Opinions wanted on Sunshine Village's inbounds avi gear requirement

[teamdirt]

Approaching terrain with caution and teaching idiots about risk-reward is the most progressive safety-management policy a ski resort in North America has taken.

Finally tourists have to take responsibility for their actions instead of pointing fingers and laying blame.

If you are to naive to learn avalanche safety, self-rescue and route finding then perhaps you should try another sport.

[Greydon Clark]

Here in Washington, the home of gray skies and gray areas, some resorts require avy gear for some areas some of the time.

[GoNads]

Most "advance-high level" skiers out here own and are familiar with avy gear. I fail to see how requiring avy gear for certain areas is a bad thing. Less traffic = more snow for you. Unless of course, you like idiots slipping all the snow off and gapering around on top of cliffs completely lost and terrified.

I really wish they'd do that here, just imagine if spanky's (mind you, this is an area not NEARLY as gnar as delirium dive) was suddenly probe/shovel/beacon/buddy requiring.. one can wish right?

[KungFu Eddie]

It's bad enough that the snow gets trenched out because every aussie 'local' who spends 2 months there has to prove they can side slip delerium.

Ouch man. Don't tar us all with the same brush, some of us have learnt to turn (not many though)

I only went to SSV once and the dive was closed but from what I could see it was just about the only thing worth skiing (i guess I need some inside knowledge to find the rest of it). Gave Goats Eye a try but it seemed to be some sort of barren wind fucked ice mogul field.

I totaly agree that having gear in that terrain, even if it is controlled to a degree is a good thing because you could certainly get into a fair amount of trouble in there. LL has the summit platter for that. If you can't ride up head wall you can't ski the terain. And er5 is short so the gapers just get spat out the bottom

[grapedrink]

i went to sunshine and delerium dive was closed, goats eye was a "barren wind fucked ice mogul field". nothing else was terribly interesting.. that said i have a lift ticket voucher valid until sometime in march 2009, anyone want it?

[_Aaron_]

For the life of me I don't understand why Jackson does not establish this standard for OB.
The shittshows that occur back there...I can't believe there isn't more mayhem.

I'm surprised they don't make it a standard for some of the hike to terrain such as Casper. I mean from a liability standpoint if something goes down on Casper or the headwall Jackson is on the hook as opposed to any activity OB JH is not liable at all. And to get to Casper or the headwall all you have to do is follow the footprints....

[eldereldo]

Without DD (or WW, or SS) open Sunshine is an intermediate hill at best...hence the reason they have a Delirium Dive Hotline so all the locals can keep driving to LL if it isn't opening.

[2stix]

that said i have a lift ticket voucher valid until sometime in march 2009, anyone want it?

I'll take it.
PM me.

[f2f]

i went to sunshine and delerium dive was closed, goats eye was a "barren wind fucked ice mogul field". nothing else was terribly interesting.. that said i have a lift ticket voucher valid until sometime in march 2009, anyone want it?

second dibs. i like barren wind fucked ice mogul fields.

[Bunion 2020]

A bit of history and some insight.

Back before DD and the rest of the inbounds access controlled terrain at SSV was opened, The Ski Patrol Director (Tom) and the Snow Safety Dir. (Rowan) from SSV payed a visit to Big Sky. At that time I was the Asst. SS Dir. for Big Sky. We gave them a tour of the Big Cooler, the Graceland/elvis chutes and the A-Zs and explained our reasons for the gear requirements. It is/was a weeding out process, plain and simple.

They accepted that idea, had a great time and made a bunch of friends. They went back north and began work on DD. Pretty soon (the next season) they had it open with those gear requirements.

Since that time, I have moved on, just over the hill and had a hand in opening some very steep/radical terrain. The Headwaters area was the Gracelands/elvis chutes area. When we opened that terrain we discussed the idea of gear requirements and decided that the hike alone was enough to deter all but the willing and capable. When we built the Headwaters chair we revisited the idea and decided that the hike along the ridge was still a good test of who was capable and stuck with our original plan.

When we opened the N. Summit of Lone Peak we wanted to limit the numbers and keep a barrier to reduce the joey factor. We required a beacon, shovel, probe and partner and you had to sign out at our station and we kept groups spaced every 10 minutes.

After 3 seasons I feel we can handle the traffic. We are in the process of revising our program. My proposal is; On very good visibility days the area will be open. Go through our gate and go skiing. On poor visibility days the gear/group requirements will be in effect. On hazardous days the area will remain closed.

Bridger Bowl is revising their requirements as well. This season, to access the ridge and the new chair the requirement is, a beacon, period.

A lot of thought goes into these decisions, it isn't some whim or abritrary decision.

Just some food for thought.

Any Moonlight skiers who have input on changes of our terrain management, please PM me. I want to know what you think.

Thanks.

[mntlion]

DD terrain can be tame, but it can get very sporty if you hunt around for a bit. some of the best is teamdirts line in rocket pocket (search on biglines) Also some other techy, lines that if you fuck up, you will have issues. The stairs are a safer way to get in, the Bre-X enterance can get sideslipped and fucked in a hurry, but between then you can find some ways in too.

Also the time needed for rescue is very long, so if you do get hurt it is a long time for a sled and a warm place...

