Big drops rule! haters don't.

If i was crazy enough i could do just that, theres huge cliffs like that everywhere if you know where to look (maybe not 300 feet big but hey.) Fact of the matter is i dont care how big somebody is going to go off of a cliff if they arent going to land it. Style is everything in skiing. prove me wrong. point out one pro that throws their 9's all pencilled out or crashes after every cliff.
 
I think it needs to be noted here that you guys seem to be talking about TWO FUCKING SPECIFIC DROPS. One of which was a complete mistake. There has never been a "300+ foot calculated cliff drop."
You are all seriously overanalyzing two drops every time you say 200+ and 300+. Jamie Pierres 245er and Freds accident that he himself has stated on this site as something he doesnt think deserves world record status. I dont really see how you can draw such conclusions from these collective 3 mins in skiings history.
Carr and a few others are dropping massive cliffs for sure, but not many if any that i know of being over 200. They bounce off their backs and most of the time, when things go right they ski away. In case you guys havent noticed, thats how its done, by everyone, and always has been. Seth has landed too upright and broken ribs and equipment. Hugo has landed on his feet on something a bit too big and shit himself.
My point is just that the human body has limits, and the cool part about skiing, is that its full of people working around those limits in so many different ways. Weather thats wearing a spine protector and bouncing off your back on a 150 footer, parachuting out of a line, or building the most perfect take off and landing to minimize impact on your body.
 
Biggest ive dropped is 20 ft, and i fucked up my ankle because i didnt have enough speed. Im looking to drop some better ones this season.
 
I don't need to take the horizontal component in to account when calculating for the huge cliffs because there is almost no horizontal component. It can be neglected. Due to the fact that when they land their bomb hole goes almost stright down. If they were landing and riding it away or even rolling down the hill it would be different. But they are not they are just hiting the snow and creating a huge bomb whole. their body is taking the full force. non is continued.

Or if you were talking about the horizontal component due to the horizontal distance they travel in the air, then that is just going to give me another force on the body to calculate.

One of the key things to grasp here is that when these guys jump off the ridiculously huge cliffs. they are transferring all momentum to the earth. The impulse that their body is taking is huge. They stop moving relative to the earth. When the park skiers land on the jump (even when they fall or over shoot) they keep some momentum (vertical if landing on a slope) And yes over shooting the jumps is bad, but they are still not falling 300 fucking feet.

Also in your argument about landing on your head in the park your using an example from a guy going off a ~250ft cliff. This will allways be true when you go off something bigger then 200 ft (with skis on) your going to have little control over how you land, and it is offten on your head. More so then with park jumps.

"ask the insurance companies that insure ski hills (and their parks) and they will laugh you out of their office if you try and tell them a park jump is safer than a cliff drop."

three things.

they trust most people to not jump off cliffs bigger then 50ft, and very few over 100ft.

why the fuck do you think they mark all cliffs, and close off most of the bigger ones? because people get fucking hurt.

The insurance needs to care alot more about the parks then the cliffs because the parks are man made and intended for people to go off them (its hard to say a ski area intended people to go off the cliffs, then people will laugh at you) these factors make the liability surrounding park jumps much higher then that of natural cliffs.

as for landing on snow vs. rock your more likely to hit a rock on a cliff then a park jump. And I don't need to go very far back to find a record of someone dieing from the impact (of snow) from jumping off a 150-200ft cliff at my local ski hill.

Please don't try and argue this point, your going to lose.

the only time I can see a park jump really being more dangerous is if they have a wall (Spong @ shasta) then they have to abosorb all the impulse from the transfer of horizontal momentum.
 
hehehe, at my hill they don't mark cliffs with signs. in fact, they don't even mark the runs with signs. while places like fernie (RCR) and i'm sure a lot of your american hills put cliff signs right on the best spot to jump the cliff. such a silly idea.

but - with all this being said, our little debate has gone off topic, so i think i'm just going to let it die.
by the way - if anyone finds any snow, can you send it up here, we're kinda hurting right now
 
i completely agree, i even assume 90% of the kids out there couldnt even get down a backcountry hill properly without even dropping a cliff, most people begin skiing looking at t-wall or dumont and just go in the park to parkrat around and try to look nice. Thats an important point im defending cause these days most kids forget that skiing IS to get down a slope and what started it all is backcountry and specially big mountain skiing...just look at tanner, jp auclair, sammy etc that now do powder skiing whitch is the essence of the sport and some of them claim it high. btw a cliff is probably 10times more technical that 270 in a rail considering your take off, the incline of yourt landing, getting your pop right and put your weight back enough to land without crushing your knees or/and slamming your head on some rocks cause its an hostile place much more risky and fun.
 
Yeah dude, I know exactly what your saying. I'm not saying I'm not one of these people, but a lot of kids don't enjoy watching backcountry. I for one, respect it 100% but when Im watching a ski movie I usually skip it. This is just because I find it gets boring not watching people do tricks. When I'm really paying close attention to the movie I really get into the backcountry segments just thinking to myself. "Holy shit thats nuts!"
 
Big drops are sick and I would never do one that people are doing these days. But I don't really look up to BC skiers that do these massive drops but can never ski away from because to me that doesn't seem that skillful. I think the sick BC skiers are the ones that can do big drops and stomp them like nothing else (Hugo Harrison comes to mind). Sure Jamie Pieres drop was crazy but to me it didn't look like any skill was involved as he landed on his head.... just a whole lot of balls which is still sick but not as sick as people like Hugo Harrison and Mark Abma to me...
 
I find that it takes much more skill for a guy like Seth to ski a backcountry line hitting cliffs and pillow lines then do a double front off off an 80 ft cliff and ski away with the same composure as when he was hitting 20 ft cliffs seconds earlier. This is more visually appealing than someone taking the easiest way down the mtn to a 150 ft cliff, stopping 10ft from the dge, then rolling off. Admitedly this takes much more courage but not as much skill
 
If a skateboarder or BMX rider tried a trick landed on their back then got up and rode away would it be cool? Would it even be considered landing the trick? No. Thats why hitting big cliffs is lame. If you cant stomp it to your feet it doesn't count. Seth has stomped a few 80-100ft cliffs to his feet and thats why he will always be better than someone who jumps a 300ft cliff to their back.
 
^ agreed. Hugo and Seth deserve more credit for their skills, but Pierre and Carr may deserve more credit for their courage.

In kayaking, to get a world record you have to stay in the kayak after the waterfall - the equivalent of riding away from a cliff. this guy Ed Lucero ran Alexandria falls a few years back and its the biggest thing ever paddled off of, but they didnt give him the record because he swam. About a year ago, Tyler Bradt and Rush Sturges went to run the same waterfall. Rush swam, tyler didnt. Tyler has been given the World Record, even though he wasnt the first to hit it. Its a bit more of a grey area of how much you can stomp a 100+ footer in skiing but it provides a good comparison
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top