On slope collisions

[WakeboardMom]

I agree with those who have said that they're aware of everything going on around them. I would never use headphones; I like hearing people approaching me from behind. I'm very good at keeping my head up, because I had an instructor point out to me a long time ago that I was going to get into trouble looking down at my ski tips!

Interesting that this thread popped up here today, because I had an experience at SR on Saturday that got me thinking about "It's the uphill skier's responsibility..." Here's a question for you guys. What about folks coming out of a tree run? I had a young kid come FLYING out of the trees without looking, heading straight for the middle of the trail where I was skiing. Because I was skiing close to the side of the trail, and she launched herself out of the woods, If she had come out a couple of seconds later, I would've hit her. Plain and simple.

How is that my fault? There is no way I could've known she was going to appear in front of me like that.

Seconds later, a little bit further down, her friend popped out, but used caution, stopping as she came out of the woods, and before she entered the trail.

According to the code, I would've been at fault, no? I've gone over this in mind a bunch of times looking for a solution, because it scares me to think about what could've happened. I don't think there is one...except to try to be aware.

 

[Paul]

According to the code, I would've been at fault, no? I've gone over this in mind a bunch of times looking for a solution, because it scares me to think about what could've happened. I don't think there is one...except to try to be aware.

No. I'd consider this the same as a merging trail. It is the responsibility of the skier merging onto the trail to yield.

 

[Highway Star]

I just discussed this with my wife and I guess I gotta accept that I am at fault here.

Insert little devilish icon here! So.... I am standing near the bottom of a run, having just stopped and someone is coming. I jump out right in front of him, not looking to see if it is clear, and there is an impact. Since I am moving, I am now the downhill skier, yes? He has to yield to me and he is at fault, yes?

I know, I know, I'm making this out to be more than it is.

A couple that I almost always do differently. First, I passed on the back side of a boarder. Certainly my right to ski where I want to, but not my smartest move. He was obviously not an expert but had some decent ability to control himself. Truly, I always watch out for challenged skiers and riders. I annoy my wife that I won't ski some trails because there are beginners on it. They don't need me flying by them, and I hate being held up like that. I'm always waiting for the trail to clear out.

Also, generally speaking I give a much wider berth, but judging from what I saw of him, I thought the berth was wide enough. Berths are going to be a bit wider now, and I'll stick to the never the blind side of a snowboarder. Assume none of them will turn their heads and look. It is much more of a head turn than a skier would need, in all fairness. I have seen some who do, and when I mentioned it to them, they were quite proud of how much they keep their heads on swivel.

In any case, I am glad no one was hurt other than me. Bench presses are a little tough tonight. More dedication to safety on the slopes.

On the subject of yelling, a very loud "HEY!"shouted before it's too late is always useful. People can localize instantly where you are without having to think.....uuuh, what right?

I will shout before the irratic person actually makes their move. If they are already cutting in front of you, it's too late.

On a crowded traverse, lasting 30+ seconds, I have shouted as much as 3-5 times.

 

[57stevey]

On the subject of yelling, a very loud "HEY!"shouted before it's too late is always useful. People can localize instantly where you are without having to think.....uuuh, what right?

Maybe... or it could startle them into making a sudden turn...

Where are you guys skiing that there is all this traffic anyway? It sounds like NASCAR-style pack racing to me. Seems to me if I can hear another skier behind me then they are already too damned close.

 

[Skier75]

Okay, guess I have to say something here....as Deadheadskier has noticed(or maybe not), I'm not a fast skier, although at times I feel I am....depends who I'm skiing with. Definately not with Deadhead.....LOL...
Anyways I came down after the fact and wondered what happened, didn't see the incident. All I saw was him picking himself up along with his skis with the father apologizing, the boy looked a little, maybe, embarrassed??? Dunno... Guess hubby should've either went further around him, on the other side of him or stopped. Stinks that accidents do happen, just have to try to avoid them, if you can.

But this is my take on those situations, since I am not that fast a skier, but find myself going faster than a beginner, I always scream on your right or left whichever works, sometimes yes I will scream it more than once. There have been many times that by the time I reach the bottom to catch up with hubby, he's' wondering what happened, I say got stuck behind someone I couldn't get around for a bit.....if I can't safely get by them, then I wait. I'd rather be safe than sorry. Most of my accidents have been of my own accord...if'n I'm gonna get hurt, I'd rather do it myself, than someone else.

I have had few close calls though. Not to pick on snowboarders, but it was with them most times. Once at SR a kid went flying by me pretty close, kinda dusted me, laughing about it. I didn't care so much about the dusting, but the fact that he was wayyy too close for comfort, almost knocked me over. So not too far from me he fell, so I went by him and gave him a little dust with a few choice words to go along with it and called him a jerk. He was a bit surprised, I thought he deserved what he got. There were some other instances about the same thing, them boarding way too close to you. I think I'm a fairly good skier, but when they ski/board wayy too close for comfort, it make me nervous. Like I said if I'm gonna get hurt I'd rather it be my own fault than anyone else's.... Just my opinion.