I've set off small slide in all that terrain, after it is open. Like Merylen said, it is hard terrain to control, and after some wind lots of it will reload, makes for some great turns, but does keep you on your toes.

The west is a step up from the dive, and SC a big step up from that. I've made it in 2 times in 2 years.

[SkiED]

i know of very few places this side of the pond that call this "inbound terrain"

ya thats steep but to be honest I know plenty of resorts that have terrain like that in bounds...

[mntlion]

wish I could find the image that someone did that linked all the pics.

TD: do you have that somewhere? can you post it of email it to me?

[skiingsamurai]

f2f: holy hell, thats inbouds?
forget avi gear, they might as well give you a test for large testicles before allowing you to ski that, those lines look serious

[mntlion]

that is "rocket pocket" kinda inbounds, between goats eye and the dive, facing north. It is not a closed area, and is part of SSV's area.
that is our own teamdirt skiing that line, video footage of it is online somewhere too.

[gramboh]

A bit of history and some insight.

Back before DD and the rest of the inbounds access controlled terrain at SSV was opened, The Ski Patrol Director (Tom) and the Snow Safety Dir. (Rowan) from SSV payed a visit to Big Sky. At that time I was the Asst. SS Dir. for Big Sky. We gave them a tour of the Big Cooler, the Graceland/elvis chutes and the A-Zs and explained our reasons for the gear requirements. It is/was a weeding out process, plain and simple.

They accepted that idea, had a great time and made a bunch of friends. They went back north and began work on DD. Pretty soon (the next season) they had it open with those gear requirements.

Since that time, I have moved on, just over the hill and had a hand in opening some very steep/radical terrain. The Headwaters area was the Gracelands/elvis chutes area. When we opened that terrain we discussed the idea of gear requirements and decided that the hike alone was enough to deter all but the willing and capable. When we built the Headwaters chair we revisited the idea and decided that the hike along the ridge was still a good test of who was capable and stuck with our original plan.

When we opened the N. Summit of Lone Peak we wanted to limit the numbers and keep a barrier to reduce the joey factor. We required a beacon, shovel, probe and partner and you had to sign out at our station and we kept groups spaced every 10 minutes.

After 3 seasons I feel we can handle the traffic. We are in the process of revising our program. My proposal is; On very good visibility days the area will be open. Go through our gate and go skiing. On poor visibility days the gear/group requirements will be in effect. On hazardous days the area will remain closed.

Bridger Bowl is revising their requirements as well. This season, to access the ridge and the new chair the requirement is, a beacon, period.

A lot of thought goes into these decisions, it isn't some whim or abritrary decision.

Just some food for thought.

Any Moonlight skiers who have input on changes of our terrain management, please PM me. I want to know what you think.

Thanks.

Awesome stuff, I hope all resorts attempt to follow policies like this to attract more high end skiers.

[thebigeast]

i know of very few places this side of the pond that call this "inbound terrain":


there's nothing wrong with being special. you can rent the required avy equipment very cheap. not sure you can rent friends so cheaply though.

dude that terrain looks pretty gnarly, i would definately want avi gear and a partner...i mean i ski with beacon inbounds at the 'bird on some of the deeper days....and come on, look what happened at the canyon's last year, inbounds slide killing one dude, even after 150 lbs of charges were thrown on it!

[Franz]

I'm going with the overall group and saying that it seems like a sound, safe and intelligent policy.
So go buy a damn beacon.

[snoboy]

There's a few backcountry gates at SSV similar to those at Jackson Hole, but because SSV is in a National Park, you can leave the area at any point (as long as you don't cross an closed inbounds area) with or without avi gear, at your own risk.

Actually that's because it's in Canada, not because it's in a National Park. I can't think of a Canadian resort that restricts OB access, unless it's something like DOA on Blackcomb that threatens the ski area.

[teamdirt]

rocket pocket footage from the Dive

http://www.biglines.com/videos/puskas.mov

here is a close up of the right side of Silver City. Notice the bomb hole in the middle of the lower cliff. Patrol ran out of TNT that day trying to control every nook and cranny so I decided to throw my own bombs to test the snowpack...

[teamdirt]

Linky no worky anymore.

Here is the photo mntlion.

[mntlion]

TD: nice line, can you email that to me in a large format?

[Clownshoe]

I patrol at Whistler/Blackcomb, and I WISH we had a way to keep some of the fucking tools out of the good steep terrain. If you ski at an area that has these kind of partner/gear policies, consider yourself lucky.

As has been stated here a couple of times, these requirements keep the pow pow better for longer, to say nothing of cutting down on the bloody red streaks.

[irul&ublo]

To ski Delirium Dive, The Wild West, and Silver City at Sunshine Village one must have avi gear and a partner. Is this really necessary or are they just too cheap or too lazy to properly prepare or patrol their terrain? I can think of many places more radical that do not require this. In fact, I know of no other place that requires this in what they call their inbounds terrain.

There's a lot of p[laces at a lot of resorts where skiing by yourself is not such a bright idea. Don't know about the avy status.

[BigDaddyLionfish]

Where, in the entire continent, is there inbounds terrain nearly as gnarly as Silver city and Wild West?