Those are awesome. How confident are you guys that Vail won't change Crested Butte's SOP?
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Jury Rules in Favor of Vail in Avalanche Death
- Thread starter SBrown
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Ever considered this?
https://recruiting.adp.com/srccar/public/RTI.home?c=1203501&d=#/
put in CMR6921
^^^
Those are cool... I also like Hillmap with the CalTopo overlay - bit easier to digest for places I'm familiar with. YMMV. (Note that Prima Cornice at Vail is the small purple-ish area just right of the center of the image, right of Christmas and Swingsville, which go down the gentle side of the ridge.)
CalTopo key :
Those are cool... I also like Hillmap with the CalTopo overlay - bit easier to digest for places I'm familiar with. YMMV. (Note that Prima Cornice at Vail is the small purple-ish area just right of the center of the image, right of Christmas and Swingsville, which go down the gentle side of the ridge.)
CalTopo key :
Not confident at all. But I'm not sure that is a bad thing.
Yes Vail was not perfect the incident that this thread is discussing. But to suggest that they are not trustworthy for their avalanche mitigation work based on an event that occured 6 seasons ago -- arguably on a closed run -- is IMHO pretty silly. When they claim that they did no avalanche mitigation work, what they were likely claiming is they have no evidence that they did avalanche mitigation work. Had they claimed to have done such they would've been required to produce proof and it would've been massively dissected.
If you don't trust them that is fine. There are people out there who don't trust STH bindings or Pivots because they've had a bad experience with them. Vail operates more avalanche terrain across the country than any other provider. And they have an incredible track record at this point.
But to spread FUD based on little to no current or relevant evidence that Vail's ski patrol isn't doing adequate mitigation work seems misguided. If you have solid evidence that Vail SP isn't as good as others in avalanche mitigation, by all means present it. Meanwhile, you seem to trust the operator at WP which had an inbounds, marked run avalanche the same year that killed someone.
I see it very differently. If there is no record of avalanche mitigation, it wasn't done. At least that's how something this serious should be managed.
If an airplane crashed and there was no record of aircraft maintenance would you give the airline the same benefit of the doubt?
And then there is no investigation into the cause of the airplane crash? And no required change in procedures to make all airlines safer?
I don't think anyone should feel safe getting on an airplane after that.
This isn't just about Vail. I'd like to see some changes to make us safer at all resorts, at least here in Colorado if not industry wide.
If you don't like the airplane analogy, how about ski lifts. They are handled very differently under Colorado law, as they should be. Maybe avalanche mitigation should be as well.
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IMHO airline and ski lift maintenance isn't the same kind of problem as avalanche mitigation given the current state of snow science. While avalanche mitigation has grown by leaps and bounds in the last 20-30 years, it isn't the kind of preventable event that a ski lift failure is. We know when and where avalanches may occur, but we do not have the ability yet to prevent them.
I would love to hear from people who work on paid patrol on this. Is it SOP that every ski cut, directed skiing, stomping, etc is recorded in a book somewhere? I'm sure every live charge does, but would be a bit surprised if every other measure patrol takes does.
I would love to hear from people who work on paid patrol on this. Is it SOP that every ski cut, directed skiing, stomping, etc is recorded in a book somewhere? I'm sure every live charge does, but would be a bit surprised if every other measure patrol takes does.
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That was the same day, but a different deal. Both extraordinarily tragic.
Unlike Vail, I don't believe Winter Park did anything wrong. I agree with the ruling and think avalanches are an inherent risk of skiing. I just think there should be more transparency if not accountability into avalanche mitigation.
The WP death wasn't on a marked run. It was in the trees between two runs. Unlike Prima Cornice, it's not somewhere I'd expect mitigation, nor would it be practical.
I've skied Topher's Trees a zillion times. I was skiing them the day Christopher "Topher" Sendroy died in a tree well there, and the following day when they were searching for him. That was also tragic. It was back in 1995.
Edit: Both men killed in those trees were named Christopher. Christopher Norris died the same day as Taft Conlin and was the subject of the Colorado Supreme Court ruling.
There is this memorial sign, but nothing on the trail map or at the several unmarked entrances.
