Windham skier dies

[legalskier]

Staten Island man,54, dies in ski accident at Windham resort
*** Matthew Falco, 54, was skiing the Upper Warpath trail, listed as an intermediate level trail, according to police reports. Falco exited the trail just above the Wall St. trail intersection, at the ski resort around 11:30 a. m. on Saturday when he passed through a culvert ditch causing him to strike an embankment, according to eyewitnesses, police reported....
Falco was treated at the scene by Windham Ski Patrol and Windham paramedics until he was pronounced dead, according to state police. ***
Full story: http://www.thedailymail.net/articles/2012/02/05/news/doc4f2dea077de6b907036115.txt

He went from an intermediate trail towards a novice "crossover" trail about halfway down the original part of Windham. That's a fairly flat area as I recall. I heard conditions on Saturday were very slick, but that area usually is groomed out pretty well. Nice cruising terrain.

RIP

 

[zinger3000]

Upper Warpath is pretty steep for a blue trail. I wonder if he lost control of his speed.

Always sad to hear this sort of news.

 

[oakapple]

If you hit your head the wrong way on a hard object, you don't really have to be going all THAT fast for the injury to be serious, or even fatal.

 

[TropicTundR]

Those regions are always shaved and exposed by mid-day, I also notice bumps at the bottom of them. Whether or not intentionally left there to slow down skiers, it definitely gets sketchy especially being a heavy trafficked and relatively narrow beginner/intermediate trail run.

 

[Stache]

Upper Warpath is almost equal to the pitches on Why Not (Toughest Blue Square and Easiest Black Diamond) This trail was also the site of one of the two deaths at Windham last year.

 

[oakapple]

I think they are referring to the trail labeled "Warpath Chute" on the current trail map. It is not long, but it's fairly steep for a blue. There's no question it would be labeled a black diamond if it sustained that pitch for a significant distance. But if they coded it black, several of their best blue trails would no longer be accessible to intermediates.

It gets skied off at the end of the day, because it's a key transit route to reach those blue trails. That tends to happen at any ski area where one narrow trail is the funnel to reach three other popular ones. It also happens on Windham's "easy routes" (Wraparound and Wanderer), because they're the only easy routes down from the two summits.

If there have been multiple deaths/injuries on the Warpath headwall, they are probably going to have to take a serious look at re-grading it or cutting another trail with a gentler slope.