Mountain Etiquette

Raekwon

[rant]

I have been going to ski resorts for the last four years and it never seizes to amaze me the down right rudeness of people that I encounter on the mountains year in and year out.

I am a intermediate boarder and I know alot of skiers complain about boarders speeding and showing off on the slopes but the worst people for me are the [older (35+) skiers that do not know the meaning of common courtesy at all. I have been pushed out of lift ques by over-zealous skiers trying to get ahead of me, I've been cut across more times then I can remember, I've even had skiers skiing too close to be then grazing my board subsequently throwing me off balance. The worst case was when I got knocked over from behind by some muppet who though he was on Ski Sunday and I was a slalom pole that he needed to cut past at speed.

This behavior is not just limited to the slopes either, when I was getting some food at a kiosk I turned for a split second to confirm my girlfriends order and when I turned back some middle aged German knob had nipped in out of no where and placed an order ahead of me! I challenged him but he just shrugged his shoulders and turned away.

[/rant]

Anybody else experienced anything similar to this on the mountains?

jameshayes

The funniest is at the ques to the lifts, they would walk over you if they could. Germans and Dutch seem the worst to me, it's litrally squeeze in at the sides instead of queing at the back! One of them nearly ended up with a 135cm ski pole up his arse last week.


I'm buying my own skis for next season and I'll be using the poles to protect them.

justdoit

Really frustrating, but probably just part and parcel of corwded ski resorts unfortunately, and on balance, well, well worth it. I get really mad when people just ski over my board in the queue, often scraping my top sheet:mad:

If I was getting skipped in a lunch time queue at work, I'd probably find it tough to deal with, but when you do (eventually) get on a lift, the neagtivity kinda melts away (cheesy, but true)...

robinph

There is a definate difference in queueing ettiquete in Europe when compared with Ireland, as in there is no queue and everybody just pushes in at random. But then I have noticed that Irish queueing, whilst better than Europe, is not as organised as in the UK, and the UK is still not quite the same as in the US. Just be prepared for a but of pushing and shoveing to get where you want in Europe.

I'd only have trouble with other people on the slopes themselves when going down the busier/ easier ones. Once you head off to a trickier slope then the people that would be cutting you up elsewhere are not as capable and will only be causeing me a problem when they fall over in front of me and I have to pick up a trail of ski's and poles to take down to them.

Don1

I found in Germany this year, apart from everything that was mentioned above, a lot of hyper speed "advanced" skiers on the blue runs cutting as close as possible to the learner boarders I was trying to teach. I got the impression that they were trying to give them a warning like "stay the hell off our mountain n00b". Some of them even shouted abuse at them, which is not exactly fair.

Two things that really annoy me about that are;

1. Everybody quickly forgets that they too had to start from scratch

2. If you're that into your speed etc. and hate beginers so much why not f*ck off to the red runs, or please go off piste and die in an avalanche or something.

Raekwon

robinph wrote: »

There is a definate difference in queueing ettiquete in Europe when compared with Ireland, as in there is no queue and everybody just pushes in at random. But then I have noticed that Irish queueing, whilst better than Europe, is not as organised as in the UK, and the UK is still not quite the same as in the US. Just be prepared for a but of pushing and shoveing to get where you want in Europe.

I find that people around my age (28) or younger are more respectful then their older (probably wealthy) counterparts. I am just back from Andorra and there was one incident where a Spanish man in his 40's rapidly moved his ski's together to knock my standing foot (the other was in a binding) out of the way so he could get into a position to squeezed past me. I wouldn't mind but it was far up the mountain and the lift que wasn't even that busy I couldn't resist standing on the back of one of his ski's just to slow down his advance in the que and get some payback

robinph wrote:

I'd only have trouble with other people on the slopes themselves when going down the busier/ easier ones. Once you head off to a trickier slope then the people that would be cutting you up elsewhere are not as capable and will only be causeing me a problem when they fall over in front of me and I have to pick up a trail of ski's and poles to take down to them.

I had this problem myself this year because I encountered more learners on the slopes then I ever have but they are easily avoidable and I don't think it compares to the rudeness of the better skiers that I alway seem to encounter.

