Death to the Terrain Park as we Know it

Vail, Keystone, Breck and heavenly all closed down their jumps the day he won the case...my boss at vail said he doubts they would build jumps over 15ft for this season, so thats kinda why i quit. im not sure if this has remained true all summer but i didnt want to stick around and find out...keystone and breck wouldnt survive without jumps!

Oh and i dint read the whole thread but to someone who asked if he was a gaper or a true freeskier, my friends looked him up on myspace or something and said he was a class A gaper...his myspace page was aweful, a bunch of pics of him in a wheel cahir begging for sympathy, poor me poor me!

Fucker ruined our lives fo sho
 
I'm dead serious man! What good is sittin' on our asses complaining if we don't do anything about it!? Especially when we can make a difference.

I'm gonna brainstorm some shit tonight..
 
31 million actually, but thats probably a pretty close figure, I would imagine there are some medical costs that are astronomical with an injury like this.

i hope sugarloaf will be ok, since cva trains there they will need jumps.
 
i know you're kidding but that's kind of ironic. more like going off that jump ruined his life completely.

i was just talking to my dad about this, apparently we know the guy who built the jump, he lives in the condo next to ours. really cool guy, i'm gonna ask him about it next season.

and my dad was also saying, that article said that his medical costs would be like 25 million bucks, right? most likely his insurance couldn't cover all that, like he didn't have the insurance that covered even a million. that could've been a driving force in him sueing, he basically couldn't afford his medical costs otherwise.

i dunno, i really think all the kids who are saying, 'oh dude i totally wouldn't sue that's a douchebag thing to do' are just armchair quarterbacking. because truthfully i think that if you aren't in his situation you cannot for sure say that you know you wouldn't sue. i think i'd be so pissed off at the world since my whole life is basically ruined that i might. i dunno, that's just me, i really don't have any idea and it's not something that i'd like to even imagine.
 
Yeah...waivers are nearly pointless...but they do save most companies in minor cases...just not in extreme cases like this one....
 
shelli, all you have to do is look at his picture, he's wearing a cowboy hat, he might as well have a target for me to throw snowballs at.
 
You are a fucking idiot. If it's a "shitty ass" jump, it's still 100% your fault if you decide to hit it.

Also in this case, the jump was only determined to be "poorly designed" by the lawyers trying to make money. If you remember in the spring some of the skiers who ski at snowqualmie posted on here saying that the jump was fine. The kid simply hit it going about 3 times faster than he should have, and overshot by a ton.

Laywers could argue that any jump, in any terrain park, is "unsafe" "poorly designed" etc.

It is up to skiers to determine the safety of a jump before choosing to hit it. If you're not confortable doing that, then stay the fuck out of parks.

 
Reading your post made so angry I had to get up and punch something! Are you serious?

GET OUT OF PARKS!! RIGHT NOW AND FOREVER!! Anyone with an attitude like yours should never be allowed in a terrain park.

A jump could have a fucking uphill landing with sharp, poison tipped spikes in it, and if you DECIDE to hit it, then it is ONE HUNDRED PERCENT your fault. 100%, 100%, 100%!!!!!!!

As tragic as his injury was, he should not have recieved one penny from the resort, because, unless they physically grabbed him and threw him off the jump, then the injury was absolutely, totally, and one fucking hundred percent due to his actions and choices.

Also, people on here who hit that jump (guys that actually know what they're talking about) have already posted that the jump was OK. Your comments on the "poorly made" jump are based on injury liability lawyers testimony, I'm sure they're happy that they can convince people like you that a jump was dangerous, even though you likely have never seen it. Obviously they can convince juries too.

But that's really beside the point, because even if it WAS the most dangerous, poorly designed jump in the world, it still is his 100% fault if he chose to hit it, especially at twice the speed that he should have taken.
 
no, 6 months ago there were just rumors that some hills MIGHT close their jumps. now it's 6 months later and some of those hills have announced that they won't build jumps... i'd say things have changed a bit. earlier, we thought we had a problem. now, we know we have a problem.

i say we all send him 50 letters each that simply say "thanks for fucking things up, go shit your pants."
 
Get a grip, in Blackcomb's park there are features on which 15 people will get injured in a single afternoon.

The patrol in the Whistler mountain bike park can barely keep up to the amount of people who need to be extricated on spine boards every single day.

Welcome to a sport that invlolves risk.
 
