Yea I think 20k is very excessive too but I think most of the fine should be placed on the company as well, like 60/40. Some of these trucking companies don't care about safety.
Vail Mayor proposes $20,000 fines for trucks without chains.
- Thread starter edyvw
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Yea I think 20k is very excessive too but I think most of the fine should be placed on the company as well, like 60/40. Some of these trucking companies don't care about safety.
I remember once I was visiting Wyoming in early June and saw some people carrying skis on the tram at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort to the top of Rendezvous Peak. Didn't seem like very promising skiing, but apparently they didn't need a lift ticket in summer if they were just willing to hike to and ski down whatever patches of snow they could find. Not sure if the Forest Service could bar off-season skiing like that like.
Went through my photos. I think this photo is of the trail to the top. Quite a few people were hiking it. The trail looked to be mostly free of snow, but of course the big thing was the altitude. But yeah there were enough snow here or there where I imagine there could be some barebones skiing. Maybe even just skiing down, walking, etc. where there is snow.
edyvw
$50 site donor 2025
Yeah, USFS won’t chase people who hike and ski. They do that all the time here once season is off. They hitchhike to upper point and ski down to the cars, or hike to some high points where the slopes are.
The reason for termination of ski season is just abundance of people and cars.
In CO, only A-Basin has unlimited ski season due to harsh environment which animals like elk don’t like, so USFS allows to go until snow is gone, which in 1995 was August. I skied there close to July. Plus, they don’t have hotels.
Driving is a privilege, not a constitutional right. $20k may be a bit excessive, but $500 is obviously not high enough.
No roads up to the top of the Tetons, that's for sure. On that trip I was taking a guided tour at Grand Teton National park led by a summer worker (but a student at Colorado State) at a nonprofit. Said that her boss at the nonprofit climbed up one of the glaciers (might have been Skillet Glacier on Mount Moran) and skied down it. Not sure what policies the National Park Service has on people doing that.
You mention cars, and it's crazy dangerous in winter in the Lake Tahoe area. Especially when the main highways like US-50 or I-80 are closed. Plus a lot of people just don't know how to drive in snow and/or ice.
Truckee, especially, feels the brunt of the impact. The ski town has one of the nation’s biggest arteries running through its middle. When Interstate 80 closes, the spillover traffic makes for excruciating travel times and pushes drivers to the brink. One emergency official said cars stuck in the gridlocked traffic on Friday were turning around, driving the wrong way up the highway on-ramps.
“When we get those conditions where it’s backed up onto the freeway, and the freeway’s backed up onto the surface streets, there are times when there’s just no way around,” McKechnie said.
After the storm cleared, Saturday morning dawned with hardly any wind and a foot of fresh snow at Tahoe ski resorts — ideal ski conditions to begin a new year. Being the first weekend of January, holiday blackout dates on season passes to ski resorts had just been lifted, so thousands of Epic and Ikon passholders were anxious to get to the mountains. By 7 a.m., Truckee was, once again, mired in traffic.
There's a never ending supply of people who will drive in winter without proper tires and or chains. Short of 100 % checking every vehicle and preventing the unfit from proceding, there will always be the ones who thought they could make it with what they have.
A few wise up but they are constantly replaced with new who are just as clueles.
A few wise up but they are constantly replaced with new who are just as clueles.
The issue in California is not checking to see if they go on, it's taking them off. I've been through there 3 times now where I drove miles on wet pavement before you were "allowed" to take them off. When I pressed a CHP officer on it, they said it was for speed control in case it got slick again on the way down. Not great for vehicles or the roads.
Oh yeah. Once I was going up CA-89 going from South Lake Tahoe to Truckee. I had my Subaru, but there was a chain checkpoint. The road was bone dry and not wet. Saw maybe one tiny patch of snow that even summer tires on a RWD car would have shrugged off. And I saw some tire cables that had been thrown off a car and were on the side of the road.
California has the R1/R2/R3 conditions. The only time I've ever seen R1 conditions was posted on a sign in Yosemite. I guess the National Park Service uses California chain conditions for their roads in state. And I've been checked - always by NPS law enforcement. However, they had R1 conditions once on Glacier Point Road to Badger Pass, but I didn't see any chain checkpoint.
Trucking lobby should fight that tooth and nail. That is unreasonable fine. Drop a a zero .
