Mammoth revises avalanche/rope closure policy

[Stormchaser]

This is a huge problem for Mammoth Mountain Ski Resort, where multiple skiers have intentionally crossed over into dangerously unstable out-of-bounds areas. After dealing with ongoing blatant disregard from resort guests, Mammoth Mountain officials are ready to throw the book at 'em, announcing strict new penalties with a dramatic video on February 15.

Dan Flynn, a member of Mammoth Mountain's Ski Patrol, is fed up by the number of times he and his team have been put in extreme danger by guests who duck rope closures into out-of-bounds areas. Now, if you break the rules at Mammoth Mountain, you're going to face some serious consequences.

"If you get caught breaking a closure, you will lose your season pass for a minimum of 30 days. That's up from 10," warns Dan Flynn. "For a second infraction, you will lose your pass for the rest of the season and will face criminal charges."

Criminal charges may sound severe, but this is a matter of life or death for the ski patrol, the skiers themselves, and anyone else in the area.

"Imagine, just for a moment, that you are a ski patroller on a mitigation route with explosives, and while you're waiting for your shot to detonate, someone ducks a closure and enters the runout zone of the avalanche path that you're attempting to release," Flynn illustrates.

"That is absolutely terrifying for that patroller... We could never forgive ourselves for killing or injuring someone who is in a closed area with no knowledge of the hazard that's above them. Please respect our closures so that we can keep you safe and continue to open as much terrain as we can."

[snoloco]

It's totally justified. No safety rule in skiing is as serious as avalanche closures. I wonder if they will use cameras to enforce.

[Killington_Lover]

Meanwhile in Europe they don’t have yellow jackets, or patrol in the sense we do here. Truly a more civilized society, until you enter a lift line. 0 tolerance makes sense here where people think they know better than patrol.

[snoloco]

In Europe, they have charged people with manslaughter who were at fault for fatal collisions.

[Big Bob]

If I were Mammoth, just refuse to send the ski patrol out of bounds to preform a rescue if there is a possiblity of injury. Put that on the sign, you will not be rescued if you need it beyond this point. This is almost as bad as uphill skiers crossing over winch lines in the east.

[GlacierBoy]

This happened today based on a related story from
a Ski Patrol dude at Copper Mountain, Colorado where we skied on 7" of overnight fresh light powder! (Epic day in the upper bowls, but we digress !).

Copper Mtn received 7" fresh overnight. The north face of the upper Copper Bowl was closed for a few hours in the morning as Patrol dropped bombs for avy mitigation.
The backside Three Bears triple chair was closed while Patrol worked.

Later in the morning, we rode the Three Bears Triple with a ski patroller. As we watched a skier walk down the black diamond trail below the chair carrying only one ski, the Patroller mentioned that Patrol almost didn't open the chair.

As they dropped a bomb onto a steep area this morning , a skier decided to DUCK A ROPE for first tracks and skied PARALLEL and NEXT TO THE BOMBING area . He and Patrol were not happy .

We forgot to ask what happened to the skier if they were caught and pass pulled

[PinnacleJim]

Saw sign at Keystone recently that skiing closed areas was good for 28 day suspension plus legal action.