Canaanman, props to you for speaking your mind, and equal props for having the stones to offer an apology if you thought one was necessary.

What's really sad about this is what it says about the state of snow sports in this country. In Canada, in Europe, and pretty much anywhere else in the skiing world, if you want to huck yourself off a pumphouse, or a cliff, or a bus, that's your business. Huck away. But if you screw yourself up, you'll be paying the ski patrol to rescue your sorry behind. And you'll be paying the doctors to patch you up. You take the risk, especially a stupid risk, and you pay the price. Your decision.

That kind of personal responsibility used to be the norm in this country too, at least 25 years ago when I started skiing. Unfortunately, these days, if you wax yourself jumping off a pumphouse, the one thing you can count on is that some a-hole lawyer will try to convince you that it was really the ski area's fault. Supershredmaster (or whatever name you used), maybe you wouldn't go for that, maybe you would have the spine to say "I did the crime, I'll do the time", but not everybody would. Sadly, too many people would get seduced by the prospect of a big lawsuit payoff from the ski area company. It has happened in Colorado, it has happened in California, and it has happened too many times to count in Vermont.

So you can't really blame the folks at T-line for trying to stop pumphouse-hucking. If they don't, sooner or later the ambulance chasers will be after them. And you really can't blame them for trying to avoid the lawsuit that shuts the area. Its just sad. Should we be free to jump off buildings if we choose? Sure. Should we be free to ski the Cherry Bowl whenever we choose? Sure. But do I want to see T-line (or any other hill for that matter) shut down because some twit takes a jump he shouldn't, gets wrecked and then sues the pants off of them? No.

Reminds me of the bit about what you call 50 lawyers at the bottom of a lake (a good start).

OK, enough of my soapbox.

If you are not an employee of the resort - I don't see how they could do anything to you about what you said.

As such -- this just shows you what Timerbline's priorities are.

Here is a suggestion for those from Timberline who frequent this board: spend more time focusing on the business end of things instead of surfing the internet at work.

Timberline has a mountain that I would die for in Southern WV -- don't let it go to waste and don't get bad publicity by "condemning" those that have opinions that differ from your own (and if you look over this board as a whole, there are not many positive comments either).

C-Man,

I'm gonnna side with T-Line on this one for a couple of reasons.

1) Your friend hucked off a man-made structure. While in most "big mountains" out West you can leap off any in-bounds rock, cliff, etc., I'm not aware of any place that will let the general public jump off of a building or a lift. Plus, you may do some damage to the building. Bloodstains are a beyotch to get out.

2) You did it under a lift. If you are discreet you can get away with a lot of things at a ski area, especially if you have the skill to do so. Do something flagrant under a lift in direct view of the general public, then you have to expect some consequences. It's eqivalent to speeding by a cop car on the Beltway with lot's of other cars around; you are rubbing it in the face of authority. I can see how they'd get pretty PO'ed. And don't compound the matter by posting it on the Internet. Do some radical stuff, but fly under the radar.

Also remember that there is an unfortunately large percentage of T-Line skiers who have trouble getting off and on the lifts; Lord knows what they think they could do if they saw someone jumping off a building underneath them.

You and your friend need to ask yourselves this question: "Were you jumping off the pump house to challenge yourselves or were you doing it to get attention/defy Timberline?" If you were doing it to challenge yourselves, then you have a compadre in arms who recommends choosing your battles more wisely. If the other, then I show no sympathy.

One last thought about Ski Patrols. (I've primarily delt with them out West, and I've been very impressed with the folks I've met.) Several years ago, I was skiing with a race instructor at Whitetail during one of the race clinics. Ski Patrol yelled at us from the lift to slow down, even though we were skiing under control and not skiing near any other skiers. We laughed at the patrol a bit, then the instructor said, "We probably need to remember that they're the people who will be hauling our carcasses out of the trees if we have a bad fall..."

Well were there any SIGNS on or near the pump house forbidden jumping from it? If not then perhaps you have a case AGAINST Timberline for damages to both your friend for the lost portion of his season pass, and you for your reputation and personal grievences due to their after the fact actions.

They might not want anyone to jump from the pump house but adding the rule after the fact should not constitute liability on your part it seems to me.

Norsk,

I agree with your general point, however, when rubber meets the road, I don't know if you'd be so confident in your position.

Let's talk Canada for example. Whistler/Blackcomb. Been there 4-5 times. Love the place. Refreshing in it's ski (just about) anything you want atmosphere, keep the lawyers out of it.

It's also a place where black-diamond capable skiers can kill themselves without realizing they are in danger.

Some examples. There are several *single* blacks off of Harmony Ridge in Whistler which have unmarked 20 foot cornices right in the middle of the trail. Across the entire trail. No warning whatsoever that you are in a "cliff" zone. First time I skied one of them, I thought it was just a dip in the trail, not a 20 footer. Fortunately, my spider senses were tingling and I stopped to examine what was on the other side of the dip.

Runs off of Spanky's ladder in Blackcomb. Unmarked no fall zones easily accessible to the general public. Steep but not excessively steep. Unfortunately, if you fall, you may slide over a cliff. The wife of a buddy of mine came within fifty feet of the cliff edge when she fell. It looked like a simple mogul run. Back in the late 90's, a Whitetail instructor was sliding towards the cliff when a local did a mad traverse across the hill to tackle the instructor. Chipped the instructor's tooth but save his life.

I know a lot of that terrrain pretty well by now and I ski cautiously in unknown terrain. Not all others do the same. You may know one of the others.

KevR,

Ever wonder how the occasional stupid warning label appears on a product? Such as "Don't drink this cup of coffee while flying an airplane because it may spill in your lap causing you to crash the plane."

