Death at Stratton

[xlr8r]

The Ursa Access trail shown at about 42 seconds into this video is exactly where I broke my ankle & blew out my ACL last year. I know the trail had been closed last season & beginning of this season. Surprised to see that it's open again. There's two way traffic right behind the lift line ropes you see in the video & skiers/boarders usually gain quite a bit of speed to get around the ropes & to the beginning of the lift line without having to walk. I had assumed there was an accident there & that was the reason the trail was closed skiing towards Ursa from the American Express lift & upper mountain trails on that side. Skiers/boarders trying to get back to the lower mountain from Ursa are going in one direction while others are straight lining it from the other direction trying to make the lift. I don't know if this had anything to do with the accident but I can see where it could have if that's where the accident happened. I see they now put up fencing in that area. In my case the trail was closed but I couldn't see anything wrong with the trail. I didn't feel like walking uphill to the other traverse & didn't want to ski to the bottom & ride the lift up again to start over. I straight lined it trying to make the chair but hit something half way down that stopped my ski's dead & sent me flying like superman.

It's always sad to read about these incidents & my condolences go out to family & friends.

URSA Access is still closed. The accident happened on 91

 

[makado420]

I'm not saying I totally agree with Highway Star but I get what he's saying. Everytime something like this happens, people come up with all sorts of knee-jerk reactions thinking that some change will ensure it never happens again. The fact is skiing and snowboarding are dangerous sports. It ultimately comes down to the responsibility of the person to ensure their own safety. If the sign post wasn't there, it could've been a tree, or a rock, or another person, etc. There is no way to make the sport 100% safe. All we can do is educate ourselves, wear protective equipment, and do our best to minimize risks. But the fact remains that even with all that, injuries and deaths will still happen. If you can't handle that, stay home.

I'm really tired of the way our society tries to assign blame for every injury or death that occurs, and never want to say it was the victims fault, especially if the person is young. I don't know nearly enough about this incident to comment on it in particular. But very often, it is the victim's decisions and actions that lead to their demise. My heart goes out to this kid's friends and family. I'm sure they are devastated, but assigning undue blame will not bring their son back and it will not prevent the accident from happening.

Good comment


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