You've missed the catch-22. If there's room for a wide berth, then
startling people is not an issue; a "hello" while passing suffices.
Being in the Sierra, Skinnyski is often on those two-lane summer roads
or huge mountain parks with room to cut wide trails out of beautiful
forests to give him wide berth. The wide Birkie trail
notwithstanding, most of the U.S. is on relatively or absolutely narrow
trails.

GG

wrote:

I may not have been clear in what I posted yesterday -- I completely
agree with sknyski, especially what he wrote below. Note the phrases
"wide berth", "go around" and "on occassion hello." Those things are
what *real* etiquette is about.

JFT

sknyski wrote:
This is retarded. Do you honk each time
you pass a car on the freeway?
Trails are usually more than wide enough
to accompany two skiers (a
fast one and yourself) without the faster
one having to call out a
warning each time. Not to sound like a
complete asshole (it's hard,
trust me), but if I'm skiing at a place like
Royal Gorge I'd go hoarse
by the end of the day calling out a warning
each time I went past
someone. I just give people a wide berth,
go around (instead of
yelling track and expecting them to move),
and on occasion saying
hello.