I'm writing this after having quite an interesting experience at Wisp on Friday. This was the second time I've been to Wisp this year, and the second time on the slopes at all. I decided to go in order to teach a good friend of mine how to snowboard after he had been asking me all summer. Well we went boarding and spent some of the noontime hour at the carpet lift showing him the basics of which he picked up on very quickly. Within an hour we were on Chair #2 to the top to go down the Possum Trail.

It was fun seeing him learn and after the first trip down Possum he feel about a dozen times working on heelsides. But after a few more trips to the top he was holding his own very well and managing to go down without falling but 2-5 times. Once he even made it down without falling at all, long before the sun set on the evening. At his urging and at my own discretion I took him on a few blues like Muskrat, Boulder Run, Randals Run, and ones that weren't bad at all and amazingly he handled them great. That was except where we we both bit the bullet on Boulder Run after hitting a hidden icy patch. We laughed, got up, had sore bums, and kept on riding.

For me Friday was a kick back and relax day. The blacks looked and sounded too icy for me and since I'm not a super expert yet (I prefer more controllable slush or powder on blacks) I remained content to ride the blues and mostly the greens all day. Even the blues were turning into hard pack ice with only Possum Trail having any nice powder left.

This is where it got nasty and really fast and where I have a HUGE complaint and am really ticked off. While I understand many others probably felt the way I did that other slopes were too icy, it seemed that EVERYONE at Wisp decided to head down Possum. At first that scared me because the amount of people on that trail and it's simply not wide enough to handle the capacitity that it did, and to top that, there were idiots all OVER the place on it. Expert idiots and beginner idiots who had no business in my opinion being up there.

It was a warzone of bodies all over that slope all day long, someone crashing, burning, flipping, flying, bouncing, rolling, hitting, and somehow managing to get up afterwards all day. There were just too many beginners up there straightlining it down the slope out of control until they crashed to a stop. Usually crashing into someone else. The other thing that REALLY burns me was the experts on boards and skii's flying off that slope as if it was I-95. Here I am trying to teach my friend how to manage the 'falling leaf' and how to maintain control on a board ... when a dozen or more experts are flying down literally at 30mph!! WTF isn't anyone reading rules or worse ENFORCING rules on the slopes??

Me and my friend both were the unlucky victims of crashes from out of control people. Towards the late part of that evening I was gently coming around that first turn on Possum before out of no where this little 6 or 7 year old kid ran across my board with his ski and poles taking out my back leg. For what I could see fractions of a second before hand he made NO ATTEMPT to turn but simply was doing a straightline down the slopes and took me out full force. The collision was pretty hard from the speed he had causing me to face plant all the while he flipped over me crashed and hit the slope hard and wasn't moving. My first thought was "OMG he's dead or severely injured." Not even considering I was in pain I slid up to him checking him over, his legs looked bent kind of odd, his eyes were closed, and no sooner than did I look up his mother came up to us and picked him up right as he let loose on this screaming cry. I was still thinking he had hurt himself really bad until she asked him "Honey are you hurt anywhere?" and he shook his head no.

Without even appologizing for it she gets up, cracks a joke like "This is his first day." and him and her got up and skied off. I laid there for a moment getting myself turned around to get back up all the while FURIOUS that people like that are being let on the slopes. Maybe I'm over reacting, maybe I was ticked off that slope rules were broken, (What happened to the person infront has right of way???!), but I really wanted to get up and call that mother out saying get her kid paid lessons below or get off the slopes now. For lack of better judgement I didn't because I was too sore and tired to try and fight it out. Just for kickers sake... while I was checking the kid out and seeing how bad the damage was, at least 100 riders/skiers flew past us without consideration of an injured person and without slowing down one bit. As you might have guessed, no more than 100 yards down in the darkness, the kid had wiped out AGAIN and was bawling his head off as I rode on by delicately trying to not get murdered in the process by other out of control people.

That was only one event of the day. The second one came when my friend was sticking to the side of the slope to work on his heel side that I taught him when an out of control straightlining boarder wiped him out... RIGHT INFRONT of a ski patroller. I only got to see the part where they were falling but basically the patrollers reaction was "Hrm, that is borderline..." and then rode off once both got up. That was insane! The other boarder was clearly in violation of not giving my friend the right of way, not using caution by straighlining out of control and the patroller said it was BORDERLINE??

I really am tired of having to try and teach others on the bunny slopes as they are going recklessly and out of control. Don't get me wrong, I love teaching and feel that it's my responsibility as a person on the slopes to see that slope safety is maintained... even if I'm not a patroller. But when time after time I'm having to teach boarders "Why not use your heel edge to control yourself rather than straighline" and hear their response of "How do you edge?" it's starting to infuriate me because it's compromising MY safety and the safety of you all as well.