Park passes are USELESS. They are just going to make you pay for one and suppose to watch a cheesey safety movie. The mountain by me makes you get a park pass, but no one enforces the movie. What does this lead to? All the little whiney kids telling there parents to get them a park pass so they can go play in the park and the parents just do whatever to get their little shit kid to shut up for once. A park pass would be a good idea if you had to take a class to get it, but if you did that, it would take away from skiing time that people who are just on vacation. I think once you get a lift ticket, as long as the danger is posted, you should look at the jump before you try throwing yourself off it. If you personally are not able to guesstimate the lip and the landing and what your speed should be, then you should not be hitting the jump. Plain and simple. If you do screw up, then YOU SCREWED UP.
 
I dont know this dudes story but i hope he was not one of us!

I do feel bad for this dude. I cant imagine not being able to ski, hike, fish, backpack....anything. I also do alot of dumb shit that could really get me hurt or dead and i dont do any of that when I dont think it is as safe as i can make it. I am dissapointed that this ruling is having a negative affect at so many resorts, but i do think that it will ultimately lead to safer parks all around. I know that park passes are not the answer but i do think it will drop the # of gapers signifigantly. i also think that jumps are going to become relatively uniform for the next few years and the smaller resorts are going to be able to build jumps again in a few years when the heat of this decision has died down.

keep the gapers on the greens

 
i think thats exactly whats wrong with the world today...take responsibility for your own actions....the moment something bad happens everyone says, "SUE!" yah you will get money for it but you're not taking responsibility for your actions. If i ever became a quad form the park, i would NEVER sue the resort, or anyone for that matter, it was my fault for a)hitting the feature and b) not recognizing the fact that it wasnt safe...

and also if i became i quad id def ask for a DNR (do not ressesitate), or have someone kill me...not being able to ski would prolly kill me first though...

IDK, i just think people need to stop being so whiny and live up to their mistakes....my point of view though i suppose...
 
terrain parks are not a gamble but a regulated closed part of the resort. by entering through the signs you agree to the risk of injury or death by YOUR actions. same with the back of your ticket. This kid is an idiot. He doesn't deserve to be paid because he made a mistake and went to fast into a jump and overshot the fuck out of it. fucking retard.
 
this is the exact reason why my mountain never has a great park... the owner is worried about people getting hurt and suing...fucking pussies.
 
Oh I see, so just because "his life is over" means that he "deserves all that and more".

"I made a bad decision and got hurt, who can I sue?" Great values, really awesome.

You should stay out of parks, there's a chance you'll get hurt someday, and we don't need any more people suing resorts.
 
michigan sucks enough...

and now they take away the jumps in the parks that already suck. this is gonna be fun.
 
there also needs to be a way to certify park builders... I mean really I'll bet that the jump was complete shit.

 
You're totally right that its up to the rider to check something out first, and absolutely stupid as hell not to. What just bugs me is that when I'm standing there in a park that I've built, I can tell if I made a mistake on one of the jumps. I can just look at people flying through the air and know if the jump should stay open. If it looks sketchy, I close it say "sorry" and then re-build it.

WAY too many resorts use unqualified people in the park, and they make something dangerous and leave it open. If we just had qualified park workers ALL the time, then this wouldn't happen. I mean imagine what would happen to newschool skiing without terrain parks?

 
The problem existed then and its still the same now. Nothing has changed what so ever. Parks at the end of the season closed early but nothing for this season has been talked about at all.

old news.
 
Well, according to the NSers who have posted in these threads that actually hit it, the jump was fine.

Everyone thinks the jump was "dangerous" and "poorly built" based on the arguments presented by liability lawyers.

You realize those lawyers could also "prove" that everything you build at High North is also "dangerous" , "poorly designed", "improperly engineered" etc. Then they would cite instances of previous injuries to good skiers that happened on your features (Ingrid, etc), and people would buy it, just like that jury did.

A liability lawyer smelling money could "prove" the same of every jump in every terrain park. The only jumps that might pass as "properly engineered" would be FIS aerial sites, and we don't need cookie cutter park features like that to be our only options, it will kill all creativity from builders such as yourself.

