Blurred Borders: For resorts with inbounds avy terrain and lift-accessible backcountry, managing boundaries is tricky

This week, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that, under the Colorado Ski Safety Act’s parameters, ski resorts are not liable for injuries or death caused by inbounds avalanches. The Denver Post reported on May 31 that “the act shields resort operators from liability when the death or injury of skiers and snowboarders can be attributed to difficult-to-mitigate threats, such as terrain and weather.” This ruling comes in the wake of a lawsuit against Colorado’s Winter Park Resort by the family of Christopher Norris, who passed in 2012 after being caught in an avalanche.

For the state of Colorado, this ruling may kickstart programs to keep resort goers better informed and prepared for avalanches wherever they may roam in- and out of bounds. Whether this ruling has implications for other states remains to be seen, but in our January 2016 Issue, Associate Editor Lucy Higgins explored the topic of snow safety and skier/rider avalanche preparedness in both the front- and sidecountry.

Here is Higgins’s article from the January Issue:

Phrases like “inbounds backcountry” and “sidecountry” are frequently tossed around by resort-goers, referencing terrain they view somewhere in between proper backcountry and controlled resort territory. But according to patrollers and avy educators, both terms should be eliminated and the zones approached with a backcountry mentality.

“We don’t have ‘inbounds backcountry,’” says Doug Richmond, Patrol Director at Bridger Bowl, Mont. speaking of the resort’s Schlasman’s Lift. When opened in 2008, Schlasman’s increased access to Bridger’s ridgeline, including 300 unmarked skiable acres with cliffed-out runs and steep chutes. “We have backcountry without avalanche mitigation work and without ski patrol rescue,” Richmond says. “And we have inbounds avalanche terrain, where we spend considerable time and money trying to mitigate the avalanche hazard.” Bridger’s ridgeline, including that accessible by Schlasman’s Lift, is the latter.

In each type of terrain, managing risk is paramount, even where runs are controlled for avalanches, Richmond notes. “We warn that we can’t control nature, and that some avalanche hazards still exist in this inbounds terrain,” he says. At Bridger, patrollers manage that risk by also requiring skiers and riders to carry beacons, which are checked for before loading certain lifts, like Schlasman’s.

That management technique may not be as effective as it once was in deterring unprepared skiers from accessing riskier inbounds terrain, suggests Zach Berman, who teaches avalanche education for the Friends of Gallatin National Forest Avalanche Center and the American Avalanche Institute. “When they first started that plan 25 years ago, it was for skiers unprepared skiability wise,” Berman says. “And 25 years ago, not a lot of people had beacons. But nowadays, everybody and their mom has a beacon, so it’s not really dissuading people. So I think the whole dynamic has kind of changed.”

Instead, Berman advocates that skiers take more precaution. “If you have a beacon with you and nothing else, you’re pretty useless until someone else is to come along,” he notes. “If you’re going to carry a beacon at all, you should carry a beacon and shovel [and probe] with you.”

Berman suggests that the requirement of needing a beacon, but not a shovel or probe, can be misleading to OB novices. “For some people, that’s their first introduction into backcountry skiing, just because they have to carry a beacon,” he says. But even carrying some of the right gear isn’t enough—a backcountry mentality should be applied, too.

That approach, Berman says, includes being mindful of other skiers, and how your actions may impact their safety. “Everyone acts like they’re skiing at the resort [while in Schlasman’s terrain]; they’re skiing on top of each other, they’re skiing all at once,” he continues. “There’s no protocol, like in backcountry skiing, that you would need to be safe.”

While that may be the case, the resort is doing its part to prepare skiers and riders with the beacon requirement, as well as providing information on trail maps and signs about the proper approach to such terrain, although it may technically be inbounds. “We promote safe travel, never go alone, carry rescue gear and know how to use it,” Richmond says.

Berman is all for reinforcing those resort suggestions. “Bridger Bowl on their trail map will say ski with a partner, one at a time,” he says. “If the resort is taking the time to do that, it’d be worth practicing that policy, even if you see other people not doing it.”

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To get the January issue, visit the Backcountry Magazine store.