Snowplow black diamonds

[lowrider]

Lately i have been seeing  lots 3 and 4 year old's snowplowing the black diamond runs on the local bump is this a new thing ? The object when i was teaching my young ones was to try and stay out of the way of others not offer them up as a sacrifice. 

[b0ardski]

future olympians

[scottishsurfer]

22 minutes ago, b0ardski said:

future olympians

I think you missed the word Para

I guess I'm lucky in this respect as pretty much everything more difficult than a blue here has to be accessed via a T-bar and there not exactly little kid friendly

Edited March 26, 2018 by scottishsurfer

[ellisdeez]

Not black diamonds, but we have some steep blues that I see a lot of kids snowplowing/sideslipping/tumbling down.  Not quite sure what the heck their parents are thinking.

[b0ardski]

if you remember learning how to ski, you will not win Olympic gold

[BlueB]

It's a highly annoying thing. I think parents want bragging rights: "Yeah, my little one can come down a black diamond!" 

The peak of stupifuty, I witnessed 2 years ago: a parent with a little kid on the leash, going through the park. 

[Neil Gendzwill]

Give the kids another couple years and they will be flying by you on the zipper line. Youthful skill and energy, so obnoxious. 

[Eric Brammer aka PSR]

I've seen FAR Worse, from PSIA Istructors who Insisted on taking Tykes , IN SNAKE-RUN-FORMATION, down through double Diamond Snowparks, putting MANY, MANY, MUNCHKINS Directly in the path of a JUMP-PATH that's blind to the Jumpers! Putting that many, short, slow, hard-to-see & vulnerable bodies in a formational path that is Guanteed to Invite a collision!! I found that COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE, especially from Instructors who are there to Educate, And Protect, their Charges!!! I SAID AS MUCH, LOUDLY, to Peers in many spoken forums. Luckily, I was Heard, though not as well recieved as I had hoped (I guess the whole " who's Responsible in an incident " issue rankled some: BUT The Skier/Rider responsibility Code left it clear that an Artificially Made Obstacle would require PARK EDIQUETTE, something Responsible Skateboarders understood quite well, Lawyers-be-damned), so, a re-education of Kiddie Ski-Instructors had to ensue, to keep Them from putting old-habits as a priority over Safety Of the Client. So, what you're seeing with wedge-bombers on Steeps, or Ballistic-Blue-Bombers doing 30 mph straightline runs, is a poor hold-over of bad teaching, passed on to the next Gen... ('Change, and common sense, they're BAD, they mess this stuff up.. ') Oh, SO Sorry to Create Progression!! NOT!! I'd make better Parks if only Paid to do so, but I am happy with the ones I got to make, especially the few that are still up 25+ yrs. later. The Ediquette needed to safely Deal with such had to form with the Mountain's Approval, but it was Obvious how it is to work, even if that seemed to condradict the Downhill Skier right-of-way in some spots. If you can't See them, you can't change direction in the air to MISS them once you have launched. Usually, a 5 second wait clears an LZ Out. A snake-train of 5 yrs-olds wedging thru a DD Park are RoadKill. The Ski Industry really didn't grasp what was occurring on these slopes for, um, 10 years + . Luckily, PSIA finally stepped up and pushed the message to their Instructors. Parents, not so much...

Edited March 26, 2018 by Eric Brammer aka PSR

[philw]

<shrug> You get a lot of my fellow countrymen who like to "tick off" "black" runs - they see it as a sign of progress in their skill level I think. I remember the first time I visited a ski resort doing precisely that thing. Belated apologies if I got in anyone's way, but I think I did not.

I think you kind of have to go with the flow. People do things, some of them are annoying, but they paid the same as I paid and there it is. So I expect to find novices littered all over any run, irrespective of the grade. But then I stopped noticing grades decades ago. I would say that if you're a beginner on an expert run, then you accept that some people will be riding past at high speed, and you have no grounds at all to complain about it.

That, to me, is what grades are for: if it's a beginner run, I have to be careful of beginners as it's their place.
If it's an expert run, then I can ride it any way I like.

[Allee]

It amuses me that at the  local hill this year, they cut a "easy way down" green run down to a chair that has no green runs off it, only steep blues and blacks. I'm still trying to figure out the management logic on that.

