Deaths, rising rescue calls beyond ski boundaries pose dilemma for resorts
- Details
- Created on Wednesday, 02 March 2011 13:13
- Written by Nathan
Photo by Andy Cross, The Denver Post
By JASON BLEVINS, THE DENVER POST
Two men died last month after leaving ski-area access gates in search of untracked powder. As more skiers and snowboarders venture through access gates atop most every ski area, calls for difficult-to-reach rescues are climbing.
The deaths, rescue calls and swelling traffic just outside ski-area boundaries are stirring animated discussion among all players — ski-area operators, their Forest Service landlords and local sheriffs in charge of volunteer-led rescue teams — about how to handle the powder hounds who use lifts to access unmanaged "sidecountry" terrain on the other side of ski-area boundary ropes.
"It's kind of a dilemma," said Mike Ricketts, the Forest Service winter-sports administrator for Winter Park Resort, where snowboarder David Riddle died Feb. 11 after leaving the ski-area boundary through the 40 Gate at Mary Jane. "We're talking about public land and we want to allow access. We are always tossing ideas back and forth . . . looking for things we need to consider."
Lately, those ideas include expanding boundaries in such places as Steamboat and Winter Park, which could put popular sidecountry routes inside ski-area permits. Opening those drainages — such as Fish Creek at Steamboat, Zero Creek and the terrain below 40 Gate at Winter Park — would give the ski areas more control over dangerous snowpack, provide easier access out of steep-and-deep terrain and potentially thwart more accidents.
Other ideas include tweaking the wording on the signs that warn departing skiers that they are leaving the safety of ski-patrolled slopes. Some areas are shifting access gates to make skiers work a bit harder and to discourage so-called "yo-yo skiing" that enables sidecountry users to easily leave and return to the ski area.
Read full story
Weather
Current Contests
