The slopes at Keystone got contentious last week. Photo: Rich Martello//Unsplash
If you shred hard enough, someone’s bound to have a problem with it. A right-of-way dispute between a skier and a snowboarder at Colorado’s Keystone Resort turned contentious last week, ending in violence and a court summons.
According to a post by the Summit County Sheriff’s Office, the altercation began when a skier at Keystone thought that a snowboarder downhill from her was turning too wide, which she claimed nearly caused several collisions, including with her. She flagged down the snowboarder to express that opinion (the report leaves the exact format of that expression up to the imagination, though it’s not hard to make a guess), to which he replied that he had the right-of-way and rode off.
According to the National Ski Areas Association, the snowboarder was right – people ahead or downhill of you have the right-of-way and it is the uphill skier’s responsibility to avoid them. However, the woman and her husband apparently were still not satisfied with the snowboarder’s answer, because they then proceeded to pursue the man downhill, skiing very close to him in the process. The whole thing ended with the snowboarder and the husband on the ground “in a short scuffle before separating.”
Neither party was injured, and now both of them have a summons to court for disorderly conduct to show for it.
