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« Previous Story | The Industry Report Home Page | Next Story » When On-Mountain Angst Brings On "The Red Mist"By J.D. O'Connor  Posted by "Kevin" in a snowboarder's forum. Call it what you will: Slope Rage, Ski Rage, or The Off Piste Red Mist. It happens. Skiers and boarders do dumb things, get hurt or hurt someone else and a concerned industry is mobilizing to make sure it doesn't happen on their hill. We're not out to re-spin the tired old cliché of manner-less boarders versus gentle, traditionalist plankers. But shorter seasons, longer lines, a generally amped-up social mix and overall lack of civility have led to increased angst and - in some extreme cases - bloodshed on the slopes. "I threw my board at a b'strd who skied through a lift queue in Val d' Isere," said Bob Edgell of Bristol, England. "I'd seen him coming and thought 'he's gonna slow down' 'he's got to stop,' but he went straight though the middle, took out an entire family and bloodied a tot's nose. We chased after him but he was going too fast and hopped a lift on the other side of the valley." If you're an executive, patroller or instructor at a mountain resort, odds are you've got war stories. There's the glib French boarder who knocked over a little girl at Chamonix, the planker you watched get taken off at the knees by a drunk at Aspen - and who was roundly cheered from the lifts when he crawled down to the prostrate inebriant and punched him silly. "It does happen, sure," said Bill Gilbert, president and general manager of Catamount Ski Area, N.Y. "It happens infrequently, but when it happens - even infrequently - it's unfortunate." Gilbert and other mountain owners and managers have gone to great lengths to curb on-hill aggro in past seasons and as a new one approaches. Gilbert says a closely watched and wildly popular terrain park at his mountain has cut down on speed skiing and reckless behavior as teen skiers practice their tricks instead. But recently released statistics pointing to a decided breakdown in alpine etiquette have the industry worried - and getting increasingly proactive. A Lloyds TSB Insurance study revealed the most common cause of ski rage among British skiers surveyed was being cut off by another skier (60 percent), while queue jumping came in a not-so-distant second (40 percent). Having someone actually run into them set off almost a third (28 percent) of those responding to Lloyds researchers. Of the normally stiff-upper-lipped English skiers surveyed a fifth said they had exchanged obscenities with an offending slider, while three percent had resorted to physical violence. "We've had some fights over the years," said Gary Deaver, ski patrol director at Washington's 49 Degrees North. "We're a relatively small community mountain where everyone knows everyone else, but I've often said that what goes on down in the flatlands eventually comes up to your mountain." Deaver and others who spoke with Industry Report don't like pigeonholing the troublemakers on their mountains for fear of alienating the well-behaved majority - but most agree with a few known common denominators. "It's generally the 17 to 22-year-old male who has been drinking on his way up the mountain, feels invincible and is out to impress the ladies," Deaver said. "We confronted a kid over some bad language in the terrain park not too long ago and he ran from us, eventually ended up taking a swing at my biggest (ski) patroller." Deaver and management at 49 Degrees will discipline bad behavior - sometimes pulling the ticket or season pass of offenders in extreme cases - but preferring to take an educational stance the first time out. "I'll have a chat with them," Deaver says. "Maybe sit them down in the cafeteria. Their friends will come by and ask them why they're out of action and they'll say they got in trouble with the patrol. And at that point they're a walking billboard for crowd control - as soon as you pull a kid's ticket and send him home you lose." Not all mountains are as forgiving. Both Jackson Hole, Wyo., and Steamboat, Colo., ski areas are tightening restrictions against reckless skiing and boarding this winter, Jackson Hole after five on-mountain deaths over the past two winters. Doug Allen, vice president of mountain operations at Steamboat, said violators there will have their passes suspended for 30 days and could lose them for the rest of the season if they repeat. "It's to have the communication necessary to change the culture out there and improve the etiquette of skiers," Allen said. Chris Diamond, president of the ski area, told the local City Council that Steamboat will move decisively to end reckless behavior. "We somehow got into this whole 'He cut me off' thing," Diamond told the council. "It has got to change. We will put a bigger team of (safety) volunteers on the mountain, and there are going to be consequences." Steamboat will mobilize 12 paid, full-time courtesy patrollers this season - up from eight last year. There will also be an additional 18 volunteers - 14 more than last season. All will receive special training in communications and handling confrontations. Jackson Hole tightened enforcement of rules regulating on-mountain conduct after a 29-year-old woman died last winter when she was struck by a 16-year-old snowboarder reportedly traveling at a high rate of speed down an intermediate run. Another 16-year-old snowboarder died after jumping off a feature in the resort's terrain park. Three other guests died in 2004 after colliding with trees. "We don't want this to come out like we're out to get everyone's (season ski) pass," said John Kohnke, Ski Patrol director at Steamboat. "We want to enhance the comfort level of our guests. There's a lot of angst out there in society. We'd like skiing to be preserved as a place to go and get away from that." « Previous Story | The Industry Report Home Page | Next Story » |
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