Then to top it all off on Friday night, the very last time I went down Possum with my friend we encountered a group of about 7 teenage skiiers. They were at the top goofing off so we decided to head on down and get to the bottom before they started off. Until they started behiind us and were joking around, horseplaying, and being wreckless. At one point they all extended their arms and held onto each others ski poles making this interlocked human chain that was over half the width of the slope itself. I was behind this, my friend infront of this and they were flying up to him really fast and I was almost sure they were going to clothesline him until at the very last second they broke the chain where he was at and went around him.

No sooner than they went around him they wiped out all lauhing and laying there in the middle of the slope as we both went by. Less than 2 minutes later they did the same thing to me breaking their chain and zipping past me. I sorely wanted to ride up to them, grab a ski pole and beat them senseless.. ok maybe not, but rip their lift ticket off and demand they get off the slopes.

By the end of the day me and my friend both had a good time, but were severely aggitated at the aggressiveness of the expert skiers on there NOT taking into consideration this isn't a cruiser slope, but one beginners are learning and practicing on. And then worse off those very beginners who are strapping on and hitting the slopes without so much as a THOUGHT for a lesson who are endangering the lives of themselves and others. I seriously wish there would be tougher policing of those slopes. Signs or something up warning experts not to fly down off of them for fear of loosing a lift ticket, or something that would constrain them to be more considerate of lower level ability people.

Ok I think I'm at the end of my rant... but what else is there to do besides rant, warn people, and in my case I'm writing to Wisp to tell them how my experience was and that I'd like tos ee more patrollers on those greens watching out for the reckless and out of control people, experts and beginners alike.

*sigh* why can't all greens be a huge as Salamander where at least you aren't squeezing the volume of traffic of I-66 into Rt 55. heh

Brad,
I'm with ya. It seems like whatever slope you go to (mainly here in the Mid-Atlantic) there is an increasing amount of idiotic stuff going on I went to Whitetail on 1/16 when only Upper Angel-Drop to Lower Angel-Drop and Homerun was the only blue top-to-bottom run. People were doing the same stuff you described. In fact, at one point, two kids decided to start off right after my daughter and I started our run. The started to straight-line down behind us. I heard a commotion and thought they had hit my daughter. Fortunately, they ran into each other. I saw little to no patrol observation/enforcement going on that day. If this keeps up on the East-Coast, I'll just have to go out West more where things are a lot more laid back.

-Warren-

WHEW, Brother i've felt your pain. That boulder trail was also a zoo over MLK. Is ski patrol an accident prevention organization or a triage unit. I keep going back to Camelback. Skied there a couple of times in the spring. Their patrollers will stop you if they find you being unsafe, explain what you did wrong, give you a complimentary copy of the Skiers Responsibility Code, ask for ID and punch a hole in your lift ticket. Get stopped again and you're gone. I don't think, when the crowds are big and the ambulances are running laps to the hospital, it's too much to ask that patrol patrol.

jimmy

Unfortunately that seems to be pretty much the MidA skiing experience; uncontrolled and dangerous mayhem. I know some patrollers try to do their best but they can't be everywhere at once. I just do not understand why the local resorts don't control things better.

That to me, is the main reason we enjoy skiing out west; there 'seems' to be more skier responsibility. The runs are better managed; whether by limiting the number of skiers/boarders on the slopes or by regulating access to more advanced runs or by being more aggressive in pulling the tickets of those that don't play by the rules. It's getting to the point sometimes that it is just plain -not fun- skiing in MidA.

I think you are right, Brad, in writing Wisp. Whether your letter will result in anyone waking up is moot. Nevertheless, if we all did what Brad is doing whenever we run afoul of these idiots, maybe the resorts would take notice, especially if a number of people specified that they would no longer ski or bring their children to said resort because it was too dangerous. Maybe by threatening the resorts bottom line would force them to do something. I am just a frustrated as Brad, believe me.

Thanks to jimmy for the comment about Camelback patrollers. We've never been there but it sounds like they are doing the right thing. Perhaps its time to travel further north to give Camelback a try.

I visited Camelback for two days over MLK weekend and I could not believe the traffic there. They had some long green runs, which are not particularly wide and were crowded and full of wrecks. The ski patrol was working their proverbial a$$ off taking care of injuries and reckless skiers. Tough job, they do the best they can. My friends and I got a kick out of watching so many beginners and idiots bite it, but would've preferred a smaller crowd. If you stick to the blacks though the crowds are non existent. I believe the moral of the story is ski midweek or learn to ski the blacks.

