WOOT WOOT! Nukin' in Missoula

[stuckathuntermtn]

Sunday was the best day all year, but I guess it's spring now?

[Iowagriz]

I waxed the skis and put them up for the year. Time for bikes.

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[Rasputin]

I waxed the skis and put them up for the year. Time for bikes.

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That's right, go biking in droves, skiing is so over!!!

[Iowagriz]

Another tough day(night) at Snowbowl.

"Montana Highway Patrol Sergeant Andrew Novak said the man was leaning against his car after a day of skiing when an acquaintance of his was reportedly driving recklessly in the parking lot and allegedly struck and killed the man." (From the Missoulian)

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[RootSkier]

Another tough day(night) at Snowbowl.

"Montana Highway Patrol Sergeant Andrew Novak said the man was leaning against his car after a day of skiing when an acquaintance of his was reportedly driving recklessly in the parking lot and allegedly struck and killed the man." (From the Missoulian)

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Holy fuck that's horrible.

[yeahman]

RIP

[Rasputin]

The man who died was a good friend, as is the man driving. Please don't offer opinions if you are just going to pile on. It's a really bad day for the community.

PS: The Missoulian's is a poor account of what happened, according to two of my friends who were there.

[Iowagriz]

I saw a FB comment that he was a known Snowbowl skier. Given the rumored age, I likely know him as well. RIP

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[Rasputin]

He was one of the most diehard skiers at Snowbowl, anyone who skis daily, or has been around long, knew him.

[stuckathuntermtn]

The man who died was a good friend, as is the man driving. Please don't offer opinions if you are just going to pile on. It's a really bad day for the community.

PS: The Missoulian's is a poor account of what happened, according to two of my friends who were there.

My sympathies.
Of course The Missoulian got it wrong. Can't wait to see how they make it Snowbowl's fault somehow, too.

I waxed the skis and put them up for the year. Time for bikes.

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Don't be such a roadie.

[Iowagriz]

Don't be such a roadie.

Thems fighten words.

MTB for life
(gravel for shoulder season)

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[Rasputin]

It's good that a full review of the chairs will happen. Sounds like the local FS is finally getting around to, getting Snowbowl to get around to, doing what is needful. I suppose forty people getting hit on the head was not as motivating as a child getting thrown off the lift. The issue with the halos on the first couple towers was not hidden to anyone who rode Snowpark regularly, and experienced the chair swing sideways. While Snowbowl certainly deserves heat for it, the FS probably could have involved themselves in inspecting Pat's bush fix, found it lacking, and insisted on a proper solution, back when all those people hit their heads.

[Rasputin]

It's good that a full review of the chairs will happen. Sounds like the local FS is finally getting around to, getting Snowbowl to get around to, doing what was needful. I suppose forty people getting hit on the head was not as motivating, as a child getting thrown off the lift. The issue with the halos on the first couple towers was not hidden anyone who rode Snowpark regularly, and experienced the chair swing sideways. While Snowbowl certainly deserves heat for it, the FS probably could have involved themselves in inspecting Pat's bush fix, found it lacking, and insisted on a proper solution, back when all those people hit their heads.

[senior researcher]

Lynx and Wolverine lives matter. Tort reforms. Ellie is a massive POS. Willis, barely not a theocrat. All of my of brodies @ Snowbowl felt awesome. Sad for Greg, and the families of his friend.

[RootSkier]

All of my of brodies @ Snowbowl felt awesome.

What the fuck.

[stuckathuntermtn]

Ok, that's great and all, but a lot of people seem to treat lightweight double lifts like they're highspeed 6 packs with heated bubbles. Calm the fuck down.
And yeah, Snowbowl could probably use some more oversight. The way they maintain their trails, or don't really, always seemed a little dangerous to me. Not the lifts so much, lol.

[stuckathuntermtn]

"Montana deregulated ski area chairlifts in 1997"
https://missoulian.com/news/local/mo...WUP7wz7S7-2np8

"The state of Montana used to oversee chairlift safety and operations at ski areas across the state — until the Legislature abolished the Board of Passenger Tramway Safety in 1997.

That left oversight of Montana's chairlifts, rope-tows and gondolas to the U.S. Forest Service, but only in situations where a ski area operates on Forest Service land via a special-use permit. The Forest Service doesn't regularly inspect lifts itself. The agency requires ski areas to conduct their own annual inspections. Inspection reports are kept private by ski areas and are not submitted to the Forest Service or made public.

Before 1997, the Montana Board of Passenger Tramway Safety provided the Forest Service with annual inspection reports that offered far greater insight into lift safety. The Forest Service opposed abolishing the board 26 years ago, arguing that the state offered vital independent oversight of the ski industry and helped the Forest Service ensure lifts were safe. The ski industry in Montana supported abolishing the board. The bill abolishing the board sailed through the Legislature with bipartisan support.

