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Sharing the trail with hikers and horses

pchewn

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where there rule has the biggest impact is on Cat tracks. Im fine with that rule on open runs where people have room to maneuver . The rule is outdated because it places the skier/snowboarder ahead completely immune to any and all rules, including making skiing/riding in a hazardous manner perfectly fine. It literally makes it legal for a snowboarder to crash Into you as you are safely passing even if they said, its ok to pass. I've seen it and experienced it many times. Todays mindset is not as it was in the past. You have people wearing headphones/ear buds that cant hear anything and they dont care. You have people trying to do tricks on cat tracks causing mass collisions and people skiing off the edges trying to avoid collisions when they ski up the side of the run and do a 180 and ski/ride back across the cat track. This happens often and its perfectly legal to do so.. This is literally like saying to drivers, as long as you are in front of another driver, feel free to swerve, drive sideways, turn around and drive the wrong way or slam into another driver as long as you are in front,. And, as long as you hit them from the side, its no fault.

I'm not so sure you understand the rule. The rule says the skier in back has the responsibility to avoid the skier in front. That means the skier in back needs to ski as cautiously or slowly as necessary for the conditions to miss the skier in front. Even if (especially if) it is crowded, on a cat-track, and the skiers in front are doing stupid tricks and weaving all over the place.

That is much different than the driving rules, so please don't compare to driving.
 

Ron

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this is not the thread for this and I do not agree with your explanation. you literally just said its OK for people to ski/ride in a dangerous manner and its up to the 300 skiers funneling into a 10 yard wide runout to avoid them. there is simply not enough room for all skiers to spread out and adjust for unrealistic skiing environments such as skiers skiing across a cat track. Skiers and riders are expected to ski downhill. A cat track serves as a vehicle to transport skiers/rider towards ski runs they should not be classified as a ski run as they consolidate skiers and place them into unrealistic and unique skiing environments. They should have different rules to help skiers and riders ski in a more organized, predictable and safe manner.
 
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pchewn

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I did not say it is OK to ski in a dangerous manner. I did say I agree with the rule requiring the skiers uphill/behind to avoid the skiers downhill/in-front. Yes, if there is a pile-up of skiers on a cat track in front, the 300 skiers behind must avoid those in front. That's the rule.
 

Ron

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sure you did. you just said its completely the responsibility of the skier behind to avoid the person in front regardless of their actions. it's easy and a loophole for the resorts.
 

KingGrump

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Situation can be fluid at times.

Very often an idiot skier/boarder will decide to ski slightly off the catwalk, performs a trick to impress the masses with his mad skills. By the time he/she re-enter the catwalk at an oblique angle, some of the "masses" that were behind him/her have passed him by. Putting them "ahead" of the idiot. The usual cluster ensures. Often leading to the debate of Red vs Gray.
 

crgildart

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this is not the thread for this and I do not agree with your explanation. you literally just said its OK for people to ski/ride in a dangerous manner and its up to the 300 skiers funneling into a 10 yard wide runout to avoid them. there is simply not enough room for all skiers to spread out and adjust for unrealistic skiing environments such as skiers skiing across a cat track. Skiers and riders are expected to ski downhill. A cat track serves as a vehicle to transport skiers/rider towards ski runs they should not be classified as a ski run as they consolidate skiers and place them into unrealistic and unique skiing environments. They should have different rules to help skiers and riders ski in a more organized, predictable and safe manner.
replace "ski in a dangerous manner" with "fall" and see if your analysis still seems reasonable.
 

Ron

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A falling skier is reasonably expected. A skier /rider performing tricks of the side of a cat track in a confined area which does not permit others room to adequately adjust speed or direction is not even remotely the same as sking in a manner as to avoid a falling skier. Again, the skier performing tricks is intentionally causing disruption to the other skiers/riders who are abiding by the rules and making reasonable attempts to maintain responsible speed and distancing.
 

pchewn

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sure you did. you just said its completely the responsibility of the skier behind to avoid the person in front regardless of their actions. it's easy and a loophole for the resorts.

It is the responsibility of the skier behind to avoid the skier in front. That is the rule.

