Nighttime sled poach=death at Carinthia

legalskier · Mar 25, 2013

NY man poaches Carinthia half-pipe at night and crashes into lodge support beam.....despite signage warning against sledding.
Leaves behind a grieving family who own second home in area.

www.dvalnews.com/view/full_story/22...-sledding-accident?instance=home_news_bullets

steamboat1 · Mar 25, 2013

Yeah I read that last week. Sad story.

deadheadskier · Mar 25, 2013

bummer

I can't recall ever hearing about people dying while sledding at ski hills. This makes 2 in 1 season.

drjeff · Mar 25, 2013

Its about 100 feet from the bottom of the 1/2 pipe to the deck on the front of the Carinthia lodge. I took a little closer look at it this past weekend and right now theres about a 2 to maybe 3 foot difference between the top of the snowpack and the bottom of the deck framing. When there's no snow on the ground infront of the deck, the deck is about 10 feet off the ground

LasersInTheTaiga · Mar 25, 2013

Wow, that sucks. I have the standard thoughts about safety and advisability of sledding in the dark, but it's really sad to see people injured or killed a) having fun in the snow and b) doing something that usually isn't life-threateningly dangerous.

Nick · Mar 25, 2013

It's funny, growing up sledding you think it's not really that dangerous. But a ski slope is (usually) so much steeper / longer / bigger / faster than typical sledding hill. I mean when you think about it if you barrel down on skis most runs, even blues, you can very very easily hit 35 - 40 mph in short time. That's above typical sledding speeds.

BenedictGomez · Mar 25, 2013

I'm going to assume alcohol was involved.

skiNEwhere · Mar 25, 2013

Nick said:
if you barrel down on skis most runs, even blues, you can very very easily hit 35 - 40 mph in short time. That's above typical sledding speeds.

Yup. Except you can't really stop on a sled. Which that guy probably didn't realize until it was too late.

o3jeff · Mar 25, 2013

Nick said:
It's funny, growing up sledding you think it's not really that dangerous. But a ski slope is (usually) so much steeper / longer / bigger / faster than typical sledding hill. I mean when you think about it if you barrel down on skis most runs, even blues, you can very very easily hit 35 - 40 mph in short time. That's above typical sledding speeds.

Sad story.

I've sledded down Mt Southington during my younger drunken days. On a plastic sled on packed snow that is frozen over, you end up with a ton of speed and you have very little control other than bailing off to stop.

wa-loaf · Mar 25, 2013

A couple years ago some company was promoting these back country sleds and had some vids of them sledding the woods. So some dudes got some and decided to sled the woods at Wachusett. One of them of course hit something and didn't make it.

ss20 · Mar 25, 2013

Nick said:
It's funny, growing up sledding you think it's not really that dangerous. But a ski slope is (usually) so much steeper / longer / bigger / faster than typical sledding hill. I mean when you think about it if you barrel down on skis most runs, even blues, you can very very easily hit 35 - 40 mph in short time. That's above typical sledding speeds.

Yeah, and when you're hitting those kind of speeds you can be just a few feet from a tree or a lift tower. Not to mention skiing next to a cliff that can be hundreds of feet down to the ground.

C-Rex · Mar 26, 2013

Not to sound insensitive to the guys family but this is Darwin Award material. I mean, that was just really dumb. Alcohol had to be involved. I am a bit surprised that it was an older guy with a family. I would have expected someone in their late teens/early twenties and single. Most people with families have better self preservation instincts.

Glenn · Mar 26, 2013

BenedictGomez said:
I'm going to assume alcohol was involved.

I don't think it was. I'll see if I can dig up the article that was in the local paper up there.

o3jeff · Mar 26, 2013

The last line of the article linked in the first post said they do not believe alcohol was a factor.

bvibert · Mar 26, 2013

wa-loaf said:
A couple years ago some company was promoting these back country sleds and had some vids of them sledding the woods. So some dudes got some and decided to sled the woods at Wachusett. One of them of course hit something and didn't make it.

That company was based in the MRV, if I remember correctly.

David Metsky · Mar 26, 2013

bvibert said:
That company was based in the MRV, if I remember correctly.

http://www.madriverrocket.com/ - The Mad River Rocket?

bvibert · Mar 26, 2013

David Metsky said:
http://www.madriverrocket.com/ - The Mad River Rocket?

That's the one I was thinking of.

BenedictGomez · Mar 26, 2013

David Metsky said:
http://www.madriverrocket.com/ - The Mad River Rocket?

Dear God, that website video is lawsuit research background material waiting to happen. The part where he goes off of a house's roof in that thing at 0:15?

Clearly very safe. (sarcasm)

Frankly, all it looks like is a plastic toboggan that you're strapped into.

o3jeff · Mar 26, 2013

My knees hurt just watching that.

spring_mountain_high · Mar 26, 2013

when i was a kid we went to bolton valley alot and would sled down the very end of the (very flat) condo run and would get going so fast we'd crash into the condos...i guess my point is you can get going reallllly fast in a very short distance even on a mellow slope with a sled on hardpack

Nighttime sled poach=death at Carinthia

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