BEAVER CREEK — “Extreme Terrain” means any place within the ski area boundary that contains cliffs with a minimum 20-foot rise over a 15-foot run and slopes with a minimum 50-degree average pitch over a 100-foot run.
Huh?
Although the sign atop Beaver Creek’s “Stone Creek Chutes” is very specific, reading it doesn’t necessarily give skiers a clear picture of what an “Extreme,” or “EX” trail rating actually means.
Math types might equate skiing a run at that angle to jumping off a two-story building and landing 15 feet from the side of the structure.
But only those who have skied down the Stone Creek Chutes, or any other EX run, truly know what those numbers mean: it’s “Oh-Dear-Lord Steep.”
Although many think trail ratings exist for après-ski bragging rights or as a direct challenge to your skills, trail markers are in fact warning signs.
I’ve been one of those thrill- seekers, ignoring the warning signs for the rush and rugged good looks of a bad-boy ski run.
When I was growing up skiing in Colorado there weren’t any “EX” trails per se, just a few legendary double diamonds like “Mach 1” at Breckenridge or “Outhouse” at Mary Jane.
That doesn’t mean there weren’t signs that got the point across. Some resorts, like Aspen Mountain and Eldora, simply posted skulls and crossbones at the top of their trickiest terrain. In Europe they put triangles with a single bold exclamation mark to designate a cliff area. My all-time favorite has to be the warning sign atop Jackson Hole that begins: “Our Mountain is unlike any you’ve ever skied,” which then goes on to list the consequences of underestimating that mountain, “including death.”
I used to laugh at the threat of death, until one fateful day when I got caught between a rock and a hard place.
A couple of springs ago I was feeling pretty invincible after a day at Silverton, where I had skied steeps in trees that were so close together I had to suck in my stomach to make it between some of them.
But the feeling was quickly squelched by a resort trail named after the silliest member of the barnyard. It was on Telluride’s “Goat Path” that my future seemed to come down to one of two options: a) foot the bill and face the shame of getting airlifted out or b) miss the rest of my daughters’ birthdays.
The run started out well enough, fabulous even. We (it’s never advised to ski extreme terrain alone) were so excited about the snow on the top of Gold Hill Chutes that my husband and I skied right by the collection of warning signs at the gate. It was a thin snow season and I had gotten used to the collections of signs: “Unmarked Obstacles Exist,” “Caution: Thin Cover,” “This Run Only for Those Who Don’t Value Their Lives,” etc. But among this grouping of signs was a whiteboard that the Patrol had bothered to write a personalized note on. If they are going to put the time and effort into writing a note, I’m going to read it. “Egress to the ….”
Well, I would have read it if my ski partner hadn’t headed off without me and left me looking like I lacked the confidence to keep up. So it’s totally his fault I didn’t finish reading the sign. The sign that said (as I would find out later), “Egress to the right.”
We went left, onto a path that ended up the width of one (not two) ski across a field of rocks on top of one really big outcropping of rocks commonly known as a cliff.
Taking your skis off and trying to walk out of a tight spot is never a good idea because of the difficulty of clicking back in on a steep slope. Feeling trapped, I completely freaked out.
Be it tight trees, a drop-off or not enough snow coverage on the dicey bits, what I’ve come to realize is that the difficulty of a slope really comes down to how many options it gives the skier.
There are plenty of options on a wide-open green run with a slope gradient of less than 25 percent; slightly fewer on blue runs with grades of 25 to 40 percent and even fewer on narrow black runs with inclines exceeding 40 percent.
With a 50-plus gradient and more obstacles than run, you’ve got yourself an “EX” run.
In the end I made it down the thin white line of “Goat’s Path” by digging my ski edges into the cliff and swearing to be a better person if I got away in one piece.
I lived to take the chair up again and chat with a nice ski patroller about my experience.
To which he said, “Didn’t you read the sign?” I told him that I would from then on, and I have — even when I don’t really understand the math.
Chryss Cada is a freelance writer and a journalism instructor at Colorado State University. .