I'm pretty much with Phil. I paid for my lift pass, so I don't feel bad about trenching up runs. Other people paid for theirs, they can go wherever on the hill they like. Regardless of what the run is posted as, you should be looking out for other people anyway.

But I'll totally laugh if someone wipes out and slides all the way to the bottom of a steep run, when their skis are still at the top.

[st_lupo]

Here's a picture of Bruce hard at work on a new nose concept for my next board...

[Beckmann AG]

3 minutes ago, st_lupo said:

Here's a picture of Bruce hard at work on a new nose concept for my next board...

When you can't be troubled to stop for lunch, there's the baleen topsheet.

Edited March 26, 2018 by Beckmann AG

[st_lupo]

 This was my source of inspiration!

[AJCdice]

Aren't we a just a group of grumpy old men.  Glad I never went down any hard trails before I was ready as a kid.

 

[Corey]

I still remember taking hardboots onto my first black run. I hope the people behind me were patient... 

Then finding my way onto a black mogul run near the top of Highlands. Luckily moguls also make great chairs when you're exhausted from sucking so bad. 

[billyt.]

It's all subjective.  Most skiers/ riders can make it down black and blue trails, only a few are actually skiing or riding.

[SunSurfer]

11 hours ago, Beckmann AG said:

When you can't be troubled to stop for lunch, there's the baleen topsheet.

You are not allowed to eat children, even in America, and no matter how tender their young flesh may be with the proper preparation.

[Beckmann AG]

15 minutes ago, SunSurfer said:

You are not allowed to eat children, even in America, and no matter how tender their young flesh may be with the proper preparation.

LIke you've never ordered 'off the menu'.  

Meanwhile, it's coming into springtime, the snow fleas abound; krill of the frozen ocean.

[lowrider]

Those snow fleas have anything to do with the brown lumps all over my lawn ?

[Beckmann AG]

2 hours ago, lowrider said:

Those snow fleas have anything to do with the brown lumps all over my lawn ?

Neighbor's dog, perhaps?

[BobD]

What is most annoying about parents letting kids snowplow steep slopes, is that it's the best way to hinder the kids progress to parallel skiing. It ingrains the snowplow position, and using the snowplow to control speed. Even if the kid learned to turn correctly by flattening the the inside ski on easy slopes, most kids won't be able to do that on steeps. Worse yet, the parents provide a terrible model for the kids by reverting to a big snowplow to go at the same speed as the kids. 

[queequeg]

As the weirdos on the slope who expect that other skiers use safe passing practices while we make huge sweeping turns that cross the fall line repetitively, I try to respect the idea that anyone should be free to ski/ride however they want, wherever they want as long as they are not being a danger to anyone other than themselves. Though I do agree: it can be irritating to observe/be-blocked-by gangs of lollygagging gapers on what should otherwise be a so-called "expert" run.

Sometimes people are where they shouldn't be, because somebody encouraged them to be there. I don't know why people think this is cool, cute, funny, or even acceptable but it seems to be a core value of the twice-a-season skier.

Many years ago I was having a pretty good time on a "black" run at Jiminy Peak, when out-of-nowhere: a tiny child materializes *directly* in the apex of the turn I had just dropped into. The child was *maybe* 3' tall and dressed ENTIRELY IN WHITE. The genius progenitor of this imminently-skewered toddler thought it would be cute to camouflage their child. White helmet. white onesie, white gloves, white poles, white skis. A little face-paint and he would have been completely invisible. You should have seen him!

The kid could have been safely protected within his dads "pizza" wedge, or at least somewhat nearby; but dad thought it would be smart to observe from the headwall. So he watched as his tiny, fledgling skier descended this diamond unaccompanied, and invisible. 

I pass the Mensa scholar on the headwall, and drop into the run with abandon. Seeing nothing but a pristine field of white, begging to be ravaged seems to have that effect. When I encounter the little white surprise (around turn three or four), It was all I could do to to miss by a matter of feet. Then I missed flying into the woods by a matter inches. The prick dad comes barreling down and hockey stops *into* me (it seemed purposeful though it could have been ineptitude). Dude starts thumping his chest like a testosterone-freebasing gorilla. I was so pissed, I temporarily lost the ability speak ... but IIRC, the dude lost his pass for purposely running into me.

Edited March 29, 2018 by queequeg