Crossed Bone and No Courtesy Ride. Gapers still insisted on riding the chair because they paid for their lift ticket. :nono:
Kept patrol very busy there for the season.

This is Kachina Peak. Not the most difficult terrain by far at Taos, but most visible. Oh yeah, it's new.
View attachment 174725

Second year, management figured out they can't fix stupid so they moved the lift corral to the other side of the lift. It now requires a hike to get to the corral entrance. Where the fun begins.
The new lift corral can probably be rated as a solid black at most resorts. The corral is on a fairly steep downhill section. Usually icy with bumps and divots. Liberally strewed with sticks and rock. Then a hard left on the bottom. Totally intentional. Part of the weeding out qualification process.
Can't make it through the corral, you really don't belong on the chair.

Things are a lot under control after the change.

Sometimes, I think the only one that can fix stupid is my good friend Chuck. :ogcool:
89338813_10157860813188913_7562877125477269504_n.jpg
 

eok

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Might see a company rule barring employees from discussing snow conditions with guests.
Bachelor in fact does a good job on their web site regularly alerting skiers about things like tree well dangers and snow immersion danger on deep days. This is usually on the daily conditions page.

Also, the daily conditions report will indeed mention icy/firm/fast conditions if they exist. But, as previously mentioned, conditions can change rapidly. What started as a soft groomer can turn into an ice sheet a few minutes after the temp drops.

So, Bachelor is already communicating conditions with guests via the web page. I don't see Bachelor stopping this practice. I don't see why employees can't communicate what's already on the Bachelor web site.
 

blue

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This review video date is Nov 2021 and the boy died in Jan 2021. The review says the mountain shuts down the summit when conditions are less than perfect. I don't know if this is a change after the boy's death, but if they always had this rule then they might be in deep legal trouble.
 

Andy Mink

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This review video date is Nov 2021 and the boy died in Jan 2021. The review says the mountain shuts down the summit when conditions are less than perfect. I don't know if this is a change after the boy's death, but if they always had this rule then they might be in deep legal trouble.
Since this isn't a Mt. Bachelor video, I don't know that it would carry weight in this suit. It mentions visibility, wind, and ice as factors in closing the Summit chair. It could be argued the ice factor is ice on the lift, not the ground. And defining perfect is so subjective. Bluebird and powder? Bluebird and firm groomers? Lots of bumps? If you asked 10 skiers what they think perfect is you'll likely get 10 different answers.
 

blue

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Since this isn't a Mt. Bachelor video, I don't know that it would carry weight in this suit. It mentions visibility, wind, and ice as factors in closing the Summit chair. It could be argued the ice factor is ice on the lift, not the ground. And defining perfect is so subjective. Bluebird and powder? Bluebird and firm groomers? Lots of bumps? If you asked 10 skiers what they think perfect is you'll likely get 10 different answers.
He says it's mt bachelor, it looks like mt bachelor, why is it not a mt bachelor video?
 

eok

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This review video date is Nov 2021 and the boy died in Jan 2021. The review says the mountain shuts down the summit when conditions are less than perfect. I don't know if this is a change after the boy's death, but if they always had this rule then they might be in deep legal trouble.
Typically, they shut down the lift when winds are too high or if the lift equipment (towers, haul cables, etc) are so iced the lift can't move. Other reasons that I've observed are the threat of lightning and (rare) so much overnight snowfall they need a day or so to dig the lift out.

If the review really said "less than perfect" then they're not good at reviews. "Less than perfect" is totally subjective and can mean almost anything.

Edit: Just watched the whole video. Sheesh! They're kind of stretching reality on their discussion of the Summit chair and it being closed so often. I mean, sure, locals are always grumping over Summit chair being closed after a good storm. And - yes - conditions can warrant closure for days at a time - but weeks or months?

We get the occasional juicy storm setup where the mountain is a windy snow globe for several days and the Summit chair could be closed during one of those sets. But I've never seen the Summit closed for "months".
 
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Andy Mink

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He says it's mt bachelor, it looks like mt bachelor, why is it not a mt bachelor video?
I mean it wasn't produced by Mt. Bachelor. It's a review by Peak Rankings which is not affiliated with MB.
 

skibum4ever

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"It's only ice if it's blue." - quote from my days of skiing Hunter Mountain.
 

Truberski

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I’m located in the middle of three ski area in Southern VT that are 15 to 20 minutes away. I won’t name the ski areas but anyone familiar with Manchester area can figure it out. One of them (my favorite) is pretty aggressive with opening up terrain and letting people ski it how it is. It can be spectacular or miserable (and damaging to your skis) but it tends to attract better riders and/or people accepting of the consequences of the terrain and conditions. I do worry that as this place gets more popular and “diverse“ that there is a higher risk of an issue like at Bachelor.

The other place is death by groomer and quick closures of the few steep runs when they get icy. Call me silly but I kind of like those challenging conditions and find it maddening when the patrol closes very skiable terrain. This same place mowed down their more serious terrain park last season after a series of accidents. Thankfully this approach is not the norm at the places I frequent and I hope risk mitigation doesn’t further degrade our sport.
 

crgildart

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I'm good with more ways to idiot proof access to terrain that's legit dangerous to those "I'm an expert but don't like to ski moguls" folks.


"WARNING!!!! NOTHING BUT GIANT RUTTED BULLETPROOF ICY MOGULS AHEAD. TURN BACK NOW IF YOU'RE NOT DOWN WITH THAT!!"
 
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KingGrump

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I'm good with more ways to idiot proof access to terrain that's legit dangerous to those "I'm an expert but don't like to ski moguls" folks.


"WARNING!!!! NOTHING BUT GIANT RUTTED BULLETPROOF ICY MOGULS AHEAD. TURN BACK NOW IF YOU'RE NOT DOWN WITH THAT!!"

Reading comprehension is not a strong suit with that crowd. Not to mention ADHD.
 

Philpug

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Heard this many times at multiple ski areas; go ski an injected race surface and then come back and talk about skiing on "ice".....
Then go ski in Pa and talk about skiing on "ice". ;)
 

David Chaus

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Several times I’ve been up the Summit chair at Bachelor the top 100 vertical feet or so had been wind-scoured and very sketchy on and off-piste, then conditions get better the rest of the way down. That’s also true of the Northwest chair.

Thing is, from the Summit there are marked trails on the trail map that are Blue runs, so people assume they can handle it because they were able to ski the other Blue runs all over the mountain. The idea of getting the top of the Summit is very appealing, so they are likely not taking into account the conditions at the top of a volcano at 9,000’ with 360 degrees of exposure and frequent winds, no trees and several rock outcroppings. It’s not the highest spot in the Cascades, but it’s the highest spot among ski resorts in the PNW with an unusual microclimate.
 

Tricia

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I was on the mt that day. Even an advanced rider would have not enjoyed the run down. The child straight lined from the top(couldn't stop) there was a rock ridge part way down...... OK I'm out.
When we were planning our trip to Bachelor in 2021, @Tom Co. recommended that we take the Summit Chair if it was open. At that time he was saying that the chair is often closed because conditions don't always cooperate. It was open so we skied it a few times.
I can say, the views were amazing, but I can absolutely see it being a challenge if you don't have your feet under you.

Not familiar with the area where this happened so who knows...

But..
This is the terrain they're talking about, although not likely the exact spot.
You can get going pretty fast and although you can't see much in this picture, there are several areas where rocks are visibly sticking out in the ungroomed areas, depending on snow coverage. IMG_5808.jpeg
 

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