 Poster: A snowHead
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There's 2 things I hate.
1, People who do that daft tuck position - legs straight, bent at the waist, poles up in the air.
2, People who can't be bothered to read a thread to see if the daft tuck position has already been mentioned.
3, People who can't count.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Toilets which always seem to be down a load of steep slippery stairs
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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lenniem, There is one in the Ski Welt which has a slide to go down!
And at least one more with an escalator.
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Parents skiing with babies in back carriers 
Yes I witnessed this twice in Zell-am-See.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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alex_heney,
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lenniem, There is one in the Ski Welt which has a slide to go down!
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There's also one in the Hospizalm in St Christoph - I think it was a chute for getting the hay down to the cattle.
I can't believe how angry everyone is - relax, it's a holiday! 
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| Renry wrote: |
Parents skiing with babies in back carriers
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I don't see a problem with this. Why are you so wound up about it?
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Gordyjh,
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I can't believe how angry everyone is - relax, it's a holiday!
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Agreed
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Parents skiing with babies in back carriers
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Anger over things like this I find a little bizarre.
Most things you have to accept people have differnet mores and expectations when on holiday if someone is stopped in an awkward spot it's not usually that difficult to ski round.
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frank4short, there's a charming story doing the rounds here about a baby carried in such a way getting such severe frostbite that it had to have both hands amputated. I suspect it of being an urbanoid myth though.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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My mate tells a story of a seasonnaire in Whistler who went out on April 1st wearing a baby carrier with a life-like doll installed. He spent the day dropping cliffs, hitting kickers and doing backflips, in sight of the lifts. Made me laugh. 
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there's a charming story doing the rounds here about a baby carried in such a way getting such severe frostbite that it had to have both hands amputated. I suspect it of being an urbanoid myth though.
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Whether true or mythical, ther eare sensible ways of doing things and stupid ways of doing things.
A novice carrying a baby round all day on icy black runs in the middle of a december cold spell is clearly daft.
An expert taking their kid for a family lunch to a moiuntain restaurant in March is in reality taking no more risk than I did when taking my child to lunch in a car.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| T Bar wrote: |
An expert taking their kid for a family lunch to a moiuntain restaurant in March is in reality taking no more risk than I did when taking my child to lunch in a car. |
.... And driving back with a few beers, as many used to do... Totally agree.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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People who do shallow traverses using every inch of the slope width - it's dangerous to other skiers
People who go past you and then stop right in front of you
People who fall off drag lifts in front of you and make no effort to get out of the way
People who take 3 goes to use a drag lift. Go back and learn on a nursery slope please
Being hit of the head with the damn safety bar
People who snowlough on low angle cat tracks so no one can get past and make it across the flat sections
People who don't clear the unload area coming off a lift
People who put a pole between your skis when coming off a chair lift
My pet hate: people who ski out of control. I had one guy nearly wipe me out and then laugh saying he was out of control all the way down. No it isn't funny.
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People who do shallow traverses using every inch of the slope width - it's dangerous to other skiers
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What"s so hazardous about that? 
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You know it makes sense.
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narc,
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People who do shallow traverses using every inch of the slope width
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I would have annoyed the hell out of you when I was learning! I considered it a matter of honour not to lose any altitude when traversing and turning. My wife reckons if she had left me to my own devices I could make a blue run last all day!
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Lizzard,
There's a rule that people crossing the piste must givve way to those descending. Sliding slowly almost to an uphill stop at the very edge of a piste across someone's path and then turning back just as they are passing is risky. To do so claiming right of way because you were lower compounds the problem.
Traversing is a way of tackling slopes that are too steep for your ability. I'm not sure if the technique is taught so readily nowadays.
Seriously, if a piste is a couple of hundred meters wide, why not turn on a nice bit instead of looking like a duck in a shooting gallery and then trying to force a turn in as you approach a drop or a bank ?
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Poster: A snowHead
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| thirty06 wrote: |
Lizzard,
There's a rule that people crossing the piste must givve way to those descending.
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In your fantasies, maybe.
Not in any issue I have ever seen of the rules of the piste.
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Sliding slowly almost to an uphill stop at the very edge of a piste across someone's path and then turning back just as they are passing is risky. To do so claiming right of way because you were lower compounds the problem.
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It is only risky because of people who don't follow the rules, in leaving plenty of room when overtaking.
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Traversing is a way of tackling slopes that are too steep for your ability. I'm not sure if the technique is taught so readily nowadays.
Seriously, if a piste is a couple of hundred meters wide, why not turn on a nice bit instead of looking like a duck in a shooting gallery and then trying to force a turn in as you approach a drop or a bank ? |
Some people just prefer to traverse a lot and only turn near the edges.
Others, as you say, may be on pistes that they are not wholly comfortable with, and are indeed using traversing as a technique to deal with steepness.
Which are both perfectly valid. You may dislike people who do it, but they have a perfect right to do so, and if you are coming from above them it is your responsibility to avoid them.