Another example of rudeness/stupidity is when I reached the top of a lift to a really annoying flat part that sometimes requires you to take your foot out of a binding and push your board along. I got to nice spot and sat close to a fence so I wouldn't be in anybodies way. When I had finished putting my foot back into the binding and was about to get up some muppet flew past the 1 metre gap between me and the fence! If I had leaned anymore to my left he would have taken my head clean off! What are these idiots thinking?!?

edmund_f

it is a real advantage skiers have over boarders.. skinny skis that can push into the tightest of gaps and ski poles to defend against other skiers..

Amount of times skating in a que, lifting off my back foot, trying to put it back down to find a ski tip under it.. just end up leaving it on the stomp pad and doing the snowboarder impression of a beached seal....

Although boarders tend to be better padded which is always and advantage

Static M.e.

For Big queue's sometimes its easier to take off your board completely, walk in till you pass the first Gate and then board up. Once past the gate, you usually have plenty of space, plus as a bonus you can walk past all the skiers.

The think the problem just goes back to ignorant people, they don't change on or off the slope.

bonkey

justdoit wrote: »

I get really mad when people just ski over my board in the queue, often scraping my top sheet:mad:

Personally, I'll take a scratch on teh top of my skis over the ruined wax-job someone has for going over them any day.

My experiences this winter have been mixed.

I find little kids (mostly under 10, but up to 15 at times) are the worst for just walking past ppl in a queue. On more than one occasion, I've reached out, grabbed them, held them back and told them to wait their turn. The look of absolute outrage on their faces is generally hilarious. The grief they get from their parents or teachers (as has happened once or twice) when they try edging past again is even funnier.

I've found all sorts of ignorant people on lifts.

A boarder took the legs out from my wife getting off a chair-lift, and when he saw what had happened just ****ed off without checking to see if the person he had just put on the ground was injured. If I hadn't been too busy running over to check on her, I'd have chased the little **** down and dragged him back by his hair to apologise.

Another time, two of us were queueing for a 3-seater. In the group of 3 in front of us, the left-most person decided not to go through the gate, leaving the 2 who queued with her alone. So we took those two slots, with me in teh middle. When the gates opened again, she skied straight across me, to take the middle and (presumably) have the entire chair to herself....not that she was let away with it. The filthies we got for spoiling her fun...

I've seen ppl try and tell others that they can't get into gondolas, even where there's clearly space....for all sorts of reasons. Fortunately, when it happened to people I've been with, they've had the common sense to just push in and ignore the person talking at them.

I've seen people try and tell others in the queue to just excuse themselves and push forward to join them. We;ve answered that we're more than happy to let the front person back to join the other, but there's no ****ing way we're letting a chunk of people skip forward because their friend is in front of us (One person, maybe, but typically its been more than a chair/gondola load of ppl....whatever that is about).

Generally speaking though, while Europeans are crap at queueing in an orderly fashion, they're the first to get embarassed and back down when someone actually says something to them about being too far out of line.

robinph

One year in Andorra I kept on having trouble getting on the lifts due to people pushing in. The first time there was three of us lined up to get onto a 4 seater, gate opens and we all go forward and take our places but there is an empty space beside me so as the gate has shut I shuffle over to the side so as to keep the chair a bit more level. Someone then goes and sneaks past the gate after it has closed and then rushes forward at the last moment. This results in us going up the first bit of the lift with me sat on his lap, it also took a few moments for the others on the lift to notice that we were trying to untangle ourselves and for them to stop trying to pull the bar down on my head.

Getting onto the same lift then later in the day and this time there were 4 of us lined up for it and go forward to take our places. Then at the last moment someone again comes through the gate but this time it results in me getting pushed off the front of the loading area and only just avoiding getting a load of ski's in the back of the head as they go over the top me. :mad:

Edit:
Only just noticed this bit from the OP:

Raekwon wrote:

...but the worst people for me are the [older (35+) skiers...

Watch yourself youngling, I'll only let you away with that for a couple more months.

Raekwon

robinph wrote: »

Edit:
Only just noticed this bit from the OP:

Originally Posted by Raekwon
...but the worst people for me are the [older (35+) skiers...

Watch yourself youngling, I'll only let you away with that for a couple more months.