It is frustrating to say the least and I think part of the problem lies in the fact that the Mid. Atlantic winters are much much shorter than those of the Rockies or even up in Vermont. So here we have a very finicky start around mid-late Nov on good winters lasting through mid-april at best, but more than like late dec - mid March for normal winters. With that alone I think resorts are trying to pump as much revenue into their businesses as possible and that means getting as many people on the slopes as humanly possible with the side affect being idiots who can't even drive in snow never the less try to ride on it.

The result isn't just long lines at the lifts, but I think 80% of the skiers/riders going right straight to the top green runs and crowding down it. Then the after affect is what I wrote above, dangerous conditions that risks our own safety at the expense of people who have never been on the slopes before trying to feel like some Aspen elite or something.

I've spent time wondering how could this problem be solved besides the obvious of cracking down on reckless people by having more patrollers out there? I've thought about resorts managing their terrain better. For example Wisp has Chairs 2-3 which seem to bear the brunt of any lift load at any given time. On new years day there was a 15 min wait at lifts #2-3, yet there was ZERO people in line at lift #1. Would it take having a better logistical setup to having another green run on the other side of the mountain with a visible lift #5 to attract the newbies over there splitting half the load? Would it take having multiple green runs setup seperated on different parts of the mountain to keep the newbies spread out and from all congregating on one trail and killing everyone else?

The obvious answer is patching it by having more patrollers crack down on skiiers and start yanking tickets. Maybe another solution would be to have a new ticketing system that the salesperson at the window asks the skiiers/riders level ability and that level is printed on the ticket. So that if someone says they are a beginner and are found on blacks, their ticket is yanked. Who knows, but something needs to be done.

I wonder if Bill Bright would hire me to be operations and IT manager at Almost Heaven? heh.

Brad

Sadly, having out of control beginner skiiers going down blues and blacks actually relieves some of the crowds on Possum and Wisp Trail.

I've always thought they had too few greens there. There's basically possum and wisp trail, and belly flop. Half the time either Wisp or Possum are closed for snowmaking anyway and then every beginner is thrown on 2 trails, Belly flop only being a little hill anway that I bet few beginners use unless in ski school. Another problem is that many of the blues on that side of the mountain filter into Wisp Trail so that causes traffic issues with it.

Maybe their new terrain for next year will have more green slopes. Maybe we can require IQ tests before getting a lift ticket but then you have the whole issue of standardized testing being useless and sadly most of the morons on the slopes are probably the "smarter" of our society.

Does Wisp have a Courtesy Patrol? Most resorts have ditched them because of a lack of funds... but if they do you should apply. Courtesy Patrol basically enforces the seven-point Responsibility Code, responds to accidents, aids in other ways similar to Ski Patrol, but does not require as much work or all the other processes. Usually you are given a comp ticket for however many hours you work for payment (and of course, discounts).

It's a really good program and just a shame most areas have dropped it. Snowshoe actively endorses it... and that's really about it. Inquire the next time you're at Wisp.

I think Bawalker hit it pretty close in that most mid-atlantic resorts have to squeeze as much profit as possible into a very short season they have to pretty much allow any person onto whichever slope they want. i had numerous conversations with Roundotp mgmt over the years and they all say the same thing "while we'd like to limit people base on ability, we can't risk having them not come back'. In my view, the only fix is to expand available terrain, or make terrain that is so scary, the beginner/average user wouldnt even think of using it.
as far as patrol, i get really nervous when patrollers go from being EMTs to police. some take that police power way to far.

I like the idea of printing skier level on the ticket but that sure wouldn't last long. All ya need is a couple of twits saying double blacks for bragging rights and there goes the system. I like what Liberty does by not allowing rental skis on black runs .. its not much but it's a start. I also think it should be made clear that straightlining is not allowed on green runs. You get these beeenie babies bombing down the runs in a 'tucked' snowplow with smiling dad following. I think both kid -and- parent should be ticketed. Maybe that's the system .. kid misbehaves, dad/moms ticket gets yanked too. Harsh? Of course!

How about a licensing system? You take lessons, you pass tests, you get certificate for green, blue, black level. No certificate, no lift ticket!

You have to straightline possum on a rental board or you'll be unstrapped and pushing half the way. Trust me, I've been there.

People should get their lift ticket with their rentals. When you rent you have to list your ability in order to get the right equipment. They could use that info to give you a ticket that at least keeps you off of the black runs. They could lie and say they were experts but then they'd be on boards/skiis that were too long for them and they'd pay for it by falling all over the place no matter what terrain they were on.