Of course, if they have any sense, then regardless of what the rules say, they will take care to try and avoid turning into the path of people who might be passing them too close. They would rather give way when they theoretically have ROW than get flattened for insisting on it.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Hmmm, thirty06 I'd go back and read the FIS rules if I were you! Maybe these were what you meant??
"•Select an appropriate path. If you are skiing behind someone it’s your responsibility to ski around them without causing any danger to them."
"•You can over-take from either left or right but you must leave enough distance between yourself and other skiers to allow them to manoeuvre properly."
Don't think by "behind" it means "below"!!
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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alex_heney,
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thirty06 wrote:
Lizzard,
There's a rule that people crossing the piste must givve way to those descending.
In your fantasies, maybe.
Not in any issue I have ever seen of the rules of the piste.
Quote:
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Er yes, it's a rule on footpaths that cross pistes.
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Gosh, we're all terribly keen on rules aren't we? There's always the common sense option of just avoiding said person and carrying on with the day. It's not as though it's likely to be particularly difficult, given the speed they're doing.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Well if you're going to go 200 meters across a piste, you might as well be on a footpath. I think you'll find it applies to pistes which cross as well, givn the Trois Vallees habit of counting the same piste three times then everyone is probably crossing a piste on another. On a narrower piste, causes a lot more blockage.
Anyway Lizzard, I never mentioned hating such folk, that was another, indeed I love them with an affection that is illegal in the state of Arkansas and you cannot imagine the depths of my fantasies.
Your point was that you could see no hazard presented by someone making a wide traverse of a piste. I do see a hazard, possibly not from those who simply want to travel slowly down the run and admire the view, but there is the other kind of traverser. You see them going straight across a mogul field or a chopped up bit, skis are parallel, but they are often crouching into the hill, they tense up as they approach the edge and when they realise they have no choice but to turn or crash, they kill their speed by going uphill a bit and then stomp round until they face the other way, then they start off again, they may start at a steep angle, but as the crust, slush, bumps, soft stuff or whatever it is spooks them, they go into a shallower traverse until they repeat the slow, stop turn maneuvre at the other side.
I'm sure it's not what the instructor taught them, but merely an approximation thereof. If said folk were to look uphill when they do their 'turn' and before they launch themselves, they might not be quite so random. Sometimes they stop, sometimes they don't, sometimes they go backwards.
Obviously, when seeing such a one I try to adopt a course that goes well clear of them, but that's sometimes just the time when they decide to turn in the middle of the piste making the whole thing feel like a game of Space Invaders.
If you get three of four of these types descending together, they effectively form a rolling road block and set a maximum speed for the descent of whatever piste they are on. IF they don't relent and all stop for a bit it's like trying to chuck soft boiled eggs through a fan.
Anywise, the FIS is a bunch of modern tomfoolery** and if I find the vellum with the original rules on I shall repeat it herein. The fact remains that doing a nervous shallow traverse presents a potential hazard if the traverser relies upon the protection afforded by their rights under the FIS rules*. I shall now go and seek suitable birch roots to make this season's bindings and start rendering walrus grease for to waterproof my boots.
30.06
*Here lies the body of John C. Day
He died defending his right of way
He was right, dead right, as the day is long
But he’s just as dead as if he’d been wrong
**Oh all right, they're perfectly fine, but demanding rights of way without showing consideration of the inconvenience you may be causing is not nice behaviour.
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thirty06, can't say I've ever seen any of that.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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sounds like a wind-up path
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Bloody PC, sorry about the multiples (not often I have to appologies for that one  )
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Lizzard,
Usually on race runs. The one at Selva springs to mind. It doesn't look that intimidating to start with, so groups of people set off and then end up doing traverses of the steep bits. No crime in that, but they go round a corner, over the lip, halt and then start traversing so that someone can come round the corner descend and find three or four people dropping in on them from the side. If the traversers took a look up on turning and thought "Aha, here comes a good skier, I shall put in a bit more of a turn to slow myself so that he will be past me when I get back onto the middle of the piste", it would be a more considerate thought than "anybody uphill of me can just go round and they'll have to stop if they can't".
OF course it doesn't help if both parties suffer from what is actually my pet hate on piste. "Target fixation". Some people seem unable to avoid obstacles, be they poles, rocks or other people. You could have a piste a mile wide and for some reason these people will home in, hopefully just miss the crash and shout "sorry!" as they head off for another strafing run.
30.06
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Not much bothers me, except the tw@ of a skiier who took my girlfriend out (while on a lesson) and skiied off shouting to his mate "i got one". Worse thing was he could hardly through a snowplough together....
so I suppose my pet hate is newbie skiiers/snowboards who dislike the other without knowing why, just becouse they think "thats the thing to do" 
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You know it makes sense.