If you started from the top traverse at Showcase, and straight-ran into the HN medium jump line, you would stand a good chance to overshoot by a mile and paralyze yourself, that doesn't mean the jumps are shit....
 
this thread is fucked up. you guys should all just fucking chill and there probably is a lot going on that you don't know about. his insurance company probably played a part and those statistics are pretty high for how many people were getting hurt on that jump.

just chill with the hate and feel sorry for the guy because he is paralyzed and from reading some of this shit i don't think you realize how major of an injury that is.

boohoo you might have to have a smaller jump if it even affects you at all but atleast you aren't paralyzed and you can still ski/walk/take care of yourself

what goes around comes around and theres some bad fucking karma in this thread
 
I totally agree, I never started this thread to have everyone hate the guy, but to be aware of what is to come becuase of what lawers were able to do in the court room.

The wording of this case is what is hurting the industry not this guy. If you read the case it says that the jump was not structly sound and was not build by a licensed engineer. This is what is hurting the industry, the wording of the case. Everyone knows no jump will ever be structly engineered because it is snow, and snow is constantly changing shape and form. I bet the jumps will go away for a while or if they don't go away they will be a lot smaller. Once they get the wording changed in the case file then the jumps will get bigger again.

 
I agree that it may not have been this guys intentions to sue and hurt the future of skiing and boarding. It was likely insurance companies trying to stay rich and keep making big money.

Unfortunately, it may prompt smaller hills to decide that it is not worth the costs to build terrain parks.

That's the issue. Increased costs in liability and insurance will be keeping smaller ski areas from taking the time and effort to build a terrain park which isn't significantly generating revenue.

Big resorts will continue making parks. I don't see that stopping. But small hills will be forced to abandon parks altogether as the potential costs outweigh the benefits for them now.
 
I think the majority of people on here are not hating on the kid who was injured, but rather the system that allows lawsuits such as these to be succesful.

I have nothing but sympathy and best wishes for him, as well as Marc Andre, Josh Dueck, and many many others who have suffered catastrophic, paralyzing injury doing a sport they love.

The hating is towards the US legal system and the ambulance chasing lawyers who encourage and assist anyone with an injury to shift the blame away from themselves and penalize others for their mistakes.

Talk about bad karma, those lawyers are the ones who should be walking around in full body armour.

 
Doug you should make a "digger camp" and train everyone that wants to build parks on how to do it safely, like a cutters camp but for the hand workers, not just the cat drivers...
 
insurance is too expensive. bullets are cheap - thats an easy solution for the people that can't deal with the choices - educated or uneducated - they make in their lives and the consequences of those choices.
 
your law system is fucked. In sweden where I come from, there are no holes in the waivers.... actually we don't need waivers, it's enough with a sign and that's it. The signs are approved by the national ski association and that's final.. the only way to overrule is if the jump is badly managed.

then again, the american law system constitutes this whole idea of "the land of the free". yeah, land to freely sue. everything else is fucking nazi style.

http://ikea-usa.istheshit.net/
 
We pay for it all the time, jumps get smaller so that they are safer, lift tickets jump to cover the insurance. It's total bullshit, Its darwinism and they deserved it, I ride lake louise and Nakiska and i see gapers hitting the bigger jumps and hurting themselves all the time, especially families and their kids riding through the landings, I really hate to say this but the best idea may be park passes that cost extra and are scanned everytime you enter the park.
 
hey fuck you, how bout that?

If he was a para? you mean like mark andre bellivue? wheres his 14 million dollars you stupid bitch? Fuck you. Mark andre is gonna live a meagher life and this guys gonna have a fucking yacht because he was another typical american

 
if some dumbshit carries a normal park jump 110ft as stated above then its obviously not the ski area's fault because ski areas dont build anything over eighty for the public and i do feel bad for him but like thats the risk you take when you buy the ticket ride the mountain and hit the jumps
 
^^ thats why i am responsble in the decisions that i make that could affect the rest of my life. An aquaintance of mine, from school a few years ago, got super drunk and crashed her car. She was thrown out of the vehicle and it landed on her and gave her 3rd degree burns on her face and chest. I think she deserved it 100%. I aknowledge that it sucks and she will look horrible for the rest of her life, but I do not feel any sympathy for her and feel that she got exactly what was coming.

If some idiot does something stupid and it bites them on the ass, I say they have learned a lesson, and no one else should pay for it.
 
Are you freaking kidding me. Boyne has always owned Brighton for like 10 years or more. Boyne just sold Brighton and a bunch of their other resorts to A Florida real estate investment trust.
 
yeah i bet he is out buying a yacht right now. especially because he would be able to captain one and all i mean being all not paralyzed and stuff.

 
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