I've been around the ski industry as a skier and a person employed at a few different resorts. The death of a guest at a ski area is incredibly hard to deal with for everyone. The family and friends as well as the resort employees go through all sorts of tough times. A lot of what I have read in this forum is based on rumors and non truths. First, this is the only skier or rider fatality ever on Lies. There was a skier fatality 2 years ago on another black diamond trail at Gore, but it wasn't Lies, it was Uncas. Thats a verifiable fact Secondly, Lies is a double black diamond trail and should be skied or snowboarded by experts only. The problem with the fence idea is a major liability issue for a resort. The best way to think of this, is to look at every chairlift or gondola tower at a resort where there is a trail going by it. Each tower has been padded. A while ago in the industry resorts started padding just those towers that represented true problem areas that someone could hit. Our sue happy friends took advantage of this and sued several resorts around the US because ALL towers weren't padded, and if one had to be than they all had to be... Can you see where this goes...if you decide that one trail needs a fence on the side (mind you this isn't at an intersection being used to control access at a merge or anything), then who is to say that one isn't needed somewhere else, and pretty soon, since all trees are hard, we would be forced to fence everything. It's not far fetched, and the tower padding is a prime example of it. The fact is our legal system makes it harder to mark real hazards without also having to mark every possible spot someone could get hurt on a mountain. Its a true dilema for a resort.
The comments about the skiers ability are not relevant. Michael Fitzgibbons, the gentlemen who died at Gore was a passholder who skied there often. He had good skills and certainly was experienced on Lies. He recently retired as a Swim Coach and Phs Ed teacher and was in shape to be skiing up there. It was, by all accounts just a bad accident.
The person who stated that Lies has had lots of accidents is speaking without true knowledge unless he is a Gore patroller with access to accident reports. The mountains maintain very good records of what accidents they have had, where they have occurred and the level of injury. According to Gore officials I spoke to, Lies has not had more accidents of any level than any other trail on the mountain, and far less than most.
Lastly...since I'm on a role here. For those folks that think helmets are the answer, please do some research as there are many studies showing that helmets do not protect skiers/riders in accidents above 12-15mph. This is fairly slow and anyone over intermediate level skis faster than that routinely.
OK...really lastly.... as for deaths in skiing, take a look at some of the sporting goods studies on fatailities in sports. Skiing ranks far below activities like Bicycling, Swimming, etc. There are statistically only about .75 deaths per million skier visits, compared to 19 per million for bicycling and 44 per million for Swimming. These are sporting good industry estimates, not the ski industries.
The most important thing to make skiing and riding safer is to teach some basic etiquette and the rules of the road. People are buzzing each other, cutting them off, not letting someone know they are passing them, starting up from the side of a trail in front of an approaching skier/rider... we need to change that to make this sport safer.
whew....