 

[WakeboardMom]

No. I'd consider this the same as a merging trail. It is the responsibility of the skier merging onto the trail to yield.

Thank you. The kid scared the crap outta me. I'm old. I could break something easily. I also wouldn't want to hurt the kid.

 

[WJenness]

I had a bit of a collision on skis this past Saturday.

I was at Sunday River for the weekend (GREAT weekend), I got off the Tempest lift, and was headed over to South Ridge to meet a buddy who was doing the intro snowboard class...

There was a race going on on Cascades (Snowboard GS), so they had the trail fenced off, with a small opening and a SR employee acting as traffic cop.

The snow approaching the gate in the fence was pretty scraped off, and when the employee tried to shuffle some people through the gate, There was a funnel effect that I kind of got stuck in the middle of from people not being able to stop on the scraped surface... I had a small girl (6-8ish) slide in to me, and that sent me sliding into the guy in front of me (on K2 cabrawlers), the girl ended up going down, I managed to keep from falling and keep the other guy on his feet...

It was all very low speed, one of those things where you see it happen in very slow motion and just can't do anything about it.

Don't really think there was much 'fault' to go around on this one and no one got hurt... but it was definitely my first on slope collision.

-w

 

[mondeo]

I take the SR-71 approach to skier/boarder missile evasion. The faster you're going when you pass someone, the less time they have to come across the trail to hit you.

 

[57stevey]

In any case, I am glad no one was hurt other than me. Bench presses are a little tough tonight. More dedication to safety on the slopes.

Bob, perhaps I have playing devil's advocate a bit here and I certainly wouldn't want you to take anything personally. The fact that you came here to sound everyone out shows that you took the incident seriously, and you are thinking about what you yourself can do going forward, so good on you sir. I was just dismayed in general at the amount of debate here, when the code itself seems to be completely unambiguous... any downhill skier/rider not entering the trail has the right of way, period. Period.

I understand your wish to be aware of what's behind you, but I can only speak from my personal experience. I would say I am an advanced but not expert skier. At many of the places I ski, I am one of the faster skiers on the trail, so I spend a fair amount of time overtaking. I really do not want the person ahead of me guessing what I am going to do and trying compensate... I take the responsibility to try and anticipate all the things they might do and put myself in a position to deal with whatever might transpire. So if they are making short turns down the left margin of the trail and then suddenly decide to take that cutoff to the right, I figure I should have seen that the cutoff is there. If I'm looking over my shoulder to see what's going on behind me, maybe I don't see what's about to occur. Now when I go to someplace like Cannon where I am one of the slower skiers, I just ski the way I ski, and have faith that anyone overtaking me is competent enough to have my back. Maybe this approach fails on a Saturday at Sunapee, but that's the kind of environment I try to avoid altogether.

As far as boarders sitting in the middle of the trail, I am told that it's easier for them to get themselves going again since they can go to either side. Once I grasped this, I stopped getting mad at them and started just skiing around them.

Anyway, thanks for bringing this to the table.

 

[RootDKJ]

I clipped a dude I was riding with last night. He decided to sit down right on the backside of a jump, about a foot down from the lip, as I was coming over the top. By some miracle, my ski tip only clipped the tricep area on his right arm as I was now trying to land one legged and keep my balance.

I apolgized profusily, and the 1st thing he said was "that was a stupid place to sit down". Damn right. We had a Smartstyle review on the next lift ride up, and by the time we got to the top, his arm didn't hurt any more.

 

[andyaxa]

Echoing what Steve said, I think it's a good topic to discuss and obviously Bob is a thoughtful skier. Thanks for bringing it up.

It seems we all agree that in the end, bottom line, the responsibility unequivocally lies with the uphill skier unless merging, entering etc below. Period. As Billski pointed out a number of posts back, what makes the mountain challenging traffic-wise is the varying abilities that might exist on a given trail at any moment. I guess the debate/discussion is not who is responsible but how defensively we each choose to ski. I am one of the slower skiers on the steeper slopes and prone to changing course, slowing etc. I don't usually overtake anyone unless they are sitting down in the trail. My concentration is focused ALMOST 100% downslope, but if I need to make a radical change and IF I have time and can check uphill safely I will. I will also instruct my kids to do the same, because unfortunately not all the skiers overtaking us are Alpine Zoners. If my seven year old would have actually been hit last week, she would probably be in the hospital now. Would it have been the uphill skiers fault? Yep. Could it have been averted by checking uphill briefly before suddenly traversing 2/3 of the trail? You bet. I don't want to put my faith and my three daughters' safety in the hands of people I don't know, if I don't have to.