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| thirty06 wrote: |
Lizzard,
There's a rule that people crossing the piste must givve way to those descending. Sliding slowly almost to an uphill stop at the very edge of a piste across someone's path and then turning back just as they are passing is risky. To do so claiming right of way because you were lower compounds the problem.
Traversing is a way of tackling slopes that are too steep for your ability. I'm not sure if the technique is taught so readily nowadays.
Seriously, if a piste is a couple of hundred meters wide, why not turn on a nice bit instead of looking like a duck in a shooting gallery and then trying to force a turn in as you approach a drop or a bank ? |
I knew I'd cop some flak for posting it but it's true.
People doing shallow traverses across the entire slope should treat each traverse as 'setting off' (because they are almost stopped anyway) and check uphill as you say because this is just so much safer for them if they wish to ski this way. For anyone skiing a more normal path (=almost everyone else) it is impossible to constantly scan a 180 arc in front in case someone comes in right from the side.
If anyone doing this gets hit and then bleats about "uphill skier gives way" I'm sorry but it's like sailing a dinghy right across the path of a sea cat in a shipping lane and then saying "power gives way to sail". There is no need at all to do this and they really haven't taken sensible steps to keep themselves safe.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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narc, I fully agree with what you're saying. However the reality of the situation is that people that do that are almost always complete beginners for whom it's a terrifying situation being on a slope that's too steep for them. Plus at that stage you'd be doing well to know the basics of the rules let alone the nuansces (sp?) of them.
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Poster: A snowHead
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cantridepete, that's incredible. If I saw that I would probably start a schuss and lose control just when heading towards that guy...
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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narc,
I think it makes sense to look uphill when turning because there are reckless idiots on the slopes, but I really dont think it is beyond the whit of a competent skier to observe slow moving traversers on the piste in front. You certainly don't need to constantly scan a180 deg arc but to process the information of what is going on ahead in a much smaller arc.
I have managed to ski for 25 plus years without hitting a 'slow moving traverser' and would guess that most snowHeads will say the same though I do occasionally get held up on cat tracks.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| eithnem wrote: |
just when you think you have the gondola to yourselves two huge guys squeeze themselves in and spend the journey farting. |
sorry- I am one of those guys- not so much tall huge as round and fat huge
I always wondered how long I'd last in a cable car if it broke down, how long would it take everyone to work I was the one farting all the time, how long before they knew they couldn't stand it, then just who, how many would break a window and throw me out- what the onlookers would say and how the police would write it up?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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T-bar,
I don't think that anyone has suggested that they can't avoid hitting the slow traversers.
They can make it necessary to kill your speed or stop when you don't want to, a bit like Citroen Berlingos driven round the Lake District by anyone wearing a hat, ideally steer well clear.
Come to think of it, an actual pet hate is skiing with someone doesn't show consideration to less experienced skiers and uses them like slalom poles. It's bad enough when you see someone do it and can go "look at that idiot", but when you are skiing with the idiot, it's really awkward. I've had to challenge two people about it, one totally denied that he'd cut between an instructor and his one to one pupil and the other just didn't seem to understand that she'd actually frightened someone by cutting through a group and that there'd been fifty meters of piste to spare.
30.06
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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thirty06,
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I don't think that anyone has suggested that they can't avoid hitting the slow traversers.
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Well I thought narc, was implying that it was in some ways difficult.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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| thirty06 wrote: |
T-bar,
I don't think that anyone has suggested that they can't avoid hitting the slow traversers.
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It was certainly implied by narc's original "People who do shallow traverses using every inch of the slope width - it's dangerous to other skiers"
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I'll add some indoor specific gripes:
Indoor slopes who don't put up signs indicating left hand drag is advanced and not for kids under a certain height (Not the kids' fault just a design flaw) or non-expert goofy snowboarders.
Snowboard instructors who don't help their classes load the lift.
Lifties who stand there while people who are struggling miss button after button.
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The slow moving traffic is an annual repeater like helmets.
If its really a major problem to you then you're not as big a hotshot as you think. Equally if you're the nervous type hogging a cat track connector with your wide snowplough don't get aggrieved when people blow past you. The worst run in the world for this is the green back down to L2A - sure its possible to take the Valentin etc but some of the green is pretty madatory to swap sides of resort at the Mont de Lans end.
Some ski instructors are masters of the "no look, 100% width" ski school snake and set a bad example to all.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| T Bar wrote: |
thirty06,
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I don't think that anyone has suggested that they can't avoid hitting the slow traversers.
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Well I thought narc, was implying that it was in some ways difficult. |
It is difficult and doing this is certainly not safe . I have never hit anyone when someone has been doing this but over the 19 years I have been skiing have had to take evasive action a few times. Mostly it just makes me nervous (for them and me) and I only ski piste on my slalom skis so I'm nto exactly skiing super fast.
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I find the kids that stand at the top of a park acting cool waving people by one by one quite funny, convincing themselves that they are better than everyone else, even though not one of them has the bottle to hit anything......
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FAQ