I didn't mean any offence to fellow boardies with that statement, anyway I'm sure that you are all very well behaved on the slopes regardless of age

The people that I was referring to were the more wealthy middle-aged idiots who think that people should get out of their way on the slopes and in the que for the lifts/gondolas. You know the sort who give you that 'do you know who I am' look? Yeah? Well them

It's actually getting worse IMO now the their seems to be a huge influx of Russians hitting western & middle European resorts. They make the French & German's look like absolute saints! I bumped into a few in Andorra recently and they strut around like their sh*t doesn't smell and are very physical when it comes to get ahead in the ques. One big Ruski knocked right past me, planted his poles in the snow and leanded back nearly on top of me. I didn't lean forward in retaliation because I did't want to end up in the trunk of some car

Btw I just Googled 'Rude Rich Skiers' and I came up with this interesting article about our siberian cousins: Click.

Static M.e.

Just thinking back to when I was in Bulgaria, alot of eastern europeans but they dont queue at all as we would know it. At the end of the day you had to go down in a gondola so people just hit the entrance from any angle they could find, it was so packed that if you droped a ski pole you would just have to write it off, I could barely move my arms, it was kinda scary tbh

edmund_f

bonkey wrote: »

A boarder took the legs out from my wife getting off a chair-lift,

Have to give the other side of the story here - to give boarders the benefit of the doubt, the average unload area for a chairlift is a complete nightmare for a boarder.. coming off the chair to the sight of to edge catching grooves just waiting to throw you into the skier / boarder to either side irrespective of what you do with your board..

Will totally agree if you collide with someone you should at least make sure they are okay, but the average beginner boarder has pretty much no chance of getting off any chair lift standing.

My personal pet hate is if waiting on the piste for whatever reason, skiers using me as a slalom marker - actually noted that if you sit as close to the edge and in plain view this seems to happen more - actually have a cut across my glove from a particularly zealous skier -

totally agree with Raekwon about the +35 skiers - you can almost hear them saying in their head as they pass by 'in my day.....'

Final word on this would go to Static M.E.

'The think the problem just goes back to ignorant people, they don't change on or off the slope.'

bonkey

edmund_f wrote: »

Have to give the other side of the story here - to give boarders the benefit of the doubt, the average unload area for a chairlift is a complete nightmare for a boarder.. coming off the chair to the sight of to edge catching grooves just waiting to throw you into the skier / boarder to either side irrespective of what you do with your board..

Will totally agree if you collide with someone you should at least make sure they are okay, but the average beginner boarder has pretty much no chance of getting off any chair lift standing.

I don't care how difficult it is. I know accidents happen. When you knock someone, then just look back, see them lying on the ground and board/ski/blade/bigfoot off, you are nothing but scum who should be banned from the pistes.

If you cause or involved in an accident, you stop and check that *everyone* is OK. If you see an accident, you stop (or slow) and check that everyone is OK, unless you see that someone else is already doihng that. If you see someone lose a ski/pole/whatever uphill in a fall, you don't ski around/over it...you stop and pick it up and bring it down to them. Common courtesy isn't hard, costs nothing but a few seconds of time, and makes everyone's piste-day more enjoyable.

My personal pet hate is if waiting on the piste for whatever reason, skiers using me as a slalom marker - actually noted that if you sit as close to the edge and in plain view this seems to happen more - actually have a cut across my glove from a particularly zealous skier -

Whereas mine would be the collections of teenagers (mostly boarders) who seem to find the worst possible spots in the middle of the piste to sit down in. Guess we just ski in different places....I'd give anything to have ppl nicely staying at the edges of the pistes so I could stay well away from them.

totally agree with Raekwon about the +35 skiers - you can almost hear them saying in their head as they pass by 'in my day.....'

Hey...be nice. I'm a 35+ skier...and this *is* my day (I only started skiing about 7 years ago.)

Actually...I have to be honest...where I ski is mostly a family resort (cause kids under 10 ski for free), so generally the older generation there are mostly parents and grandparents who are well-used to kids/learners being on the slopes and they're usually very considerate no matter what they have under their feet.

edmund_f

bonkey wrote: »

I don't care how difficult it is. I know accidents happen. When you knock someone, then just look back, see them lying on the ground and board/ski/blade/bigfoot off, you are nothing but scum who should be banned from the pistes.

