The Breckenridge Ski Patrol conducted their annual gondola rescue drills, which require about 50 volunteers willing to sit in stranded gondola cars and wait to get lowered to safety. I suppose you could pack a case of beer for the drill, but it’s not like these things have restrooms. Though it would make it more realistic for the ski patrol if they had to deal with belligerent people instead of families waiting for what they see as a free ride on the zip line. Good news, none of the volunteers were killed. Hopefully they all got a couple free lift tickets, but somehow I think it was more like a free cup of soup.

A group of people upset with Sunshine Village ski area in Canada have banded together on Facebook to try to marshal a boycott of the resort for firing several of their longtime staff who caught the resort owner’s idiot son skiing out of bounds. I say this with all sincerity: Good luck. Convincing people to boycott a ski resort mid-season is near impossible. Most people don’t care about your cause, and the locals who do care and ski all have season passes.

Sunshine Village ski area in Banff fired four longtime staffers days after a ski patroller reprimanded the resort owner’s son skiing out of bounds. The junior patroller busted the kid with four friends and told them to get back inbounds. Twelve days later four of the resort staff were fired by the kid’s dad after they were questioned about the event and the junior patroller refused to write a letter of apology. A few days later all but six ski patrollers staged a sick-day walkout, and the resort opened with only a couple lifts in operation.

The guys who got cut loose weren’t college kids taking a year off - most had been working at the resort for nearly 30 years. They’ve filed a wrongful termination lawsuit for about $500k.

I wonder who this kid’s dad will fire when his kid gets buried in an avalanche while skiing out of bounds.

via Adventure Journal

My friend Chris used to jump off the chairlift on the last run of every day and ski to the parking lot. The Ski Patrol would chase him down and take away his lift ticket in the parking lot. There was little else they could do in Upper Michigan. But that might not be the case in Washington soon. A state law would make it illegal to ski out of bounds at resorts, punishable with up to $1000 fine.

This could get ugly. While the ski patrol wouldn’t be able to hand out tickets, they could write down license plates or take IDs and hand the out-of-bounds skiers off the police for processing. While I applaud their efforts, I have to ask where they draw the line. What happens if someone touring nearby passes in and out of a resort? Besides, part of me would prefer that people who duck ropes occasionally get caught in an avalanche. It’s important to thin the gene pool.

A 63-year-old mountain guide was on a solo tour in the Pyrenees when he spotted an aluminum tube resting in the snow. He recognized it as an avalanche charge fired from a compressed air cannon, so he gave the tube wide berth. In an extraordinary fit of bad luck, the charge blew up just as he passed underneath. It didn’t trigger an avalanche, but it did blow shrapnel into the poor guy’s head. He was able to call for help and get evacuated, but a little research shows just how terrible this guy’s luck was. The local ski patrol says there haven’t been any unexploded charges all season - or all last season. It seems the last time one went unaccounted was in 2007. Why this charge exploded at the exact moment that the guide was skiing next to it is a mystery. I just hope this guy has a better retirement plan than buying lotto tickets.