If the skier in front is swerving, falling, speeding, or running into skier in front of HIM -- doesn't matter. The skier behind is still responsible to avoid the mess.

I now understand why you have had multiple collisions on cat tracks. You seem to not know the rules.
 

Ron

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well, lets not resort to personal attacks out of frustration. ! I have had one collision on a cat track in which a snowboarder ran sideways into me and the patroller said it was fine since it was a sideways Collision. Again, as I was skiing in a safe manner and as I was passing him, he suddenly without looking turned left and hit me.

Since I ski a lot, I have witnessed many collisions mostly caused by skiers/snowboarder attempting to do tricks. as @KingGrump pointed out, the argument of front/behind is not applicable because the skier who was behind is often hit as the skier/rider is re-entering the cat track and no longer has the ability to avoid the collision as they are moving during the "trick". If we took the literal interpretation of the rule, no one would be able to ever pass another person on any run or cat track since ANY event that caused a collision would be their fault. In all other aspects, the measure of "reasonability" is applied, not in skiing in the USA anyway.
 

Wasatchman

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Wow, that make no sense but, its the law I guess. Its actually a safety hazard to make a biker get off a bike during a difficult climb (unclip) and then try to restart pedaling (get back on the bike, clip back in while balancing) on an incline or unstable terrain.

One pet peeve I do have is when anyone standing and talking obstructing the trail. Besides being rude, its a major safety issue. Many years a group of people (2 families) were standing on a trail blocking both directions and yelled at me because I asked them to move as I approached to pass.
Yeah. It happens. But I'd say on average I see bikes causing way more problems than people.

My biggest pet peeve is road cyclists riding side by side with each other. They know they're a major inconvenience for cars but they do it anyway because they like to ride that way. And I find rarely do they ever make an attempt to go back to single file when a car approaches even on very narrow roads.

What can I do, I have to deal with it and patiently slow down until it is safe to pass even if that takes a while. But I think they are crazy as I wouldn't want to put my life on the line assuming that a driver is going to act safely.
 

Monique

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Wasatchman

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sure you did. you just said its completely the responsibility of the skier behind to avoid the person in front regardless of their actions. it's easy and a loophole for the resorts.
There are going to be extreme situations to argue against any rule, but for the significant majority of the time it makes sense to put the responsibility of the skier behind to avoid the person in front.

Edit: and I'm not a lawyer, but if an extreme situation occurred that caused a situation where the skier from behind could not avoid something due to reckless behavior from the skier in front , they would probably be okay. For example, the code also says to ski in control. And I would think each rule of the skier code is not considered in a complete vacuum but in totality.

For example, cars give way to pedestrians. But if a drunk guy goes on to the middle of the highway at night and gets hit, I'm pretty sure the driver would be exonerated.
 
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scott43

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Yeah. It happens. But I'd say on average I see bikes causing way more problems than people.

My biggest pet peeve is road cyclists riding side by side with each other. They know they're a major inconvenience for cars but they do it anyway because they like to ride that way. And I find rarely do they ever make an attempt to go back to single file when a car approaches even on very narrow roads.

What can I do, I have to deal with it and patiently slow down until it is safe to pass even if that takes a while. But I think they are crazy as I wouldn't want to put my life on the line assuming that a driver is going to act safely.
It's a tricky thing..the logic is, you force a car "pass" when two-abreast. When it's single file, the car may try to squeeze and squeeze someone right off the road. It's aggravating, I get it..but from the cyclists point of view it's arguably safer, until you get drunk/sleepy/angry guy behind you..
 

Ron

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Yeah. It happens. But I'd say on average I see bikes causing way more problems than people.

My biggest pet peeve is road cyclists riding side by side with each other. They know they're a major inconvenience for cars but they do it anyway because they like to ride that way. And I find rarely do they ever make an attempt to go back to single file when a car approaches even on very narrow roads.

What can I do, I have to deal with it and patiently slow down until it is safe to pass even if that takes a while. But I think they are crazy as I wouldn't want to put my life on the line assuming that a driver is going to act safely.

