More needs to be done to keep park riders and gapers safe.

I did a backflip off a rail takeoff opening day one year. When I wanted a small jump to screw around on I built it. Gapers are lazy parasites. They attach themselves to the park and leave no rail take off healthy.

I wish they would just bring a shovel and build shitty booter in the woods or something.

Everyone started unskilled but not everyone was a gaper. Some people had some idea of their abilities, what the hell was going around them, and actually had some respect for others. To me that's the difference between noobs and gapers.
 
A small solution could be creating fencing at the entrance of the park, forcing people to weave through the fencing, with signs in the pathway so people HAVE to at least glance at it. It's not much, but it doesnt require any extra passes or money. It'll weed out one or two people...
 
You need park crew yellow jackets. Normal yellow jackets are worse than ski patrol when it comes to yelling at you for shit in the park (such as doing flips, multiple people on features, trains, etc). They need to be yellow jackets that only enforce gaper shit basically.
 
the best way to get gapers out of the parks where experienced park skiers are in my opinion and experience is to give them a park of their own. put a run down on the side of your main park trail with tiny boxes, rails, and 5-10 foot tables. the weekend warriors flock to butter boxes. everybody just wants to "catch some air." if you give them a seperate place to do so then you win
 
I don't know what the solution is but I agree that something needs to be done. The only way I really see it working is all parks having dedicated lift access with lifties that actually check for park passes. Last year Gunstock had bright orange construction fencing with a two foot gap in it at the top of the park entrance to ski through which helped a little bit, but stuff like this still happened. This kid could've been beheaded if he was about five feet to the left.

View attachment 694959

This year the fencing is gone and it's only worse, you can barely make it to the bottom of the park without getting cut off on the weekends.
 
They have something like that at the top of Dirt Merchant on Whistler. Someone ended up crashing on it and hurting themselves so they closed the first feature for a while.
 
Im not really for fencing the rollers of jumps because i like to do tricks off them (butter 5s, hand drag corks ect)
 
That's why it's not a win win but if it's the difference between hitting a jump and landing on snow or landing on 23 gapers, sometimes it's the best option. Honestly don't even care about not being able to hit a roller. Only time I think it's really an inconvenience is if you're filming.
 
The should build a 20 foot gap with either a jump over it and a bridge made out of a rail and that way if a gaper couldn't do either they would be stuck outside the park.
 
i agree. i almost decapitated a young girl yesterday at Northstar. gapers everywhere in the park! the jump line was clear so i dropped in and on the second jump out of nowhere a girl decides to cut across the knuckle from skiers left all the way to the other side and right on the landing. i was mid 5 and already committed. i honestly don't know how i didn't clip her with my tails and chop her head off. soo sketchy. people need to learn where they are skiing so they don't just randomly end up in the wrong spot at the wrong time
 
Parents taking their children in the park to ski over knuckles is just as retarded as taking them for a walk on an airport runway and then yelling at the planes for almost hitting them.
 
This works quite effectively. Apart from physically keeping gapers from riding over the knuckle it also sends a clear message that doing it is wrong.

694998.png

Apply safety nets alongside rails so that no one cuts in from the side after the features. If they just go over the knoll next parallel to the rail you should see them in time and it won't become a dangerous situation.
 
You could save yourself a lot of time and simply run the fencing from the side of the takeoff to the edge. Running it down the trail is just a waste of pop fence and time.
 
My park tried that today. The problem is that you get a nice view of the park from the chair. The entrance kept getting clogged with gapers. The situation was worse than before some gapers actually hit the small jumps built for them so there is little wait time inside but now you couldn't even get into the park.

After an hour or so some dude lost it and repositioned the fence so you would not have to make a turn to get in the park.
 
at most vail resorts they have people who wear yellow jackets, stand in front of a sign that says slow and yell at you if you get more than 6 inches off the ground or are going more than 10 miles per hour. They are a wee bit annoying
 
The same thing happened to me but on an up rail, and i was doing a blind 4 out. I ran over the front of her skis but nearly broke every bone in her body.
 
i think you should be forced to go through like a test type thing about all the saftey getting off the landing etc. in a park because i almost crushed a 5 year old kid who was just sitting on the landing of the jump i was hitting...couldnt see him when i was on the takeoff.. i think we both shat our pants
 
Whenever I go into parks, I tell myself that the more gapers get scared, they less prone they are to entering the park. Crude, but effective.
 
Heres my solution, a universal park pass. Like said before it sucks if you go to a mountain for a day and need to get a park pass. Heres how it works: Take a test online, pay a small fee, give your name and a picture (for the pass), and they mail it to you. This would keep the gapers out because its a hassle to do all of this if your only skiing twice a year, but if they do get a pass at least they know what their doing.
 
I don't know your idea has been downvoted so much, i love that idea although it would be to hard
 
So what you're saying is that you've never slid a rail before? and that you use lips as jumps?

I'm just messing with you, i hope everyone on here knows what you meant
 
At my mountain I've seen a couple of instances were ski patrol has talked to families that have entered the park and snaked riders in unsafe situations. 9 times out of 10 though it just results in the ski patroller being told to F off. Kinda sad.
 
I think there needs to be more education and signage at the top of the line, like signs saying a lip is not a jump, not to stop on the nuckle etc, also netting the nuckle apart from maybe a 5 metre lane way as people still want to do butters off them... Universal park pass is a good idea, the pass applies to all mountain under North America and other resorts like Perisher in Australia etc, to where you have to take a test, pay a fee and if you are caught misusing the features then the pass is pulled and you have to re-apply.... theirs not a lot you can do to stop gapers they are a necessary evil for the resorts to stay open
 
This is really hard / almost impossible to do. Gapers are the vast majority of skiers, and ever more so the vast majority of ticket buyers. It puts resorts is a really tough place to try and police parks which are only utilized properly by roughly 3-5% of skiers. Try and keep them out of the park and it creates a negative impression on the primary customer. The end result IS really dangerous and it exposes almost everyone in the park to a pretty high level of risk. Interesting topic and I would love to hear what other have to say about it. Personally I think park passes are not the answer, mainly for the before-mentioned reasons.
 
almost decapitated someone with my skis last Saturday. Park at a local hill (Fortune) is ridiculously packed with people just skiing through and standing on the jump knuckles etc. Heading for the last jump, guy is to my right a little ways in front of me, figure he's going to go straight over knuckle and keep skiing. Nope. Last second just as I'm on the jump he cuts left right below the jump. Aborted planned jump popped as much as I could and went inches away from his neck. In hindsight I really wish I tail tapped his head. Totally could have.
 
I've been skiing on a broken wrist most of the season from landing on a gaper, and my season ended last year with broken ribs in the same way. It sucks (how do the morons crossing the landing never get hurt?). I've had good experiences with park passes in the past, but I would LOVE to build a park with a mandatory 15 foot drop or a giant uneven icy mogul field at the entrance.
 
I think, every Ski Resorts always gives reminders to their clients and visitors about the precautions needed. But I guess, It should also in the riders part to take care of themselves and should always in control when riding.
 
When You are in mid air or on a rail you have 0 control over any thing you are now a flying out of control projectile.
 
I think park passes are kind of a bad idea because then it makes it so the people that are getting into park late not really want to get into it. I think a better idea is to have spotters at the knuckles of every jump and if you drop without them giving you the go-ahead then you can get in trouble and maybe even your pass removed. Also when you enter the park somebody telling you the dangers and what to do and what not to do. It sounds kinda ridiculous but for safety, I think it's be worth it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top