realskiers

I agree that extreme skiing is dangerous and that it may be somewhat akin to mountain climbing. Having said that Ed Viesturs I think says it best when he says that "getting to the top is optional, getting down is mandatory!" Clearly not enough adrenaline junkies think this way. Jamie Pierre said after his 255 ft huck that he had been eyeing that huck for years and finally on that day he thought he had a reasonable chance of surviving! Now that mindset says it all. I generally feel some amount of anger when I hear friends and family say "well he died doing what he loved" especially when there are young chlidern at home that are now fatherless! 

If you need to ski in situations daily where you know you are putting your life at risk, then you as an individual have to ask the questiion, "what's wrong with my life!!" If you can't get fulfillment from looking at your childern, from simply skiing down the mountain on a gorgeous day, from a great bike ride or a movie wth your mate, something is wrong!!

I am not sure it is the ski industry that promotes the go for broke attitude. But it has become a clutural phenomenon within the extreme skiing community and it is pervasive and in general it promotes more of what we have seen from CRJ, Shane and Jamie.

Well said, John.  Couldn't agree more.

Guys, thanks for the passionate replies, but I am going to stick to my assertion that industry pressure and all the money involved is a big factor that you just can't ignore.  Sure, there are personal factors involved that are complicated, and speak to the psychology of risk taking, etc..  I'm not saying that these aren't an important part of this issue -- they certainly are, and can't be discounted -- but that's a whole other discussion.

I am going to venture a guess that the proportion of deaths of pro extreme skiers vs. amateurs (guys who do this just for an adrenaline high, but aren't looking for sponsorship or other money) is very skewed to the former.  I don't have the stats to back it up, and perhaps we just don't hear about all the amateurs who die jumping off cliffs, etc..  But of all the thousands of recreational/amateur backcountry and big mountain skiers, I'd bet that the number of deaths per hundred skiers is significantly higher for the pros.  Take out the factors of money, the hero culture of that group, and I'd bet that would be a leveler.  If I'm wrong, then amateur skier deaths would be in the hundreds per year -- so why don't they make the news? I would say simply because they aren't happening.  In other words, the pros are dying at a higher rate than the amateurs.  Why? Because of the money factor.

Let's face it, they are called Pro for a reason -- that is their profession; they make money doing it.  And yes, they ski in their free time just for fun.  Of course they do, they love the sport.  So do Miller and Vonn and Ligety, I'm sure.  But they also ski a lot to train.  In this respect they are just like any other pro athlete, they have to train for years for the big jump when the cameras are on them.  And to do that, they ski when no one is watching, and they take risks doing it. 

And I will repeat, I just can't think of another high-risk Pro sport that has this high a death rate -- not motorsports, not WC skiing, or anything else that comes to mind. 

I guess there is the old chicken and egg question too -- which came first? Did the money follow the extreme skiers? Or did the extreme skiers follow the money? At the beginning, it was probably the former, but later, I'm guessing it was the latter.

Liam -- I'm not being a hand-wringer or an old nanny.  And I'm not suggesting any sort of regulation or industry clamp-down.  Just stating a point, cynical as it may be.  The ski industry has to accept that they are in part responsible for this behavior, just as the skiers themselves are for perpetuating it and being willing participants.  I think it's naive to assume that a guy would willing jump off a 250 foot cliff, uncertain of survival or spending the rest of his days in a wheelchair, if there wasn't a big carrot at the end of that stick.