A group of snowboarders campaigning to be allowed to snowboard at one of the three ski areas in North America that still ban them, saying that doing so helps perpetuate an inaccurate stereotype and is divisive, have lost their case.
The group were suing Alta ski resort, which along with another Utah resort Deer Valley and Mad River Glen, still bans snowboarders from it slopes, while allowing other sliding devices besides skis, such as monoskis, according to the snowboarders.
The judge in the case decided Alta’s ban was on equipment not a type of person and said that in his opinion it therefore had no legal merit.
Alta, was backed by the US National Forest Service which it leases the public land from, and argued that boarders have, in their opinion, a potential dangerous blind spot in their vision as they descend the slopes, and also said that that some of its slopes are too steep for snowboarding.
The snowboarders say that the ban encourages “hostile and divisive skier-versus-snowboarder attitudes,” their lawyers pointed out that boarders and skiers co-exist without major problems at thousands of ski areas worldwide.
“This case is not about snowboards. Nor is it about skis. Indeed, it has little to do with equipment at all. At its heart, this case is about Alta and the government arbitrarily classifying groups of people based on animus and other stereotypes and excluding those considered undesirable from benefits freely enjoyed by all others without giving any rational justification,” said the boarders’ lawyers before the ruling, they are now considering an appeal.