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I have spent a few seasons at resorts where the mitigation are the norm almost every morning with a bit of fresh. W/B, Squaw, Taos, Snowbird to name a few. Even at these hills where mitigation are every day events, the Patrol still occasionally get caught off guard.
There is no duty of care under the Colorado Ski Safety Act for avalanche mitigation. That law is at a negligence per se standard and this is not a duty the law assigns. Every one of these discussions heads down the path of common negligence, which does not exist unless you claim falls outside of the ski safety act, which is what they and the WP case were trying.
There were three claims:
1) Willful misconduct, which was dismissed early on.
2) Wrongful death based on failure to mitigate avalanche risk, which was no longer viable when the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that avalanche is an Inherent Risk of Skiing in the WP case. That means no common negligence standard, no duty of care.
3) Negligence per se based on failure to sign as that is a duty assigned to Vail under the law. Vail’s attorney said exactly what I have been saying all along. If you can hike up under a closure, then all closures have to be a box. That is both absurd as a legal result and completely absent from the law.
It has nothing to do with uphill policy, nothing to do with avalanche mitigation, and only signing the access point identified by the resort operator as closed.
You can hike into closures and everything you encounter will be an inherent risk of skiing. You will also be negligent under the law, because it assigns you a duty not to do so. Your awareness of closure is irrelevant, because the resort as zero duty to make you aware except signage at its identified entrances.
Your identified entrances are irrelevant and you bear 100% of the risk for them in Colorado. There is very strong case law precedent in Cololorado that skiers cannot create anything on a trail map. Only the resort can do so and it has to sign its identified entrances closed if they are closed.
All snow conditions are an inherent risk of skiing in Colorado. There is no duty to mitigate anything, anywhere. There is only a duty of signage, right there in black and white, and you can’t rope off closed territory in a square.
I know people want to think there is a lot of gray here, but there isn’t. You have to argue that all closures are roped in a box to get anywhere, and Colorado law instructs that we do not reach absurd results.
All of this means that none of us should assume the resort is keeping us safe. They do everything they can, but bear none of the risk. It’s an excellent idea to stay off avy terrain in avy conditions. What is avy terrain?
Why, it’s an inherent risk of skiing.
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There are numerous problems with "avalanche mitigation reports" as you describe. They would have to be nothing like grooming reports.
First, grooming is typically done after the resort closes for the day. Maybe a few in the AM. Meanwhile, avalanche mitigation is an ongoing exercise, with many trails being mitigated after the resort is open. You'd need a constant live report. So maybe you report the last time a particular slope was mitigated and how it was mitigated.
Second, you don't perform mitigation on a trail. You perform it on an avalanche path. Many trails would have numerous avalanche paths. It may be they felt some paths required mitigation and some paths didn't. Unless you name every potential avy path on the mountain, and somehow effectively communicate the names of paths and where they are to end users.
Third, even with the court ruling that avys are an inherent, I imagine there would be some serious blowback if a skier was caught in an avalanche on a "mitigated slope." Maybe there is no legal recourse, but the PR would be nasty.
So now you have a situation in which users are given a report listing various avalanche paths and the last time they were mitigated. Your average user is going to take this as a sign these slopes are safe to ski. Meanwhile maybe a path was mitigated but missed a trigger point, or 8" of snow fell on that path since, or the path got a bunch of wind slab on it, etc etc etc. And to make a good assessment of terrain safety, you would probably want to cross-reference the last mitigation date of each particular slope with the posted avalanche bulletins posted since then, to understand at what elevation and aspect different avalanche problems may exist.
At the end of the day, mitigation of an avalanche path is not a yes/no like grooming a trail. Transparency yes. Easily interpretable by a large number of skiers, I'm not so sure.
I don't think avalanche mitigation reports would've saved any lives those days. People are going to seek fresh powder. One of the lives is in a spot you have claimed was not feasible to mitigate. The other was in a spot viewed as closed by the resort that kids hiked into for fresh lines.
I really don't see a kid of 13 memorizing an avy mitigation board, observing that a run wasn't mitigated recently, and thinking "na, I won't just go just a bit to the right of all those tracks that made it down safely. Those freshies look good but there wasn't any mitigation and the CAIC report is calling for a soft slab avalanche problem on slopes at this elevation and aspect ." If experienced adults with avy training regularly make a similar error in their seeking out powder, I find it hard to believe a 13 year old boy without avy training is going to make a better decision.