 

[57stevey]

Can't argue with that logic Andy. Thanks

 

[SIKSKIER]

100% responsibility of the overtaking skier.No ifs ands or buts. I might get passed 3 or 4 times a year at most so I pretty much pass a lot of people every run.It does not matter that the skier your overtaking is skiing irradically and turns unexspected in your path.Youmust expect that to happen and gauge your turns accordingly.I actually really enjoy the art of overtaking any one in front of me by varying my turns to be the exact opposite at that moment.See you later.Probably not.

 

[catskillman]

Sorry but you were definitly at fault.

Instructors are supposed to teach this & the responsibility is part of the PSIA exam.


What I keep hearing more & more about are serious injuries caused by individuals jumping over obstacles and hitting some innocent person below. Spotters must always be used before jumping.

2 major injuries at Hunter this season - race kid jumped (no spotter), snowboarder sitting on snow below. He tried to avoid and the kid (jumper) ended up with punctured lung, borken collarbone, ribs..........

Same thing last week except the non jumper got hit by a snowboarder jumping. He has 9 broken ribs and a punctured collarbone. And every part of him is sore, bruiised and /or cut.

 

[catskills]

There is someone else that is responsible here that has not been mentioned in this thread. The RESORT also has a responsibility to design the ski area in such away as to not over crowd trails with large number of skiers and riders. This is especially true in early Nov/Dec season when their are a limited number of trails open.

I skied at Mt Snow on a Dec 15 Saturday once with an intermediate skier friend. The only trail off the top was Deer Run. There were so many people on that trail I though I was going to get killed. My technique getting down that day was ski faster than anyone else and then stop behind a tree to wait for my friend.

On the other end of the spectrum is Plattekill. Plattekill has the least skier/rider density on their trails.

 

[andyaxa]

... then stop behind a tree to wait for my friend.

Love that visual!

 

[bigbog]

SUV Steve nailed it.."anticipation". That's the word that was escaping me in earlier reply. Have to anticipate to the max these days. Much like blowdowns up here outside the resort.

 

[campgottagopee]

Gotta say, after all this discussion, I am glad that it stayed discussion, and did not degenerate into arguing.

What I am taking out of this is I need to place more emphasis on safety, first of all. Second, I am getting it that the downhill skier has absolute right of way, no matter what. Beginner, intermediate, expert, in over their heads on this trail, stupid idiot, doesn't matter, if they are downhill, they have the right of way. I also guess if someone cuts anyone off, that is their right or prerogative, since they are downhill and looking where they are going and not looking back up hill.

I'll be skiing accordingly. And most of all, no injuries to anyone, myself included. Let's keep this fun for all.

Amen to that!!!!

We had a near collision yesterday invovling 2 of my very close friends, it could've been VERY bad due to the speed we were skiing at. Just one of those fluke things, and glad we were all able to laugh about it over a beer. I shutter to think what might have happened.

 

[SKidds]

I just discussed this with my wife and I guess I gotta accept that I am at fault here.

Insert little devilish icon here! So.... I am standing near the bottom of a run, having just stopped and someone is coming. I jump out right in front of him, not looking to see if it is clear, and there is an impact. Since I am moving, I am now the downhill skier, yes? He has to yield to me and he is at fault, yes?

I gotta go with you and others who finally agree you were at fault in the situation. Oh, and your devils advocate argument above doesn't hold melted snow, either. ;-).

When two sliders are moving down the hill, it is always the responsibility of the uphill skier to avoid the downhill skier. The downhill skier should not have to look above them before they turn or stop, thought they really shouldn't stop in the middle of the trail. But the uphill skier should always be skiing with enough control to avoid the downhill skier, regardless of what the downhill skier does.

You secondary argument assumes different facts. You are stopped on a trail. Prior to beginning to ski again, you should look above you to make sure that nobody is coming. Same as merging onto a new trail where the person merging should always look above on the trail they are entering to make sure nobody is coming.

The downhill skier in motion always has the right of way. If a skier is stopped, or is merging into a new trail, the uphill skier in motion has the right of way.

All that said, this past weekend I was skiing with my brother, both of us making fast GS turns on Mountain Run at WF as we concluded first tracks. Nobody on slope but us, perfectly groomed courduroy. Sweet! I make a somewhat of a hardish left hand turn, altering my pattern, to get to an even sweeter part of the trail........and he almost clipped me. He would have been at fault had we collided!

 

[dmc]

This kid had stopped. He was not moving. Then for some unknown reason, he decides to swing his board in front of me. He didn't look before doing so. .

He may've been attempting to position his board to stand up after a fall.. It can be awkward for some to reposition a deck across the falline to stand and ride... Sometimes it requires a flip almost to swing the deck around.
Liken it to a skier falling and having the skis pointing in different directions. while laid out on the ground... He's going to have to pull the ski off the snow and flip it around before he can stand.