Dem be fightin' words

Agree,(again) but maybe a warning followed by ski pass being taken off you for the day etc etc.. doubt anything we say here will change things much - only thing i can do is try to stay to the alpine code as close as i can and not get annoyed about ignorant people on the mountain

Have only started boarding in the last couple of years (determined to make it onto skis for at least one day this season to see what all the fuss is about) but do notice the further east you head the more 'relaxed the rules are'

Interesting video..

http://www.whistlerblackcomb.com/mountain/safety/responsibility/index.htm


Again as Static said...
'The think the problem just goes back to ignorant people, they don't change on or off the slope.'

ShayK1

In Oberstdorf, Germany nearly 3 weeks ago now There's a very flat part of a blue run leading up to the chair lifts. I was coming down along it and I spotted a boarder in the middle of the run lying face down in the snow and EVERYBODY boarding/skiing on by her. Not even taking a 2nd look. I stopped and asked her if everything was ok? She said that she couldn't see anything. I unstrapped my board and went over to pick her up. She said she couldn't move her hand. So i put her arm over my shoulder and helped her to her feet and unstrapped her board. Once she was up I asked "can you see now?" And she said, yes its getting better. So I asked her if she'd like to walk the rest of the way with me which she did. I grabbed both the boards and we walked and as we walked she pulled off her glove. I don't know how she managed this but she was after falling and hitting the back of her head (causing the blurry vision) and also managed to break her wrist... If I hadn't of stopped... How long would she have been left lying there?
Its ridiculous how ignorant and inconsiderate these people are!!

I just hope that if anything happens to me, my g/f or any of my mates then there's somebody there that will stop and help them or me.

To end on a happier note, my mate was talking to the girl later on that day and she was nicely wrapped up in a cast and off her face on whatever pills they gave her.

Happy Out!!

mcgratheoin

My pet hate is half full ski lifts - I hate standing waiting at 6 or 8 man chair lift and seeing the ones ahead of me flying up the mountain with only 3 or 4 people on board :mad:
On the flip side of that, some (not all) lifts have a dedicated line to the side for people on their own which I always use with my mates if it's busy - we don't really care if we don't get to sit together on the lift once we can get up the mountain quicker that way. In practice, you often end up together anyway as there'll be more than one free spot on a lift or in a gondola.

Other pet hates include snowboarders stopping in the middle of the slope and everybody stopping at the beginning of a steep bit of the slope :mad: if it's so steep that you have to muster up courage like that, then you shouldn't really be there.

robinph

mcgratheoin wrote: »

Other pet hates include snowboarders stopping in the middle of the slope and everybody stopping at the beginning of a steep bit of the slope :mad: if it's so steep that you have to muster up courage like that, then you shouldn't really be there.

I'd have thought the stopping at the top of a steep bit is more to do with not blindly jumping off into the unknown. I'd tend to stop on the edge at the top of steeps but that is so that I can wait for whoever I'm with to catch up, and make sure that they don't chicken out and go a different route at any junctions.

ShayK1

robinph wrote: »

I'd have thought the stopping at the top of a steep bit is more to do with not blindly jumping off into the unknown.

as would I

mcgratheoin

robinph wrote: »

I'd have thought the stopping at the top of a steep bit is more to do with not blindly jumping off into the unknown. I'd tend to stop on the edge at the top of steeps but that is so that I can wait for whoever I'm with to catch up, and make sure that they don't chicken out and go a different route at any junctions.

maybe so, but I hate arriving at a steep bit and having a line of people strung across the slope forcing everyone else to stop as well..

edmund_f

mcgratheoin wrote: »

maybe so, but I hate arriving at a steep bit and having a line of people strung across the slope forcing everyone else to stop as well..

if you are good enough you can go round?... thought i heard someone mention something about if you are not good enough you should not be on the hill? :rolleyes:

Don1

Quick stop at the top, survey, then go. If you want to wait for people, do so at the side.

I had to tell the beginers this several times on the trip this year, but they got it eventually. It's the same as learning to drive, you are concentrating so hard on the little bit you can do your peripheral vision and awareness etc doesn't work! Takes a while for the awareness to come imo.