Concerns over chairlift safety have mounted after a March 19 incident at Missoula's Snowbowl ski area in which a lift chair carrying a 4-year-old boy and his father swung into the first tower on the ride up. The chair seat-back broke off, dumping the child about 15 feet to the ground below. The father, Missoula resident Nathan McLeod, was left clinging to the vertical hanger pole that extends down from the haul cable. He had to jump off moments later. The Forest Service is now probing the safety of Snowbowl.

Now, a group of Democratic lawmakers from Missoula are looking into whether the state should revive the Board of Passenger Tramway Safety.

McLeod contacted state Sen. Willis Curdy, who represents west Missoula, Lolo and the mountains west of both towns. Curdy said in an interview Thursday that, after this legislative session concludes, he will see if there's "any interest moving forward in resurrecting the tramway board or something similar to that." He brought concerns to Laurie Esau, the state's commissioner of labor and industry. Esau, he said, will be reaching out to other states in the West and in New England to better understand how they do, or don't, oversee chairlift safety. Curdy said he's also approached the Forest Service to better understand how it oversees ski area safety.

State Sen. Ellie Boldman, who represents Missoula's southeast side, wrote in a Facebook post March 26 that "nobody 'local' is surprised" at the Snow Park chairlift incident: "I say that with a spectrum of both visceral anger and support for my hometown mountain, and with full knowledge that any public criticism means the current owners will exact real retribution. Ain’t no joke."

Boldman, herself a season-pass holder at Snowbowl, wrote, "I’m planning to introduce a 'study bill' on Montana’s regulation (or lack thereof) on outdoor recreational activities and their applicability on public safety, including monitoring, enforcement, liability, and effect on tourism." She tagged the Facebook profiles for state Sens. Curdy, Shannon O'Brien, Shane Morigeau and Andrea Olsen, and wrote, "They'll be in."

Snowbowl owners Andy and Brad Morris did not respond to multiple requests for comment this week.

Bipartisan deregulation
In 1997, Rep. Roger DeBruycker, a Republican from Floweree, northeast of Great Falls, was the chairman of the Legislature's Joint Subcommittee on Natural Resources. On Feb. 18, 1997, the subcommittee heard from Steve Meloy of the state Department of Commerce. Meloy suggested that the state could save money by abolishing the Board of Passenger Tramway Safety. It would also eliminate fees the state charged ski areas. Ski areas must have their lifts inspected annually anyway, to keep their insurance and to comply with their special-use permits — so the state board was redundant, he argued. The subcommittee voted unanimously the next day to request a bill that would abolish the board.

DeBruycker introduced House Bill 594, a bill to abolish the Board of Passenger Tramway Safety, into the Legislature on Feb. 25, 1997. During a House Committee on Appropriations hearing on the bill on March 13, 1997, Pat Melby of the Montana Ski Area Association and the owners of Great Divide and Red Lodge Mountain ski areas voiced support for the bill. Forest Service Region 1 Forester Hal Salwasser opposed the bill. The bill passed the House on a 97-1 vote March 26, 1997.

The Senate Committee on Finance and Claims held a hearing on the bill on April 8, 1997. In that hearing, Melby and the owners of Great Divide, Showdown and Discovery ski areas testified in support of the bill. Kevin Taylor, then the owner of Great Divide, was appointed to the Board of Passenger Tramway Safety in 1990 and was the board president from 1994–96. He testified that "the functions performed by the board were redundant and unnecessary and maintained a level of regulation and taxation that provided no benefit to the citizens of Montana or the ski area industry." The tramway board itself considered the bill, he said, and saw no reason not to disband itself.

George Willett of Showdown Ski Area testified, "Our business dictates that we operate a business that is perceived by the public to be free of as much danger as possible ... If we have incidents where a number of people get hurt on tramways, we'll be out of business."

Discovery Ski Area's Peter Pitcher put it more bluntly: "(T)he tramway board is a part of government that doesn't work."

John Drake, of Forest Service Region 1, testified that the agency lacks the capacity to perform annual lift inspections itself, and it relies on ski areas to perform their own, generally through their insurance companies. Those inspection reports aren't handed over to the Forest Service. But, he told the committee, the Board of Passenger Tramway Safety's inspections are given to the Forest Service.

"We review the tramway board's inspections," he said. "They are clear enough for us to monitor and have been very useful to us. We are not able to tell from insurance inspections what is occurring and it may not be to their advantage to point some of these things out."

Without the state board and its inspections, Drake testified, "We rely on what we can get from the insurance industry and we may have a third-party inspection. It is a more difficult arrangement when we do not have a tramway board to deal with."