The reason patrol with lots of avy experience exists is because they will make far safer decisions about what is safe and not safe than an average person. They demonstrate this by opening or closing terrain. Or even a very skilled person, because they live and breath a particular snowpack.
First, grooming is typically done after the resort closes for the day. Maybe a few in the AM. Meanwhile, avalanche mitigation is an ongoing exercise, with many trails being mitigated after the resort is open. You'd need a constant live report. So maybe you report the last time a particular slope was mitigated and how it was mitigated.
Second, you don't perform mitigation on a trail. You perform it on an avalanche path. Many trails would have numerous avalanche paths. It may be they felt some paths required mitigation and some paths didn't. Unless you name every potential avy path on the mountain, and somehow effectively communicate the names of paths and where they are to end users.
Third, even with the court ruling that avys are an inherent, I imagine there would be some serious blowback if a skier was caught in an avalanche on a "mitigated slope." Maybe there is no legal recourse, but the PR would be nasty.
So now you have a situation in which users are given a report listing various avalanche paths and the last time they were mitigated. Your average user is going to take this as a sign these slopes are safe to ski. Meanwhile maybe a path was mitigated but missed a trigger point, or 8" of snow fell on that path since, or the path got a bunch of wind slab on it, etc etc etc. And to make a good assessment of terrain safety, you would probably want to cross-reference the last mitigation date of each particular slope with the posted avalanche bulletins posted since then, to understand at what elevation and aspect different avalanche problems may exist.
At the end of the day, mitigation of an avalanche path is not a yes/no like grooming a trail. Transparency yes. Easily interpretable by a large number of skiers, I'm not so sure.
I don't think avalanche mitigation reports would've saved any lives those days. People are going to seek fresh powder. One of the lives is in a spot you have claimed was not feasible to mitigate. The other was in a spot viewed as closed by the resort that kids hiked into for fresh lines.
I really don't see a kid of 13 memorizing an avy mitigation board, observing that a run wasn't mitigated recently, and thinking "na, I won't just go just a bit to the right of all those tracks that made it down safely. Those freshies look good but there wasn't any mitigation and the CAIC report is calling for a soft slab avalanche problem on slopes at this elevation and aspect ." If experienced adults with avy training regularly make a similar error in their seeking out powder, I find it hard to believe a 13 year old boy without avy training is going to make a better decision.
The reason patrol with lots of avy experience exists is because they will make far safer decisions about what is safe and not safe than an average person. They demonstrate this by opening or closing terrain. Or even a very skilled person, because they live and breath a particular snowpack.
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Sorry folks but a few posts have been deleted, primarily because we should have closed this thread after this post.
/thread.
For those wanting to go a bit deeper into Colorado case law, the Kumar v. Copper Mountain ruling opinion is instructive as case law precedent.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar_...v.+copper+mountain&hl=en&as_sdt=6,44&as_vis=1
There is a lot in here about inherent risks of skiing as well as signage - the claim was based on the idea that Celebrity Cornice, which is a skier named feature, is actually freestyle terrain and therefore Copper had a statutory duty to sign it accordingly. Kumar suffered injuries skiing off this natural feature. A clip from the ruling. Emphasis in bold is mine in terms of thinking about the Vail signage claim:
Kumar's assumed duty argument fails for a more fundamental reason. In revising the SSA in 2004, the Colorado General Assembly recognized "the dangers that inhere in the sport of skiing, regardless of any and all reasonable safety measures which can be employed." § 33-44-102. A ski area operator is negligent for failure to warn only when it violates the specific and detailed warning requirements of the SSA as set forth in §§ 33-44-106 and 107. And as we discuss below, Celebrity Cornice did not qualify as a feature requiring warning signs under those sections. See § II.C, infra.
Consistent with the legislature's recognition of the dangers of skiing and its goal of clearly defining a ski area's potential liability, the language of § 33-44-103(3.5) is clear: "inherent dangers and risks of skiing" should be read to include accidents like Kumar's, in which a skier is injured skiing over a feature that was not subject to the SSA's explicit signage requirements. Although the SSA provides that additional signs "may be posted at the discretion of the ski area operator," § 33-44-106(g)(2), such signage is optional. Contrary to Kumar's claim, a ski area operator has no assumed duty to post such discretionary signs.
