Skiing Pet Peeves

[Native Vail Gal]

I was speaking with a friend the other day and we were remembering something that we saw up on the mountain last year:

A man skiing with his young child up on his shoulders. The child was probably about 2. No helmet on either of them. I thought I was gonna FREAK!!!!

We saw them near the end of the day and it was REALLY crowded where we were and there were some "bombers" cutting them off a lot. They nearly fell several times!

Un-Freakin' Believable!

Do you have any pet peeves you want to vent about here? THAT'S MINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Ski Spirit]

NVG...I can see why that bothered you!!

My pet peeve -- Snowboarders going way too fast and unable to manuever/stop when needed

 

[Native Vail Gal]

Snowboarders going way too fast and unable to manuever/stop when needed

Yup! I kindof hate that....ALOT..... too!

 

[RachelV]

Snowboarders going way too fast and unable to manuever/stop when needed

ANYONE going way too fast.

Angsty teenagers who are too cool to share a chair with you when lines are long.

Smoking in lift lines.

 

[pinto]

People who save spots for their friends in line -- then the latecomers "scuse me, scuse me" all the way to wherever their friends are. WTF? Wait for your friend at the entry to the maze, not at the front.

 

[cyn]

How about waiting for 15 minutes in a lift line and you finally get close and a line of 25 ski school people cuts in front of you?
Another big one for me: having the best black runs closed for most of Saturday and Sunday because of ski races - especially on the smaller mountains where there isn't much choice.
Yet another one: real fur trim on ski jackets.

 

[Sheena]

My biggest pet peave..... parents who take their young children on slopes WAY above their ability level or don't monitor their behavior at all.

Example #1: I was skiing (now closed) Laural Mountain in PA. There is one pretty steep expert slope, and there was father their forcing his two young daughters down the slope. They were so scared, their legs in their wedges were shaking. He was yelling at them that they have to do it or they will never learn. UGH!

Example #2: I was at 7 Springs on an expert slope, and all of the sudden I heard some loud chattering behind me. I quickly moved out off to the side, and this 3-4 year old kid went whizzing by me in a wedge straighlining down the slope, he was completly unable to turn avoid obstacles, people were jumping out of his way. His parets were waiting at the bottom, and when I got down there they were paising his excellent skiing. I just think that it would be better if his parents would teach him to be considerate and ski in control.

A few years ago I was run over by a simlar kid, he ran over the backs of my skis and made my bindings realease, and I fell forward. In that case, not a parent in sight.

 

[ski diva]

Ooooo, that's mine, too. I can't stand seeing parents taking their kids on runs that are beyond their ability. Mostly, I see this with Dads. And they're waaaaay ahead of the kid, too. So tell me, what are they going to do if the kid falls and gets hurt????? Hike all the way back up? I mean, give me a break! And the kid is struggling! I mean, I can't think of a better way to turn a kid off to skiing than to scare him to death and cause him to have a bad experience.

I think these parents do it for two reasons: 1) to tell their friends that their kid skied a black run today; and 2) it's a run they want to ski, so gosh darn it, they're going to do it, kid or no kid!

I also hate the boarders -- really, anyone, but it seems to be mostly boarders -- who block the trail. But I think we all feel that way.

 

[ski now work later]

Another big one for me: having the best black runs closed for most of Saturday and Sunday because of ski races - especially on the smaller mountains where there isn't much choice.

Amen! The "closed run" phenomenon really drives me crazy, and what is especially annoying is that it's difficult to find out what runs will be closed at what time of day and then try to remember throughout the day!

Another pet peeve of mine are inattentive lifties, who are away from the lift and talking to their buddies. Very irresponsible and dangerous. That and lifties who are not trained to know anything whatsoever about the mountain (e.g., I asked a liftie at Big Sky last February what trails are at the top of the lift he was serving and the guy had no clue and couldn't speak English very well). The mountain ought to train these guys better. The mountain where I've skied where the lifties are the most attentive is Smuggler's Notch, and the lifties on the children's lifts on Morse Mountain are amazing!