The bill passed the Senate unanimously. Gov. Marc Racicot signed it on April 22, 1997. It took effect on July 1 that year.

The bill saved Montana $56,090, according to a state analysis. A year later, DeBruycker lost reelection to a farmer from Big Sandy named Jon Tester.

Trusting ski areas
The abolition of the state board left chairlift safety oversight to the Forest Service, and Montana joined the ranks of states that don't regulate chairlift safety. In the West, only Alaska, Washington, California, Colorado and Utah have some sort of passenger tramway board. Fifteen other states, including all of New England, have such boards; 30 states do not.

Direct oversight of chairlift safety from the Forest Service is largely reactive — responding after a safety incident occurs. Only after a safety incident occurs does the Forest Service send its own engineers to observe a lift. The agency can then order a ski area to hire an independent, third-party engineer to address any identified problems, as it recently did with Snowbowl.

Chairlifts in the U.S. are supposed to meet standards established by ANSI, the American National Standards Institute. When ski areas perform their annual lift inspections, they only need to send the Forest Service a generic statement that the inspection occurred.

The Missoulian obtained Snowbowl Ski Area's special-use permit. Under a section titled "Ski Lift, Holder Inspection," the permit states that upon annual inspection of a lift, Snowbowl need only tell the Forest Service: "Pursuant to our special use permit, we have had an inspection to determine our compliance with American National Standard B77.1. We have received the results of that inspection and have made corrections of all deficiencies noted. The facilities are ready for public use."

The Forest Service has some regional and national ropeway engineers who often oversee lift installation. But the agency doesn't have enough of the specialized engineers to regularly monitor lifts, according to multiple retired Forest Service employees the Missoulian interviewed.

Margaret Gorski, a former Region 1 recreation program leader, said in a March 30 interview, "(With) the loss of the tramway board to Montana, the net effect was in order to have the expertise to know the technical engineering issues with the lift, we had to rely on the national organization in Washington to have someone we could call on. The responsibility lies with the ski area operator" to ensure lifts are safe."

Goddammit.
Also, does that mean that Big Sky operates with basically no oversight since they're on private property? Cool. Although it sounds like everyone else is anyway. I have to say, though, I never hit anything nor did anything hit me when riding Snowpark.

[yeahman]

This is one (serious) incident at one ski area. No need to upend the whole system.

[stuckathuntermtn]

I still think rider error was involved. It was the last time a chair broke.

[drdirt]

He was one of the most diehard skiers at Snowbowl, anyone who skis daily, or has been around long, knew him.

Fuck I just heard this and my stomach hurts. I don’t want to know who it was but who was it?

[jackattack]

I still think rider error was involved. It was the last time a chair broke.

despite your bias, correlation does not imply causation.

chairlifts should be installed and operated within a margin of safety that allows for a misload or dangerous conditions. this chair was not operating within that margin of safety. as a result, it struck the tower and the carrier failed. the severity was compounded by the operator who didn't slow/stop the chair to prevent the strike and also failed to report the incident to patrol or their supervisor so that they could provide aid to the guest and offload the chair for inspection.

Snowbowl has no one to blame but themselves for this one.

[anotherVTskibum]

This is one (serious) incident at one ski area. No need to upend the whole system.

As someone who has worked in and around ski areas in Vermont, Maine, and Montana, I'll just say that the bitching I heard in Vermont from ops people about keeping the tram board happy made me feel a lot better about riding older lifts, especially ones where the manufacturer was no longer offering any support. And I knew and trusted many of those ops people, but knowing that someone who wasn't beholden to the ski area for a paycheck was keeping an eye out was nice.

I'm not personally all that worried about Boyne not having government oversight; while I don't always agree with their decisions, I trust them to know that chairlift failures are not in their own best interest. Small areas with really tight budgets, older equipment, and fewer people focused on risk management worry me more.

[2FUNKY]

Buttfuckedathuntermountain, you are an absolute fucking idiot. If you think that a beginner skier unloading a chair "incorrectly" is to blame for Lavelle detaching from the haul rope, then keep choking on the cock that's rammed down your throat. What's your claim to fame - you skied at Bridger Bowl without a beacon and bitched about the terrain, then moved to Missoula without a touring setup and bitched about the terrain. Pound sand. Get fucked. Eat a dick.

Tell us how you really feel. Don’t hold back this time, just let it out…


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[yeahman]

Fuck I just heard this and my stomach hurts. I don’t want to know who it was but who was it?

Saw this on FB. Did not know him. RIP Ray

[2FUNKY]

Read back a bit, damn, what a shitty deal. RIP Ray. [emoji17]


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