Reread your post and you may get some insight into the warning labels.

Sorry for being harsh, but there is not a lot of common sense being exhibited on this thread.

valid points, good discusion, i like it

Re the point about unmarked dangers, I hear you and in the environment that has developed over the past 20 years, I have some sympathy for it.

BUT that actually confirms my point: we've fallen into the habit of thinking of ski areas as safety-controlled amusement parks. We expect dangers to be marked (at least when skiing inbounds). And who could blame us, since the lawsuit environment has driven ski areas to mark every conceivable danger.

Not so long ago, however, going to a ski (and snowboard) area was understood as going outdoors, up onto a high mountain, in the dead of winter, to slide downhill at high speeds on snow and ice. Mountains are not designed like subdivisions. Skis do not have cruise control or air-assisted brakes. Ice and snow are slippery. Winter is cold. Mountains have cliffs, crevices, rocks, trees, etc etc. People don't ski with awareness for their surroundings because they've been conditioned not to do so, IN SPITE of everything that common sense should tell them about their surroundings. And that makes our sport much much poorer.

I can understand TL's concern about safety breaches that may, or may not, place skiers/boarders and others at unnecessary risk. What concerns me is TL monitoring this forum and using information gleaned here to threaten punishment on a poster. This smacks of Big Brother and has the real potential to chill one of the most valuable aspects of this forum--the willingness of poster to be open, frank, and honest about their experiences and views. Knowing TL is montioring the posts, will Canaanman be as willing the next time to raise the issue of slow lifts, bad service, etc. if doing so will bring the rath of TL down on him? Don't know but we should not have to be concerned about such things influencing the posts here.

Oh, for the TL people monitoring this post, I love your ski resort, think it is the best thing this side of sliced bread, and I would never dream of jumping off the pumphouse.

Hey I was trying to be INCITIVE, not INSIGHTFUL!!!



In truth, if you read the back of your ski lift pass it probably says something like. "this is a private resort and you are here at our privelege not your right. Therefore, we can rescind that privelege at any time we want, no reason given..."

So when you buy your ticket, even though you don't read the small print, you are agreeing to something...

And hence you get kicked out and your season pass revoked for skiing off a building, whether you are aware of the risks or not, or even the rules.

Nothing really wrong with that...

BUT I am sympathetic to your desires to ski off the building or any other object, or natural feature at your ski resort. IFF, that is AS LONG AS, you the person doing so is going to take full and complete responsibility for your actions, AND you don't hurt anyone else but yourself.

The problem with THAT statement is it is likely my lift ticket price will go up to cover the insurance premiums for the people that end up in the gray area between health and death, and who change their mind about suing or hurt other people in the process and they sue, or perhaps whose surviving kin sue. It's difficult not to be sympathetic with someone whose lower body no longer moves, or who leaves a new baby and wife with no income.

So I'm being a bit idealistic... which is easy to do from the armchair.

I suppose this is why folks that really want to do these things move off into the backcountry and away from the private resorts... although finding a pump house plop in the middle of the woods might be a bit diffult... be creative, use your imagination, a big rock is just as good then.

It is cool that I now know they read this forum so I can say to their faces "Hey Timberline I have outsourced your job - to Seven Springs!"

My wallet has spoken.

Blame TGR and Matchstick productions for all this and not Canaanman. Anyone who is not braindead and who has seen a ski movie recently has privately dreamed of hucking just about anything in sight. It's like the Atomic ads: we see chairlifts and potential hucks everywhere. I look at the onramp to the Southeast freeway and try to imagine skiing it or off it as the case may be. I dream of skiing just about every powerline cut I see.

The first time I ever laid eyes on that pumphouse in 1999, I thought of hucking it. I didn't but I thought about it. To say that Canaanman has put this thought in other people's heads via the forum is completely absurd. If the Ski Patrol is so concerned about this pumphouse, they should put a fence up around it--the solution is that simple. The idea of hucking the pump house is as old as the pumphouse. It is neither original nor Canaaanman's dream to claim.

The issue is not thinking about hucking a building, it's actually doing it. People are a lot more likely to do something if they see other people doing it or have heard of other people doing it.

I found C-Man's original post of the incident to be a deterent since the offender promptly got busted by Ski Patrol. Since the original post wasn't exactly apologetic about what was done, I can see how Ski Patrol might get bent out of shape.

Hmm... the pumphouse is "played" out now...

what's going to be the new trend... NASTAR house hucking?

Hmm... by saying 'hucking' you're implying that it can't be landed... it has been landed.

Seriously, people don't go to Timberline to jump off the pumphouse. They go to Timberline and enjoy the terrain and have fun... if they choose to jump from the pumphouse its entirely their choice, it's not something that's going to be influenced by others. Peer pressure is non-existant on the Internet.

I have never been to T-line, how tall is the pump house ? You may give your units in NASTAR house hucking sizes if you desire...

I'm replying to myself... actually found this -- and entire article devoted to an odd form of hucking-roulette.

http://www.skiingmag.com/skiing/dropping_in/article/0,12910,535923,00.html

If you don't want to read the article (which is undated), the world record huck is 235 ft. And at least one person has been caught on film hucking to their death.

Therefore if the world record is a "1".. the pumphouse is probably a .08 huck. ( guessing it's a 20 ft leap, so 1/(225/20) )

And there you have it!

I've seen Shed/Nastar Hut Hucking. It's fun to watch when the folks doing it are snowboard instructors at Beech. They were flipping off the roof....and fell on each other. It was about a 4 foot drop so they didn't get hurt. good stuff!