Finally, my biggest pet peeve are ski resort web sites that lie about snow conditions. Killington often lies and exaggerates conditions. I have found Stratton, Stowe, and Smuggs are accurate, Big Sky to be accurate but skimpy on details, and Okemo to be accurate despite their enthusiasm which is often a little over the top and is sometimes misplaced (e.g., "It's another Okeydokey day here at Okemo, so come and enjoy some turns in soft snow." Translation: it's sunny with melting, soup-like snow conditions)

 

[abc]

I guess I don't expect much so I'm rarely disappointed. Most of the stuff may irritate me for a moment but then I forget about it. If I must name a pet peeve, it's people skiing faster than they have control. Boarders tend to be the major problem, due partly to the fact a board is simply less responsive than skis by nature.

As for the children on shoulder, that's an old, odd bahavior from Europe. My (ex-)boyfriend's dad told me he even ski down the mountain with his girl friend (later his wife) on his shoulder!!! (they're from Switzerland)

The same as I remember when I was little, I sat on the top tube of my dad's bicycle in city traffic! Time, of course, changed. But no everybody had kept up with the latest fashion.

 

[Pequenita]

I think I write different pet peeves on each pet peeve thread! Today, my pet peeves are things that occur while getting off of lifts.

I've had a surprising number of strangers grab onto me as they are falling (tends to be snowboarders around the lift area at the top). I know it's a reflex to grab when falling, but still....

Another thing that bugs me are skiers who think they need to skate off of the chairlift rather than just let the thing push them. Last season, I found myself having to hop off the lift as it started to go up from the drop off because the teenager next to me decided to skate off, placing his ski directly under where mine would have been had I put it down. I had a few choice words for him.

 

[Kimmyt]

How about chairlifts that are so ungodly slow that you can't possibly get off them ewithout skating? ugh.

People who mill around in front of the exit at the top of the lift.

People that stand at the top of a run looking down at it (it's not going anywhere, so why stare at it for more than a second?)

When I'm on a perfectly flat area and I'm just skiing along and I do something dumb like cross my tips and I have no excuse and I fall and look like an idiot. I hate that!

 

[Kiragirl]

ski peeves:
- boarders who scrape off the snow
- boarders who hog the chairlift
- crying kids (but it's probably not their fault)
- those really crowded areas at the bottom of converging trails (not the trails' faults), bad designs/layouts
- having no tissues in the lodge

But, I can't wait to get out there! : )

Cutest thing I've seen: I just got a marketing pkg from Crested Butte (will probably not go there, tho). They have a mini-ski trail map for kids, it's adorable. I'd love to design some for other mts.

 

[stompie]

I had a hard time thinking of something, but maybe when people talk on cellphones and listen to iPod on the lift. I miss the chairlift chatter that used to go on with strangers as a single.

 

[Kiragirl]

I love a good chairlift snow chitchat.

 

[abc]

I had a hard time thinking of something, but maybe when people talk on cellphones and listen to iPod on the lift. I miss the chairlift chatter that used to go on with strangers as a single.

Same here.

But sadly, nowadays you sometimes can't evne get a response for "how's the skiing?" from your chairmates!

 

[Pequenita]

I love a good chairlift snow chitchat.

That's how I met one of my friends! Both of us were singletons who had driven our (dare I write, matching, Subarus) to the nearest hill, where neither of us had ever been before. We found ourselves on the same chair twice and then discovered she had 2 weeks prior started working at my office.

 

[Greeley]

My biggest pet peave..... parents who take their young children on slopes WAY above their ability level or don't monitor their behavior at all.

I witnessed this at Snowmass last year. We were on one of the groomed black runs on Sam's Nobb. Some guy was trying to get his kid down the run, screaming & yelling at him the whole time in Spanish, the kid was crying. The run was awful, it had been warm the day before, groomed, then refrozen over night. The poor kid couldn't do anything but traverse to the side, fall, turn his skis around, then traverse to the other side.

 

[Gina23]

Yeah the ipod thing is a little strange to me... I love skiing so much that being around others who are doing the same tend to get me to chatter so i say hello only to find someone point to their ear at their headphones and look the other direction.

 

[Sheena]

So I had one guy be incredibly rude to me last year at Alta. Tim was off trying some more challenging stuff with some TGR guys and I was making laps down Ballroom. I was going to ride single, but this guy asked if he could ride up with me. So we are chatting on the lift, and he asked what i was doing at Alta, I told him I was here with friends, and then he started asking what friends. I told him I was there with my boyfriend and some other guys. Well, after that, he instantly stopped talking, and i mean I asked him something right after that and he just would not respond. This happened at the midpoint of the lift, so it was a long ride to the top, and sort of awkward.

Jerk.