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Show Y Page 8 Wednesday, March 1, 1978 SKI RENTAL & REPAIR ALL NEW EQUIPMENT PERSONALIZED SERVICE ONE BLOCK TO LIFTS PROFESSIONAL SKI TUNING & REPAIR SKI ACCESSORIES LOWEST PRICES IN TOWN $6.00 DAILY RENTAL $35.00 WEEKLY RENTAL SKI CONNECTION BAR 5c BEER HAPPY HOURONTHESUNDECK MADE TO ORDER SANDWICHES AND PIZZA HOMEMADE CHILI & COOKIES DRAFT BEER & SET UPS FAMILIES WELCOME LOCATED AT THE RESORT ENTRANCE 649-8430 COURTESY TRANSPORTATION call 649-8430 $7.50 DAILY HIGH PERFORMANCE DEMO SKIS V? PRICE OFF ON TOWN RACE DAYS At shop on Lower Level of Silver Mill House Resort Center No Fun With Rene The Marsac Elementary School "Fun with Rene Day" has been rescheduled from Friday, February 25 to Friday. March 3 due to a school closure during last month's blizzard. Activities scheduled for "Fun with Rene Day" include in-clude a gondola ride to the top of the mountain and a movie for non-skiers, races and lunch for all at the resort cafeteria. 5 health studio 1505 empire 649-7232 NEW ROS5K340Lv jjvQiy SM COMPETITION NOW AT THE ki V in if Old Park City in a New Subdivision Prospector "Park now for sale dheodore JZoosefek Plenty of room for whin-open living, with 1,576 square feet of relaxed, feet-ori-lhe-coffee-tnble spaciousness. Dining areu, kitchen, living one! family rooms, 3 bedrooms. 2M haths-pus a bonus room offering an additional 165 square feel, to ha finished any way you want. T. H. would hove heartily approved. flo ahead, live in the past with every modern amenity in 'he Theodore Roosevelt. 405 Main Street 649-9304 Kail "Estate Sale li Commercial, Condominiums, Residential, Lots PL with Crag Altsch You know those little things we call safety straps or leashes... the straps we hook on to our bindings and our boots? Right. ..those little things. They look innocent don't they? Don't you believe it. This is a warning. Those dumb little things can be hazardous to your health. And, besides all that, they are on the verge of causing a bit of controversy in our winter scene. Imagine that? Controversy in the world of skiing. In case you hadn't noticed (and, I confess I hadn't) competitors have abandoned straps for years, now. They figure, skiing at the speeds they're traveling, the last thing they want is a ski ready to whip them in the back of the head. Imagine that now immortal Olympic Downhill with Franz Klammer catching an edge on the worst turn. Had his ski released and were he wearing a leash, that would have been the end of Franz Klammer. Most of us who ski for fun can't claim the speed of an Olympic competitor. I, for example, can't claim the speed of an Olympic spectator. But, I have watched the results of leashes for several years. Go ahead... count the black and blue marks behind the legs where latches smash against skin. That's one reason why when Burt Bindings came on the market, I forgot about the pocket book and took the plunge. Burts, you see, require no leashes at all. Working on a cable system, they cannot come out once you are in them properly. A few weeks ago, Peggi and I were skiing at Killington in Vermont. It was the first of five ski days we had been looking forward to for several weeks. I was going to take the first run of the day with Peggi. You see, the day was young, so what was a few hours at that point. We waited in the liftline and, though it wasn't too bad for a mid-week line, it was long enough to be annoying to get to the chair and have the attendant at-tendant glance down at our bindings. "Are those Burts?" he asked. "Yes," I said, figuring he was going to ask us how we liked them. "Please step out of line," he said, politely, yet firmly. "Why?" I asked. Peggi had already moved over, relishing any excuse not to go up the mountain. I fought back, deciding to take on the lift attendant despite the fact he obviously was not making rules. "Look," he tried to explain. "No one is allowed on the lift without safety straps. A ski with a Burt on it fell on some guy the other day and we're not faking any chances." In suit-scared Vermont, that is understandable, understand-able, if frustrating. "How can they fall off if one is properly in them?" I asked. "It's impossible. Ask Burt. They can't come off." He had a solution and reached for some little pieces of twine. "Tie your skis on with these," he said. "You can take them off while skiing... you only have to wear them on the lift." "That doesn't make sense," I countered. "Those pieces of string couldn't hold them anyway.. .and why don't you care what happens if I should lose a ski going downhill, if you're so worried?" He wasn't interested in logic... and Peggi was convincing me to give in... to go back and buy straps or wear the strings or let her go back to the base lodge, drink coffee and ponder the situation. She enjoys pondering more than skiing, anyway. For those who do not care to purchase Burts, 11 there is a new crisis brewing up in mountainlands over a perfect solution... the ski brake. The ski brake reached the U.S. marketplace several years ago and is slowly increasing in popularity. Simply described, it is a spring loaded device that has two springs alongside your ski. When you release from the ski, the prongs snap up to dig it into the snow. Your ski is stopped stop-ped cold. And, while you might have to climb back up the hill a bit to get it... that's better, as they say, than a kick in the head. I recently returned from a week of skiing in Austria. Over there a safety strap is looked at with total disgust. Our instructor was amazed when he saw one in our group. "Very dangerous," he said in a manner that could not be misunderstood. Luis Shafflinger, late of Sugarbush and Great Gorge Ski Schools in the United States, is, in essence, director of skiing for Bad Gastein, a huge ski, sports and health complex in Austria. Over dinner one night he started in on the ski leash. "It ought to be outlawed everywhere," he said... pounding the table. Shafflinger pointed to the dangers of the leash.. .the windmilling...the black and blue marks... and how the use of leashes is a far worse potential problem than skis fallong off on the chairlift. The first of the ski writers in our country to take on the problem was Bob Wall of the Syracuse Herald-Journal. A supporter of the brakes, he has been skiing on them for two seasons now. He has been banned from several ski lifts because he was not wearing safety straps. Wall takes the stance... and I agree... that the ski areas have every right to ban the brakes and require straps (though we think their logic is impaired), im-paired), but they must start to warn skiers at the ticket windows of the requirement. Waiting until a skier has been through aiiftline (at today's ticket prices) is annoying at best and downright irritating at the least. Sure... some skiers abuse the situation and swing in their chairs and bang their skis together. The possibility of a ski coming off and falling into the snow does exist. But, hitting a downhill skier is a remote possibility while an accident with a windmilling ski in a high speed fall... steel edged skis cutting into human flesh... is far more likely. Incidentally, we'll bet that if a ski was going to come off, it would happen in the first few feet of the ride anyhow. Wall probably won't mind my mentioning our ride together up a high speed T-Bar on a steep portion of the Stubnerkogel in BadGastein. About half the way up, during a pleasant conversation about how fat we both felt after a huge plate of wienerschnitzel, chased with apple strudel, I looked down at the track and only saw three skis. One of Bob's was missing. Looking behind us we saw his ski, safely looking up at us in the snow. Not hurting anyone. Just sitting there. Yes. ..it was a struggle getting us to the top... a bit of a Marx Brothers comedy. But, it was not dangerous. A ski was not flapping, whipping us from behind attached to a stupid strap. At the top we waited as another skier snapped it out of the snow and easily brought it up to him. It's one thing for ski areas to run scared. For that we can't blame them; we don't have the liability hassle they have. But, banning the ski brake or Burt Bindings is a poor solution. Why does it take us so long to learn in our country.. coun-try.. .or, as they say on television. .."We deserve a brake today." Keep your SKI TIPS up. 6A f TTLfi (W. 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