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

Maybe the larger places should have a few staff members monitoring the parks at all times. They can go around on snowmobiles and make sure people are practicing safe park etiquette. I imagine it being like lifeguards at a water park.
 
Creating a park safety team could help. They could patrol the park, clear landings and redirect gapers who are visibly incompetent and/or stray into the park. My 2 cents.
 
Jackson hole usually has someone watching the big kicker line in their park. Also when the little kids get a lesson their instructor teaches them how to use the park safely. The little things like calling your drop and not sitting in the landings. I've yet to see another resort that does both of those things.
 
I definitely think this is an important issue. The best thing about freestyle and park skiing is that you choose your challenge - and the inherent danger that comes with it. With this idea in place, there is no room for not only adding danger to others experience but also others endangering you.

The park pass is a pretty good idea, especially if implemented correctly. As an above poster said, just having a parent be forced to sign the waiver helps to eliminate a lot of younger kids from being where they shouldn't be. Perhaps more important, though is a dedicated park ski patrol. The NS community (and myself) feel that a lot of ski patrollers don't respect park skiing as much as they should, or maybe they just don't understand it very well. So I think it's important that there be dedicated park patrollers to keep people safe and handle medical emergencies.
 
I am in full support of this. at least for the pro-line... and don't forget the spikes/fire in the pit.
 
I yelled at some fuggin gaper stadning in the landing this past week. I only saw him cause the tip of his stupid jester hat was sticking out of the landing and I could miraculously see it from the take off.

To be fair people, even bad skiers, usually respond to a polite yet firm, "MOVE, YOU'RE IN THE LANDING, YOU'RE GONNA GET HIT." I knew there was a group of boarders throwing down not far behind me. luckily these guys hightailed out of the landing.

I'd like to think I saved more than a couple headaches at that moment..
 
I yelled at some fuggin gaper stadning in the landing this past week. I only saw him cause the tip of his stupid jester hat was sticking out of the landing and I could miraculously see it from the take off.

To be fair people, even bad skiers, usually respond to a polite yet firm, "MOVE, YOU'RE IN THE LANDING, YOU'RE GONNA GET HIT." I knew there was a group of boarders throwing down not far behind me. luckily these guys hightailed out of the landing.

I'd like to think I saved more than a couple headaches at that moment..
 
Something that really chaps my ass is when they stand on the walls of QPs and tranny finds litteral have watched 10 get hit this way.
 
12889719:Holte said:
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.
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But then how would hardcore park rats that can't actually ski get to the park?
 
Pull passes from gapers that act retarded in the park (i.e. cutting across landings, standing in landing zones, etc). No warnings.
 
The onus here should be on educating people.

When issuing someone their first pass of the season they read a short notice about the dangers of the mountain and mountain etiquette. There is a park section, following it is a multiple choice quiz to make sure they've read it. Once they pass the quiz they get a card saying they've had their 'mountain induction' for the season. All they have to do is flash the card to get more passes.

That way everyone is taught and parents are encouraged to educate their children.

The key here is 'potential danger', in the same way a road or a gym is potentially dangerous. Teach people of the dangers and how to avoid them and generally speaking the world will be apocalypse free. Even the biggest idiots will remember the lessons of danger... Sort of.

What this process does is give the mountain responsibility for people in the park. In the interest of safety the consequences of breaking the rules can be made more severe. Ie, if you're spotted on landings etc you can have your pass pulled by park crew/patrol/mountain safety.

Just my 2c
 
all the older folk love to ski over the knuckles and carve them. it is extremely annoying because they believe they can do whatever the hell they want and if anything happens to them its the others fault. the problem here is as soon as they are over the crest of the knuckle you cant see that your about to hit them. our park passes do not work at our mountain.
 
Why not do a water park kind of thing where there is a person standing at the top always watching to see when the previous person has cleared a jump before they tell another person to go.

Or (expensive/not worth it idea) have a park crew member on the knuckle to every big jump and if the person right before you crashed or there is a gaper in the landing, they can wave you off
 
it seems like its a rather difficult thing to do, I can see why. you want to educate these people about safe riding, but you don't want to discriminate against them by telling them they can't get their feet wet in the park.
 
park passes aren't the solution, eduction is. If you correctly sign post things at the top saying things like avoid the knuckles of jumps etc etc you would have alot less confusion. I know most gapers at my mountain before they enter the park read the rules saying things along the lines of call your drop in, helmets are recommend but nothing about standing in a blindspot or using a lip as a jump which is stupid. Eduction is the key.
 
12869400:SDrvper said:
Park pass
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Meh...park passes kinda suck. They only work as well as the park crew is willing to check them. I've been to several mountains that require park passes...I've never gotten one, you just go right by and no one cares. On top of that, they're a supreme liability to the mountain, lets say someone gets by without a park pass (see above on how easy), then they get hurt...the mountain is now in a situation where this person could say "I didn't know what I was doing there" or something like that. The biggest reason for no park passes is it makes people feel like they don't belong there...and therefore people who might want to try and actually learn how to ski park might never even go in there because they have to get a pass (which some people feel means they need to already know what they are doing).
 
i feel you man. shits gruesome i was on the lift and I saw a boarder fuck up on a 50 footer. the dude landed right in the gnar. broken back and he slid into a gaper and broke the gapers a legs.
 
What makes me really mad is the fucking people who ski thru the park with 0 intent of using any features. At my shit hill in Ohio, I'd wager that 50%+ of the people "in" the park are just there to ski past the features. It grinds my gears because it makes our park so fucking crowded. Our vertical is 164 feet, it's not a large area, but everybody seems to feel the need to ski that 1 run.

I never see this bs when I go ski out west.
 
13571344:Rparr said:
What makes me really mad is the fucking people who ski thru the park with 0 intent of using any features. At my shit hill in Ohio, I'd wager that 50%+ of the people "in" the park are just there to ski past the features. It grinds my gears because it makes our park so fucking crowded. Our vertical is 164 feet, it's not a large area, but everybody seems to feel the need to ski that 1 run.

I never see this bs when I go ski out west.
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completely surround the park with a fence. make it so the entrance over the fence is a 10-15 ft kicker. if you knuckle you won't make it into the park. gapers won't be able to make it in.
 
We had a similar problem at a local wakeboard park (cable that tows you around in a lake, not with a boat). Kids would fall and would sit in place trying to get their board off, often behind a jump or a rail so you couldn't see them.

What they did was, when you sign a waiver, you have to watch a 5 minute safety video. Like what to do if you fall, what to do if you SEE someone fall, etc. Very few accidents now, and im sure it eliminates a lot of stress for kids just starting out and are afraid of people hitting them.

If you had to watch a short video to get your pass that just showed you exactly where not to stand and how to get out of the way when you crash, would probably help a lot.

signs don't really work for a lot of people, they're too easy to ignore
 
13571674:CabbyArrant said:
completely surround the park with a fence. make it so the entrance over the fence is a 10-15 ft kicker. if you knuckle you won't make it into the park. gapers won't be able to make it in.
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Management is too cheap to ever do anything like that.
 
I believe your mtn has too much action for qps. Some parks have the ability to be great, but attendance IS everything.
 
13572194:Earl_Globz said:
I believe your mtn has too much action for qps. Some parks have the ability to be great, but attendance IS everything.
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Yeah. My home mountain is Sunday River and this year the qp was set up at like the trail merge at the end of the park. It usually stays packed.
 
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