Raekwon

edmund_f wrote: »

My personal pet hate is if waiting on the piste for whatever reason, skiers using me as a slalom marker - actually noted that if you sit as close to the edge and in plain view this seems to happen more - actually have a cut across my glove from a particularly zealous skier -

That's exactly what I hate too, every single year I get some guys zipping past me like I was a slalom pole then zigzagging in-between other people on their way down the slope. These are the dangerous a**holes that are going to wind up getting a clothesline from me someday if they get to close.

5h4mr0(k

I don't care how difficult it is. I know accidents happen. When you knock someone, then just look back, see them lying on the ground and board/ski/blade/bigfoot off, you are nothing but scum who should be banned from the pistes.

If you knock someone down, you are liable. Read your lift pass and piste map.
http://www.fis-ski.com/uk/rulesandpublications/fisgeneralrules/10fisrules.html

As a general rule, if you see someone in trouble, see if you can help. Accidents can happen very easily, you might need to be on the receiving end of some sometime.

In resorts popular with learners watch out on day three and four of the holiday, that when most of the accidents happen. People suddenly trying slopes that they shouldn't and in large numbers, combined with tired legs - carnage.

mcgratheoin

edmund_f wrote: »

if you are good enough you can go round?... thought i heard someone mention something about if you are not good enough you should not be on the hill? :rolleyes:

Not always - came to the top of a bit in Meribel a few weeks ago, and there was quite literally a scrum of people about 3 deep across the slope. It was impossible to get through without stopping. It should also be noted that this was a blue run, not a severely steep red or black.
Courtesy (which is what we're talking about here) dictates that if you want to stop you should do so at the side of the slope and leave room for those who don't want/need to stop at that point.

Raekwon wrote: »

That's exactly what I hate too, every single year I get some guys zipping past me like I was a slalom pole then zigzagging in-between other people on their way down the slope. These are the dangerous a**holes that are going to wind up getting a clothesline from me someday if they get to close.

Completely agree - People who do this are often those who think they're a lot better than they are. I had a friend once tell me that a red run down was faster than a black run down, when what he really meant was that he wasn't able to ski the black run without stopping every 50m. Hence you get a bunch of people who think they're the dogs b0llocks flying down runs between other skiers because they can't handle the really fast stuff.
Anyone who has been to Meribel should know that there's a run there from Mottaret to Meribel (green slope - truite) which is particularly bad for this. It's one of the first runs that beginners ski but it's also used by people heading to the lift centre in Meribel (despite the fact that there are quicker ways of getting to the top of those lifts from Mottaret)

Grimlock

My personal experience is that people in resorts in Europe are much ruder than in the US and Canada. It's a HUGE pet peev of mine. If someone ushes past me in a lift line I'll drag them back.

There are a$$holes on both sides, skiers and boarders. But I think the resorts could do more to make things better in europe, I mean there are very few and very short barriers. I Canada for example they have very long barriers up to the lifts and the line is only wide enough for the number of people that can fit on a chair.

I also hate people that trample on your gear in the lift line.

Canada has better conditions and better etiquette than europe.....the more I think about it the more I'm thinking I'll try best not to go to slopes in europe again.

jimdev

The faster you get down the hill, the longer you spend queueing for and sitting on lifts. I race so I spend all day lapping one lift (whichever one goes over our training course), this means I am stuck on one lift usually with no other options.

What really, really gets my goat is when I have to queue for 10 minutes every run but all the chairs are going up with spaces on them. The only place I have ever been where this didn't happen at all was Coronet Peak in New Zealand, where a liftie actually picks 4 (or 6) people out of the front of the line to go on each chair so they are always full. Although North America in general tends to still be pretty good in this regard, most places in Europe do not even bother with a singles line, like they have so much lift capacity they don't care, even if a queue does form.



My other thing is people who ski with really unpredictable rhythm (or no rhythm), as in they fly almost straight down the slope for ages and then suddenly take a hard turn for no apparent reason. This is not a problem if they go slow cus then people overtaking can pass quickly and easily but when people point really straight down and do this, you only pass them gradually and end up in a serious close call when they suddenly get the spontaneous urge to turn as far across the slope as possible without looking to see if there is anyone beside them.