That sunshine park looks like a blast. I love weird transition features.
GORILLAWALLACEyeah but this was a grip failure on a lift, no grey area, just shitty maintenance and completely preventable.
but on the parks side of this, why is it that in the states nobody uses liability signage or hit markers? in canada our insurance adjusters are super strict about having extensive signage and bottlenecking the entrance so that the public has to go by our huge signs, and sizes next to each feature ect.
obviously nobody reads those signs and they don't actually prevent injuries but they certainly help cover your ass in court. when I ski in parks in america I notice a lot of legal exposure that our managers would shit on us for.
We do. I think insurance wise every park has to have a sign of some sort. Generally smart style/park smart, some sort of terrain park rules and risk stuff, etc.
Also a lot of insurance requires a gate of some sort. Some insurance or mountains require overlapping fences, some just open but maybe like 5 feet wide. Some have entrances that a cat cat fit through but are fences off on both sides. Same goes for exits. Some parks have nothing, some a rope line, some have to have overlapping fences to slow people down.
Personally I think the feature signage in Canada is silly. I get the idea of telling people what a feature is, but you should look at stuff before you hit it. Even with the signs you're not really learning that much. Also I think they look fucking horrible. A place I worked in NY 10+ years ago Gore Mtn use to have to put boo on each side of every feature. With the sweet lollipop disks. Park looked fucking stupid and we were constantly trying to find the stupid things and get them back where they needed to go.
As far as everything else it comes down to the resort. I've worked at some of the absolute smallest and largest ski areas in the states. Some places take it very seriously. Everything has to be perfect from the way the signage/fencing etc, feature selection, install, hand crew, grooming etc. Everything has to be fucking perfect or somebody is going to get an earful.
I rode one place just for the day maybe 3 years ago and features had a gangster lean. You had to hit them at an angle to make it to the end. Actually same place there wasn't a sign or just some shitty sign on a post. I came off there 3 rail line with my tunes blasting. Park crew was working on a "jump" aired around the sing a cat pass or two out, and almost hit a fucking cat coming up the landing. No cats working sing, no trail closure, and during operating hours. Fucking scary sketchy.
Unfortunately as Tom said though, even not working at those sketchy places, if shit goes down there, it fucks things up everywhere.
Some places do use flags on jump takeoffs. Some places dye. Some places dye rail takeoffs too which is kind of dumb imo. Dye doesn't look bad but that stuff eats the corners out and I hate dropping crumbling corners.
