In a three-part video series shared last week on Instagram, Utah skier James Dickson captured an uncommon sight: a snowboarder who, unfortunately, didn’t realize he wasn’t allowed to ride at Alta Ski Area.
While it’s tough to say what exactly happened here, Dickson’s assessment—that the boarder bought a lift ticket assuming he could hop on the lift like, y’know, pretty much everywhere else—is probably correct.
What a heartbreaker. You get the gear loaded. You drive to the hill, stoke levels rising higher and higher, before the grand reveal: “Sorry, man. You gotta go ride somewhere else.” Hopefully, he was refunded by the resort after his misstep.
The silver lining is that Snowbird, which allows snowboarders, is right next to Alta, so this forlorn snowboarder had a nearby riding option.
Alta is one of a few ski areas in the U.S. that still doesn’t allow snowboarders, carrying over a policy from a different era when single plankers were considered dangerous rabble-rousers.
While a group of snowboarders attempted to overturn Alta’s policy by filing a lawsuit , a federal appeals court took the resort’s side, upholding the ban.