This precedence has always been outright damning for the signage claim in the Vail case, but it gets worse. One of the commonly assumed positions on this case has been that because it is common practice to hike up under the closed Prima Cornice gate from the open second gate, that Vail therefore had assumed a duty to sign or rope off this activity to prevent skier risk. Kumar says very plainly that this type of concept fails. Emphasis in bold again mine:
The second possibility is that skiers might specify "freestyle terrain areas." This is the option favored by Kumar, who contends that because the cornice was informally nicknamed by guests and employees at Copper Mountain, the cornice was "specified." Yet such a reading of § 33-44-107(d) leads to the absurd result that individual skiers may define the extent of a ski area operator's liability merely by nicknaming some part of a mountain. See State v. Nieto, 993 P.2d 493, 501 (Colo. 2000) ("n construing a statute, we must seek to avoid an interpretation that leads to an absurd result."). Such a reading would disserve the Colorado General Assembly's stated intent of clarifying "the rights and liabilities existing between the skier and the ski area operator and between skiers." § 33-44-102. Kumar's proffered interpretation of "specified freestyle terrain area" would allow individual skiers to define the scope of ski area operators' potential liabilities and thus render ski area operators' responsibilities more uncertain, rather than less.
The third possibility is that ski area operators themselves might specify which sections of their slopes constitute "freestyle terrain areas." Under this reading, the ski area operator must mark those areas of its slopes which contain "freestyle terrain" and which are designated for freestyle use, such as terrain parks and aggregations of terrain park features. See C.R.S.A. § 33-44-103(3.3). This reading is consistent with both the text and the purpose of the SSA. Having eliminated the other possible entities that could be responsible for specifying freestyle terrain areas, we conclude that specification by ski area operators is the most plausible interpretation of this provision. And because Celebrity Cornice was not specified by Copper Mountain as a freestyle terrain area, Kumar's negligence per se claim fails.
That last bit is a death sentence for claiming any kind of “Vail knew it was common practice” claim. It doesn’t matter, because under Colorado law only the ski area operator can determine what is or is not a specified feature or a gate to certain terrain. Preventing skiers from traversing into closed areas is not a duty the SSA assigns to ski area operators. The appeals court could pretty much take sections of Kumar and simply swap the details, relying on the same authoritative interpretation as stands in Kumar.
Anyway, the entire thing is a great read for anybody who wants to understand why there is no duty of care concept here and how the SSA as revised does not tend to show favor to plaintiffs such as we see in the Vail case.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar_...v.+copper+mountain&hl=en&as_sdt=6,44&as_vis=1
There is a lot in here about inherent risks of skiing as well as signage - the claim was based on the idea that Celebrity Cornice, which is a skier named feature, is actually freestyle terrain and therefore Copper had a statutory duty to sign it accordingly. Kumar suffered injuries skiing off this natural feature. A clip from the ruling. Emphasis in bold is mine in terms of thinking about the Vail signage claim:
Kumar's assumed duty argument fails for a more fundamental reason. In revising the SSA in 2004, the Colorado General Assembly recognized "the dangers that inhere in the sport of skiing, regardless of any and all reasonable safety measures which can be employed." § 33-44-102. A ski area operator is negligent for failure to warn only when it violates the specific and detailed warning requirements of the SSA as set forth in §§ 33-44-106 and 107. And as we discuss below, Celebrity Cornice did not qualify as a feature requiring warning signs under those sections. See § II.C, infra.
Consistent with the legislature's recognition of the dangers of skiing and its goal of clearly defining a ski area's potential liability, the language of § 33-44-103(3.5) is clear: "inherent dangers and risks of skiing" should be read to include accidents like Kumar's, in which a skier is injured skiing over a feature that was not subject to the SSA's explicit signage requirements. Although the SSA provides that additional signs "may be posted at the discretion of the ski area operator," § 33-44-106(g)(2), such signage is optional. Contrary to Kumar's claim, a ski area operator has no assumed duty to post such discretionary signs.
