Word: skiers
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...frosty morning in early 1974, a novice skier named James Sunday, 20, was working his way through a slow snowplow turn near the intersection of Drifter and Interstate trails on Vermont's Stratton Mountain. One of his ski tips hooked on a bit of snow-covered underbrush, and Sunday fell. He broke his neck and was permanently paralyzed from the shoulders down. He brought suit, and last year a Burlington, Vt., jury found the Stratton Mountain Corp. fully liable for the accident. It awarded Sunday $1.5 million in damages...
Sunday case, Vermont Superior Judge Wynn Underwood, himself an avid skier, refused to allow immediate dismissal "simply because there are some inherent risks in the sport." Ironically, Underwood cited vastly improved maintenance and patrol operations at major ski areas as one reason operators might be held to blame. On such well-groomed slopes, the judge suggested, skiers no longer expect to encounter boulders or stumps and thus can no longer be responsible for assuming that high risks exist in the natural course of things...
Alarmists are raising the specter of $25-to $35-a-day lift tickets. Ski operators, though, have spotted what looks like an easier fix: the passage of special state laws specifying responsibility for accidents. New Hampshire, New Mexico, Washington and Maine already have legislation making the skier responsible for any downhill (as opposed to ski-lift) accidents. This week the Vermont legislature will consider a bill requiring ski operators only to maintain lifts properly and mark all trails and such foreseeable hazards as snowmaking hydrants. If it passes, schussers who come to grief will be on their...
They'll never top first stunt: skier hurtles off precipice. Long breathtaking plunge. Shucks off skis in midair, free-falls for a while, then opens parachute and floats earthward...
Senior Editor Ronald Kriss, who helped coordinate the section, was converted to summer fun. "I'm a skier, I've had poison ivy for seven consecutive summers, and I hate the heat, so I've al ways looked on summer as a nuisance," he says. "But after reading about the joys of summer as detailed by our correspondents, writers and photographers, maybe I'll give it a try this year...