Its not about surveillance, its about the consequences of behavior that is a danger to others. How often does a ski patroller pull a pass when the person in question is out of control and/or has hit someone?
I've stopped people and spoken to them face to face, but in truth, I haven't ever pulled a ticket in 6 years of Patrolling.
Now, where I work, I have to say, reckless skiers on crowded greens isn't a very big problem. Our patrol is pretty large for a small area and we all ski around a lot (we don't stand posts or just wait in the shack to be called to a wreck) so we have a good presence.
We just don't get the Joey-Bada-
**** that crowd the slopes of Jiminy, Huntah, Mountain Creek (the most dangerous ski area in the world on a saturday!) and the bigger VT resorts on a weekend.
On the other hand, I have tried skiing with lower skilled friends, and my kids on busy weekends at major Vermont resorts--and that's a nightmare (and a blood bath, quite honestly)--Patrol is almost non-existant, in terms of presence, on these hills--If I worked there, I would pull a few passes a day (however, since these areas thrive on catering to the reckless adolescent children of well-healed gapers from Fairfield County and Westchester, I bet I'd have to give a bunch of those passes back with management breathing down my neck).
I once was involved in a very violent altercation at Mount Snow after my 4 year old was knocked out his skis by a 30 year old boarder (I'm older and mellower now however...).
Escaping these people at big resorts was the main impetus behind my drive to become an expert skier...Fat skis or not, only the skilled skiers can hang in the trees and steep bumps, the same skier that is a train wreck on the greens, ain't even a speed bump on Devil's Fiddle (which is why they terrorize the greens and blues in the first place).
I bet you Mad River Glen never has these problems.
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