How To Avoid Annoying Stops By Mountain Safety Nazis

In this blog: How to avoid run-ins with those annoying mountain safety guys that stop you for supposedly going too fast.

So you’re snowboarding along, riding down the side of a run and some random guy standing by a ‘slow’ sign flags you down for being unsafe and possibly even gives you a warning on your pass for speeding in the slow zone.

Congrats, you’ve just had your first run-in with the local mountain safety team.

If this sounds familiar, you’re like every snowboarder who has gone through this experience and thought, “I wasn’t even riding fast, I was in control, and I was sticking to the side of the run. What was unsafe about that?”

This happens all the time and unfortunately there’s not much you can do if you run into an unreasonable mountain safety guy.

While I’ve met the occasional nice mountain safety person, there’s definitely a decent amount of mountain safety who are unreasonable idiots that will yell at you for no reason, take your pass away and think that anything over crawling speed is unsafe.

So here are a couple tips to both avoid mountain safety and keep your pass if you do run into them.

1) Know their work times

Mountain safety crews like to hang out on beginner runs and choke points and they’ll always turns up at the same times every day.

At some point you usually have to pass through these runs to ride to the base of the mountain, so the key here is to avoid riding through these areas during peak times when the mountain safety crew are working.

What are the times to avoid?

The most common time for them to show up is at the end of the day when everyone is coming down the mountain. This is usually during the last 30-60 minutes that the lifts are running.

The simple solution to this is to wait until after the lifts shut. What I’ve always done is take one of the last chairlifts up and chill at the top of the lift for 15 minutes. This means by the time I ride past the slow choke points the mountain safety crew has already packed up and gone home.

2) Avoid confrontation

If you happen to run into one of them and they signal you to slow down, then just do it. Throw the brakes on and give them a wave to let them know you saw them.

I know that you probably aren’t even riding fast and that it’s annoying, but you want to avoid having to talk to any of them. Don’t give them a reason to chase after you and talk to you because you may find them even more unreasonable.

If you do get into the worst case scenario where you end up having to talk to them, be as courteous and respectful as you can, even if they don’t deserve it.

Don’t try to argue that you weren’t going that fast, just apologize for whatever they’re saying you did and listen to them, even if the person talking to you is a complete moron.

The golden rule:

Don’t screw with someone who can get your lift pass banned, even if they’re on a crazy power trip.

If you get into the absolute worst case scenario where you get your pass taken away, find out the name of a supervisor or someone in charge and try to work out a solution. Never get into a heated debate or argument because that just causes even more problems for you.

I know it sucks and mountain safety can be a pain, but you never want to make things worse than they need to be.

So the bottom line is this: Avoid mountain safety if at all possible and if you run into them, do everything you can to co-operate (even if they’re the ones being obnoxious and rude).

- Jed

"How To Pick The Perfect Snowboard Setup"

"Grab Snomie.com's Free Snowboard Gear Guide" 25 pages of free tips including how to pick snowboards, bindings, goggles, boots and much more!