Snowboarder Jeff Shaffroth, 19, rides the c-box, one of several rails at the Echo Mountain Snowboard and Ski Park, designed for freestyle use near Evergreen. The park requires all day-skiers to sign a waiver.

Rich Mercandetti has broken his back and plenty of other bones in 15 years of riding a snowboard at Colorado resorts and terrain parks.

"It was always my fault," said Mercandetti, 25. "It never had anything to do with resort negligence. I know it's my responsibility to ride within my limits."

That's why the Colorado Springs resident said he had no qualms about ceding his right to sue should he suffer an injury at Echo Mountain Snowboard and Ski Park, the all-terrain-park ski area southwest of Evergreen that opened this month.

"Snowboarding is what I love," Mercandetti said. "If I have to sign a waiver to do it, I will."

Echo Mountain requires all day-skiers to do so, raising concerns from at least one critic that such waivers are eroding skiers' rights and allowing resort operators to circumvent their responsibilities.

"It's an unethical attempt to chill the rights of consumers," said Denver attorney Jim Chalat, who specializes in ski-injury cases. "My concern ... is that people will have an accident and think they are absolutely at the mercy of the ski-area operator, even if that operator was negligent."

Industry spokesmen describe the waivers as another sign of our litigious times.

Skiers at Silverton Mountain are already required to sign liability waivers, as do those who visit Winter Park ski area's "Dark Territory" expert terrain park. For several decades, buyers of resort season passes have been required to sign contracts that eliminate their right to sue.

Those waivers go one step beyond the protection provided to ski-area operators in Colorado's Ski Safety Act. The 1979 legislation limited the liability of operators and outlined the responsibility of both skier and operator.

So why the extra layer of protection?

"We are a very different area, all freestyle," said Echo Mountain's general manager, Doug Donovan. "We did not want a situation where someone came here and skied down and hit a rail, and then came back to us wondering why a rail was on the middle of a run.

"The waiver sends a message and gets people to acknowledge they heard the message," he said.

At Silverton Mountain, owner Aaron Brill said he needs the waiver to warn skiers of the super-steep terrain, the risk of riding in the area's shuttle vans and the potential avalanche danger at his southern Colorado ski area.