Snowboarding Advice: ‘Skip the Sensational’

I’d like to make a suggestion to staff writer Bob Sipchen and the Los Angeles Times’ editorial staff: The next time you wish to publicize the growing new sport of snowboarding (“The Wild Bunch,” Feb. 2), skip the sensational editorial dramatics in the opening paragraphs. Does Sipchen really believe that equally shocking stories about reckless skiers could not be recited by any ski area employee? Instructor Frank Kilduff, who tells the story, is even quoted later as saying that he believes there are more reckless skiers than snowboarders.

I don’t understand why an article that proceeds to detail the popularity and growing acceptance of the sport is prefaced with a shocking and unrepresentative scenario in which “Lucifer’s fallen henchmen,” deafened by “hyper-manic heavy-metal music,” use “wobbly little children as slalom poles.”

The vast majority of ski area operators have been completely satisfied with their decision to allow snowboarding at their resorts, and the new sport has thus far posed no threat whatsoever to skiers.

SCOTT WELDON, Mammoth Lakes