Worst Time to Ski Ice

[Highway Star]

Anything wide open and 30 degrees or steeper is pretty much the only place you can fall to your death inbounds in the east.

 

[marcski]

Anything wide open and 30 degrees or steeper is pretty much the only place you can fall to your death inbounds in the east.

Another one of your super overgeneralizations. Go tell that to Natasha Richardson and her family.

 

[Tin]

Anything wide open and 30 degrees or steeper is pretty much the only place you can fall to your death inbounds in the east.

Great Northern? Even today it was getting slick in spots.

 

[Highway Star]

Another one of your super overgeneralizations. Go tell that to Natasha Richardson and her family.

You can crash anywhere and die.

I'm talking about losing your footing from an otherwise benign fall, then gaining enough speed sliding on steep ice to result in a fatal collision with solid objects. It happened at Killington in Dec. '05 on Double Dipper, and I've seen other near misses.

http://www.killingtonzone.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=22014

Anybody enjoy the grooming on lower-O this weekend?

They groomed HALF the trail!!!!

This would be fine except that the ungroomed half was super slick shiny glaze ice. Deadly.

We took one run down it. The groomed half was fine, with a couple spots of real bad ice. No big deal. Real nice on the far left from what I hear.

I was scoping out the ungroomed side, hoping for some spots with blown in pow.....no dice...80%+ blown off to glaze ice. I spotted a woman about 1/3rd down the pitch, out on the ungroomed ice....she had taken her skis off and was perched on a tiny spot of soft snow. I stopped and asked if I could help - she said she had been standing there for 15 minutes....had accidently skied over there when she missed her turn.

I was trying to help figure out how to get her off of there, when a guy about 100 feet above us veered into the ungroomed at about 30-35 mph.....he promply fell and lost his skis, and slid all the way to the bottom bouncing off ice bumps, head first. Probably a good 500+ ft, at least 30-40 mph. One of the scariest crashes/slides I've ever seen. The guy looked banged up, but he got up by himself after a minute. Standard advanced level skier.

At some point the woman dropped one of her skis. She then started working her way over very carefully. After about 5 minutes, death slider #2 shows up, and we get a repeat. His slide looked even more brutal, but he got right up and seemed to be fine. Again, 500+ ft at 30+ mph. He managed to shower us with spray and made the women drop the rest of her gear.

Two near misses....

Finally, after a few more minutes, she managed to work her way over.....and then what? I told her her best bet was to just slide down on the groomed, and try to stay in control. She went down facing the snow (not what I was thinking...duh) and was generally ok but got pulled over to the ungroomed at the end. Seemed to be alright. Not much else I could have done....?

Man, I wish I had video.....

Anyway, we get down to the bottom, and finally a ski patroller shows up on a snowmobile. We told him what just happened, and he said he had witnessed it from the base and came up. We suggested they close the trail until they can get it groomed. He said he would go talk to his boss.....trail stayed open the rest of the day, from what I could tell.

Seriously.....what the HECK are they thinking????

We have dual failures here - mountain ops for not grooming that half of the trail, and ski patrol not using proper judgement in opening the trail.

They are extremely lucky someone didn't get badly hurt or die.....

You're missing the point kid. The groomed part was just fine. Edgeable hardpack. Sure, you could fall and slide on it, but it wouldn't be like sliding on a skating rink.

The ungroomed side was like a bumpy skating rink.

I've never seen someone accellerate like that down the hill after they fell. Never. One second they're more or less traversing, the next second they're zooming down the hill on their backs. Each of those guys easily picked up 20+ mph of downhill speed after they fell.

Both men that I watched fall-slide seemed to be "advanced" level. Easily as good as some people here on K-zone. They just missed a manditory turn and veered into the ice. I'm guessing both of them have skied Ovation before.

I am fully in favor of Killington opening up challenging terrain and snow conditions.....and marking it as such. However, this is clearly an "unsafe situation".........like if they removed the ropes at the bottom of superstar...!!! Just asking for trouble.

You're putting people (advanced level skiers) in a manditory turn situation, with a hazard that might not even be apparent to some people. The ungroomed part of the trail had bamboo up a the top for a couple hundred feet, but the lower 3/4ths wasn't - people might have thought it was ok.

I see people over their heads all the time, and tons of poor skiing, but this was a clear case of mountain negligence.

It should be noted that both guys passed by us at full speed, no more than ~20 feet away. By far the most disturbing thing I've seen at Killington, quite a terrifying situation for all involved.

 

[Highway Star]

LOL. The silence is deafening.

 

[deadheadskier]

You're trying to troll based off your comments of another skier's death and two others bad accidents? SERIOUSLY?

 

[Highway Star]

You're trying to troll based off your comments of another skier's death and two others bad accidents? SERIOUSLY?

Wow.