Classic example of why some rules need to be changed. In CO anyway, its perfectly legal for road cyclists to not only ride side-by-side, they could ride in the middle of the road lane. this should not be legal! As a road cyclist, I am very cautious and always ride as close to the edge of the road as possible with the caveat that I won't ride in a manner that puts me in unreasonable danger. One thing I wish drivers would be aware of is that a rider often cannot ride on the shoulder of the road and often "cyclist only lanes" are not safe to ride in. often these lanes are full of road debris and in rural areas, shoulders end abruptly without any notice.

I ride with a Garmin Varia RTL515 radar and a helmet mounted mirror to monitor traffic, by law, I dont need to do any of this but I feel I have a responsibility to for you, the driver since I'm part of the situation. I firmly believe most issues are caused by one party unrealistically bearing the majority of the responsibility in a 2 person scenario; skiing, Mtn bikes, Road bikes, etc. If both parties would take reasonable responsibility to mitigate risk we wouldn't have nearly as many problems. @slowrider said it best! "I'm going with Courtesy & Common Sense"
 

crgildart

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Whenever overtaking a slower person ahead, it's 100% on me to avoid them and wait for a bulletproof opening to pass. If they make a totally unexpected and seemingly irrational sudden change of direction and I can't avoid them it's 100% MY fault. On cat tracks and narrow trails, I will wait, or even stop having to schlep if there's not at least a good 8-10 feet of space on the side I'm passing.. and if it's close I'll go off the catwalk in to the woods before hitting them. Speed when passing helps create a safe window, but not so fast I can't shut it down immediately if they do something really unexpected.

I'd argue the same applies to bikes on trails uphill or downhill..
 

pchewn

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It literally makes it legal for a snowboarder to crash Into you as you are safely passing even if they said, its ok to pass. I've seen it and experienced it many times. Todays mindset is not as it was in the past.
well, lets not resort to personal attacks out of frustration. ! I have had one collision on a cat track in which a snowboarder ran sideways into me and the patroller said it was fine since it was a sideways Collision. Again, as I was skiing in a safe manner and as I was passing him, he suddenly without looking turned left and hit me

Thank you for giving a perfect example of you violating this rule and colliding with a snowboarder. And you say you've experienced this multiple times. I suggest that you are not passing safely if you collide with people on multiple occasions. That is, not avoiding the people in front of you.
 

Ken_R

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We've had some intersting discussion come up in the Mountain Bike 2020 Stoke thread about sharing the trails with hikers.
This is important discussion so its been moved to this thread.

I honestly have not had any issues with hikers or trail runners around here. Dog owners have been mostly very considerate for the most part as well. I can see how there might be issues in some places with certain people but I guess trail users here are very used to diverse usage.
 

Lauren

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This is much like the outdated rule of the skier in front ALWAYS has the right of way, even when they are skiing/riding in an unsafe manner.

Even if the downhill skier always has the right of way, that doesn't negate them from any responsibility. Based on the Skiers Code the downhill skier will still needs to...
  • Always stay in control, and be able to stop or avoid other people or objects.
  • Must not stop where you obstruct a trail, or are not visible from above.
  • Whenever starting downhill or merging into a trail, look uphill and yield to others.
Even thought it's not a full written code for mountain biking and hiking...I think of it the same...even if the hiker has the right of way, that doesn't negate them from responsibility. They still should let someone moving faster than them pass (when safe for all parties) and they shouldn't just stop in the middle of the trail.
 

Wasatchman

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I get it..but from the cyclists point of view it's arguably safer, until you get drunk/sleepy/angry guy behind you..
Probably even more common is driving and texting to be concerned about as well.

Interesting point about the school of thought maybe there is less risk of a car trying to squeeze past. That's a fair point I hadn't thought about.

I still wonder if it is safer to be single file, but I don't road bike in fairness to have the experience of how common it is for cars to dangerously try and squeeze past versus aggravated driver behind side by side cyclists who does something stupid.

I am not into road biking as I just don't like the idea of putting so much of my safety in the hands of auto drivers. Just scares the hell out of me biking on the side of a road with cars going past me that it takes away any enjoyment away from me. But I understand road biking does appeal to people and at the end of the day, auto driver needs to deal with it safely.
 

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