This precedence has always been outright damning for the signage claim in the Vail case, but it gets worse. One of the commonly assumed positions on this case has been that because it is common practice to hike up under the closed Prima Cornice gate from the open second gate, that Vail therefore had assumed a duty to sign or rope off this activity to prevent skier risk. Kumar says very plainly that this type of concept fails. Emphasis in bold again mine:
The second possibility is that skiers might specify "freestyle terrain areas." This is the option favored by Kumar, who contends that because the cornice was informally nicknamed by guests and employees at Copper Mountain, the cornice was "specified." Yet such a reading of § 33-44-107(d) leads to the absurd result that individual skiers may define the extent of a ski area operator's liability merely by nicknaming some part of a mountain. See State v. Nieto, 993 P.2d 493, 501 (Colo. 2000) ("n construing a statute, we must seek to avoid an interpretation that leads to an absurd result."). Such a reading would disserve the Colorado General Assembly's stated intent of clarifying "the rights and liabilities existing between the skier and the ski area operator and between skiers." § 33-44-102. Kumar's proffered interpretation of "specified freestyle terrain area" would allow individual skiers to define the scope of ski area operators' potential liabilities and thus render ski area operators' responsibilities more uncertain, rather than less.
The third possibility is that ski area operators themselves might specify which sections of their slopes constitute "freestyle terrain areas." Under this reading, the ski area operator must mark those areas of its slopes which contain "freestyle terrain" and which are designated for freestyle use, such as terrain parks and aggregations of terrain park features. See C.R.S.A. § 33-44-103(3.3). This reading is consistent with both the text and the purpose of the SSA. Having eliminated the other possible entities that could be responsible for specifying freestyle terrain areas, we conclude that specification by ski area operators is the most plausible interpretation of this provision. And because Celebrity Cornice was not specified by Copper Mountain as a freestyle terrain area, Kumar's negligence per se claim fails.
That last bit is a death sentence for claiming any kind of “Vail knew it was common practice” claim. It doesn’t matter, because under Colorado law only the ski area operator can determine what is or is not a specified feature or a gate to certain terrain. Preventing skiers from traversing into closed areas is not a duty the SSA assigns to ski area operators. The appeals court could pretty much take sections of Kumar and simply swap the details, relying on the same authoritative interpretation as stands in Kumar.
Anyway, the entire thing is a great read for anybody who wants to understand why there is no duty of care concept here and how the SSA as revised does not tend to show favor to plaintiffs such as we see in the Vail case.
I also highly recommend this one, which went to the CO Supreme Court where avalanche is now part of the law as an inherent risk of skiing.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar_...ations+corporation&hl=en&as_sdt=6,44&as_vis=1
If you can find the original ruling, it is similarly authoritative on why the SSA is so difficult to breach the SSA for anything not clearly assigned as a duty of ski area operators. It’s the stated legislative intent of the statute.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar_...ations+corporation&hl=en&as_sdt=6,44&as_vis=1
If you can find the original ruling, it is similarly authoritative on why the SSA is so difficult to breach the SSA for anything not clearly assigned as a duty of ski area operators. It’s the stated legislative intent of the statute.
An extraordinarily experienced former patroller and 25 year Vail Resorts employee said the Prima Cornice should have been closed the day Taft Conlin died:
https://www.vaildaily.com/opinion/f...-been-closed-the-day-taft-conlin-died-letter/
https://unofficialnetworks.com/2018...ld-have-been-closed-the-day-taft-conlin-died/
He also said this:
And this:
https://www.vaildaily.com/opinion/f...-been-closed-the-day-taft-conlin-died-letter/
https://unofficialnetworks.com/2018...ld-have-been-closed-the-day-taft-conlin-died/
He also said this:
"I don’t suppose to second guess the patrol’s on-site decisions; however, the fact even the lower gate was opened with no control other than some ski cutting seemed very odd"
And this:
"I know for a fact that when skiers entered the lower gates, they routinely hiked uphill. I have seen it countless times, and in time after time when I’ve skied Prima Cornice, I’ve seen tracks of skiers who have climbed. I always considered the lower gate to be an entrance to the entire Prima Cornice slope. And, we all knew that some of the local kids would not duck a rope but that they would take advantage of an open gate on a powder day."
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