Someone asked for the worst place to ski ice, and I gave BY FAR the best answer.

Not to mention, it's a good warning for people to watch out for a potentially very dangerous situation (IMHO, the most dangerous possible situation/condition inbounds on an eastern mountain) that most people might not encounter that often if they ski somewhere flat like ski sundown.

Get over yourself.

 

[deadheadskier]

and I gave BY FAR the best answer.

Get over yourself.

ummm.........

 

[Highway Star]

ummm.........

The difference between me and you is that I'm as awesome as I think I am, and you're not.

 

[deadheadskier]

The difference between me and you is that I'm as awesome as I think I am, and you're not.

I will give you credit. You bring FAR more comedic value to the intertrons than I do. But, not for the reasons you think you do..........

 

[Highway Star]

I will give you credit. You bring FAR more comedic value to the intertrons than I do. But, not for the reasons you think you do..........

I'm pretty sure you just don't grasp the result of my superior sense of humor.

 

[MadMadWorld]

The difference between me and you is that I'm as awesome as I think I am, and you're not.

You win a gold star for awesomeness. As hard as I try I don't think I will ever achieve it.

 

[deadheadskier]

I'm pretty sure you just don't grasp the result of my superior sense of humor.

I absolutely get it. No one on these forums makes me crack up more. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in that regard.

 

[mriceyman]

I'm pretty sure you just don't grasp the result of my superior sense of humor.

You're definitely a funny guy


Sent from my iPhone using AlpineZone

 

[CoolMike]

Sugarbush has had incidents like the ones described at Killington.

The trail was sleeper - which is a cat-track width. The trail isn't steep but has a turn that at otherwise reasonable speeds can be dangerous.

Me and a friend took it for a change of pace. The first time I very nearly lost control and hugged a tree because of the wet ice. I did fall but managed to get my edge into some crud at the side of the trail. An hour later the trail was closed because a middle aged man hit the tree and was evacuated. He died within hours.

We ended the day at Mount Ellen and had a nasty situation on some stupid blue square. I don't know the Ellen side very well but it was half way down to the base. We hit some more slick ice (true clear ice - like a skating rink). I heel stopped as hard as I could and was still slowly gaining speed - thank goodness my edges were sharp. My buddy was above me and was able to scoot to the side of the trail. I was luckily able to come to a stop on the trail edge again - with my heart absolutely pounding. It took us at least half an hour of struggling to climb up the hill to find a safer way down. When you are carrying your board, only have snowboard boots on, and can't hold your footing its much more work than I would have guessed. I had to hold on to trees to climb up and considered dumping my board. The trail was probably mid twenties in pitch and it was scary as all hell.

What a lot of people call 'ice' is actually edge-able hard pack. This was not that. There is no way these two trails should have been open. Pure negligence in my opinion.

 

[KevinF]

You don't need "steep" to have a tree or snowmaking gun impact to result in serious or fatal injuries.

I was at Bretton Woods -- which I think everybody agrees does not have anything "steep" -- on a day that was ridiculously icy. I was first in the lift line and a patroller came up to me and said "you realize that it's icy?" and I made some smart remark of "It's New England. It's always icy". The patroller told the liftie "let him on", and I went up.

Ice? You could have played a hockey game on this surface. I was terrified to make a turn because if you lost it, you were gone. I basically side-slipped down and called it quits. I don't know if the whole mountain was like that, but I do remember reading later on that somebody did die that day at BW when they took a slide into a tree.

I've only ever seen one section of one trail that was so icy that you could see the rocks and grass through it. Despite the legend of New England ice, I really don't see ice ice all that often, at least not big swaths of it. Serious hardpack that you couldn't possibly get a pole into -- yes. But you can usually get a grip on that stuff. True ice is hopeless.

 

[Highway Star]

You guys clearly don't know how to setup or maintain your equipment for ice, do you?

 

[KevinF]

You guys clearly don't know how to setup or maintain your equipment for ice, do you?

Of course, I forgot. You never fall, you've never had a ski slip out, and Mikaela herself calls you for advice.

 

[MadMadWorld]

You can crash anywhere and die.

I'm talking about losing your footing from an otherwise benign fall, then gaining enough speed sliding on steep ice to result in a fatal collision with solid objects. It happened at Killington in Dec. '05 on Double Dipper, and I've seen other near misses.

http://www.killingtonzone.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=22014








It should be noted that both guys passed by us at full speed, no more than ~20 feet away. By far the most disturbing thing I've seen at Killington, quite a terrifying situation for all involved.

The problem with Killington is its high concentration of douchers who think they are better skiers than they really are. These kind of examples would never happen at Magic or MRG

 

[steamboat1]

The problem with Killington is its high concentration of douchers

The same problem with most on this site. Thank god you guys ski weekends mostly