Death at Cannon

[dlague]

Why not put some racing catch fences up there? Other mountains have. Skylight used to some fencing but has not had it for a few years.

Killington's Great Northern has a turn right after the Snowdon Quad where a skier died going off the trail last year or the year before that and now they have a net there. And they also upgraded the trail to a blue trail. I have seen nets used at a couple other ski areas just cannot recall where right now.


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[Funky_Catskills]

Ravine is intermediate.

OK... Sketchy inbound terrain then...

 

[dlague]

Last time at Cannon a couple weeks ago, Upper Ravine was pretty icy and we ended up doing one run on it. That particular corner had snow all pushed up into the corner which is what I had use to stop to signal to my wife to slow down. My first time at Cannon was in April about 5 years ago and the ice was clear as glass on some runs and the width of the entire trail on Big Link and on Missing Link. Freaked my wife out - she learned how to ski across ice that day and not carve on it. It was their last weekend and they should have been closed.


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[dlague]

Last time at Cannon a couple weeks ago, Upper Ravine was pretty icy and we ended up doing one run on it. That particular corner had snow all pushed up into the corner which is what I had use to stop to signal to my wife to slow down. My first time at Cannon was in April about 5 years ago and the ice was clear as glass on some runs and the width of the entire trail on Big Link and on Missing Link. Freaked my wife out - she learned how to ski across ice that day and not carve on it. It was their last weekend and they should have been closed.


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[Griswold]

I am surprised the final turn on upper jester at sugarbush doesn't have a net or fence. I feel like you can easily hit some ice or catch and edge and launch yourself into the Valley


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[catskills]

Netting in that location might have been the only thing that could have saved him. That and/or fast response from patrol.

Video showing double netting on Belleayre's Onondaga intermediate trail

https://youtu.be/orNkZqejQzc?t=31

 

[deadheadskier]

That would be a good solution. Good on Bell. Has that fence been up long? Was it a reaction to prior accidents?

 

[drjeff]

With such a strong racing history at Cannon, one would think that the installation of some permanent A-netting in that area, given its apparent propensity for serious accidents involving skiers going off the maintained trail surface and into the woods would be an obvious answer to reduce risk without having to do some additional serious tree cutting and/or regrading of that area

 

[cdskier]

That would be a good solution. Good on Bell. Has that fence been up long? Was it a reaction to prior accidents?

That video was uploaded back in 2011 which is when I still skied at Belleayre on a pretty regular basis. Oddly enough I don't even remember it being there!

 

[rocks860]

I am surprised the final turn on upper jester at sugarbush doesn't have a net or fence. I feel like you can easily hit some ice or catch and edge and launch yourself into the Valley


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Yeah I was thinkin that when I was there on Saturday although I can't remember a time when that was super icy and sketchy in the many years I've been there. People tend to take those turns super tight and it builds up almost a banked turn but there's still 10-15 feet of flat after it

 

[yeggous]

I didn't know what super icy was until I did the Wildcat Vertical Challenge. Was the ice both transparent blue and three-dimensional? It literally adds a whole new dimension to ice.


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[Highway Star]

Killington's Great Northern has a turn right after the Snowdon Quad where a skier died going off the trail last year or the year before that and now they have a net there.

None of this is true at all.

 

[wtcobb]

Hindsight is always 20/20.

Hindsight may be 20/20, but failure to assess and correct for future mistakes is 0/0.

 

[Funky_Catskills]

Hindsight may be 20/20, but failure to assess and correct for future mistakes is 0/0.

 

[dlague]

None of this is true at all.

You are an idiot!

December 2013 - Ski patrol found Strohl around 5 p.m. Thursday, off the Great Northern Trail.

 

[Funky_Catskills]

You are an idiot!

December 2013 - Ski patrol found Strohl around 5 p.m. Thursday, off the Great Northern Trail.

2013 isn't the year before..

Just sayin...

 

[skiberg]

The problem with permanent A netting is that most of the netting on the hill is installed by FSC. They don't use Ravine to train, so its left up to the mountain and they have no real racing pedigree.

Interesting though is that FSC identified several areas that were dangerous on the new Baron's and they are installing "A" netting at their own expense this summer. So it can be done.

 

[Jcb890]

Mount Snow also has some netting on their Long John trail where there's a tight swooping left-hand turn. I put that netting to good use a couple of Sundays ago and it kept me up near the trail so I could get my footing and climb back up. I had my board down in-front of me so I don't think I would have gotten hurt too badly, but it would have been a huge pain to climb back up to the trail or find my way out of the woods there. I was just dumb and didn't dig my heel in enough to make the turn and slid too far wide... it was also my last run of the day.

Also, Long John isn't used for any kind of training or any kind of racing, so the mountain must maintain the netting on that corner.

Seems like there is pretty much no reason for Cannon to not put up some netting there on that corner, especially if there has been more than one fatal accident in that same spot.

 

[deadheadskier]

The problem with permanent A netting is that most of the netting on the hill is installed by FSC. They don't use Ravine to train, so its left up to the mountain and they have no real racing pedigree.

Interesting though is that FSC identified several areas that were dangerous on the new Baron's and they are installing "A" netting at their own expense this summer. So it can be done.

Why would / should FSC have anything to do with skier safety measures on non-venue trails? Netting is used at other mountains and I'm sure it's not all maintained by racing organizations. This should be a ski patrol / mountain ops duty and one that is maintained daily.

 

[Not Sure]

Wow. So two people in our rather small AZ community have had bad crashes that could very easily have resulted in deaths at this very specific area on Cannon. It makes me wonder how many other people have gone off here and escaped mostly unscathed? Many of these crashes probably don't get reported to Patrol.
It really does seem like a layer of race netting could very easily be set up on that stretch.

I worked at "Little Gap" now Blue Mountain in the 80's back then they had a trail map with push pins to identify the areas where accidents occurred . Pretty simple way to identify trouble spots . Doesn't seem like that would be needed for that spot as it's freaking obvious.