I mostly use a leash to put dents in the top of my car when I forget to clip the loose end to the binding.

SO TRUE! I still don’t understand what their *real* purpose is.. I think it’s a racket.
–adam

It’s interesting that Southern Ontario is so strict about enforcing the leash rule, but this is also the only place I’ve ever actually seen run-away snowboards.
Back in January, I was at Blue Mountain, and during one evening of snowboarding, we watched 3 snowboards go flying down the hill…. usually with people running after them. (They didn’t catch up. Surprise…)
Earlier this month I was at Holiday Valley in Ellicottville and they enforced it there too – they pulled my friend out of the lift line and made her put on a leash. She improvised with a spare boot lace, and that was good enough.
I guess they’re around because some people simply can’t keep their feet strapped into their board? It still blows my mind though, because you always have one foot strapped in, and if, for some reason (like temporary insanity), you take off your board at the top of the hill, put it upside down or off to the side. It’s not rocket science….

You’re right, not rocket science at all! But your comments got me thinking about a couple of things:
* Kissing Bridge, out near Holiday Valley, was also leash-obsessed.
* Re: your point that you saw three runaway boards in Southern Ontario: I went to Blue Mountain three or four times this year, and every time I was shocked at the number of people that had a really rough time with the “little things” – namely getting on and off ski lifts, riding/skiing in gigantic ‘S’ turns, etc. So I wonder if the “beginner factor” has something to do with it. Based on my experiences, I seemed to encounter waaaay more beginners at places like Blue than Whistler or Jay Peak. Maybe it’s just that because of the small size of hills in Southern Ontario, beginners have to mix with more advanced folks…
–adam

Why don’t skiiers need leashes? there equipment is set up to come off! the only way to get out of a snowboard is to take it off… in which case you took off the leash as well and now your board is at the bottom of the hill.
I’m pretty sure this is a beginner thing, and i think it’s a hold over from a time when skiiers and the ski hills were not so keen on snowboarders, so it’s a bull shit rule made up by people who never understood the equipment, and it has simply never changed. but big resorts, with management that understands boarding and the gear, realize it’s bull shit and don’t bother to enforce it… I can’t remember when the last time I used a leash, in Europe or in the US.

Hahaha that’s true. Skier ‘yard sales’ can be as brutal and dangerhouse.

I made my own leash, and have yet to actually have needed to put it on. Places just do not check (at least the ones I have been to) because the only way a board will just come off the foot is if someone really messes something up with their bindings. And frankly the more foreseeable issue would be the binding becoming dislodged, but a leash does nothing for that, and even still, for that to happen someone would really have to try to make it happen.

to answer your ski question,
skis are equipped with automatic break systems that kick in once your boots com off so your skis won’t go flying,

whereas the snowboard doesn’t have a break system: hence the leash. It makes sure that if your boot is not in your bindings, your board won’t run away

also, resorts in ontario are just trying to minimize lawsuits for injuries resulting from runaway boards

and no, bindings just don’t come loose from your board, the issue is people taking off their bindings and forgetting to flip their board

Leashes are for “run away” boards. Basically it’s to ensure that should you walk up the mountain (mostly in terrain parks) you don’t somehow drop your board causing a run away that could hurt your board or another person. Another common place is on a half pipe. They can have value should you be in a terrain park that doesn’t have lift access and is all walk. If you slipped and dropped your board or accidently knocked it forward while you were getting in, it could result in your board ending up in the rocks and be all battered up. Where I ride once I strap in I hardly ever have both feet out so to me they’re useless but they do have an underlying purpose.