Ski Safety Blog

This season, visitors to Vail Resorts ski areas can track how many days and runs they have enjoyed at the ski area, using technology embedded on lift tickets and passes. Radio-frequency scanners on every lift at Breckenridge, Beaver Creek, Keystone and Vail resorts in Colorado and at Heavenly in California will communicate with chips embedded on passes and tickets to automatically track guests' runs.

Riders can check their progress online or on the mobile EpicMix application, for free. They can opt in to share the data on their Facebook and Twitter updates. EpicMix also would let customers know when their Facebook friends are skiing. Vail Resorts says no one sees the data unless customers opt in. Riders also can disable the radio-frequency chip.

Not to be left behind in the innovation game, The Canyons ski area is spending millions of dollars to reconfigure the mountain and add North America's first heated chairlift with a bubble shield that swings over passengers like a pair of orange goggles. Ultimately, the Canyons and other resorts in Park City hope to steal market share from Colorado, which draws three times as much skier traffic. Utah's resorts, have been waging an aggressive campaign to woo destination skiers for a decade now, with advantages such as double Colorado's snowfall and a short drive from Salt Lake City's airport.

The rivalry has not just been in marketing and innovation - The Canyons is owned by Toronto-based Talisker Corp., a closely held resort operator. When Talisker bought the Canyons two years ago for $123 million, Colorado rival Vail Resorts Inc. filed a lawsuit claiming it had a deal to buy the resort from now-defunct American Skiing Co. but lost.

Posted by Linda Chalat at 10:17 AM | Permalink

Two significant ski safety bills have passed the California legislature and await the governor's signature. One measure by Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, mirrors bicycle helmet laws already in place in California. The bill requires all children under age 18 to wear helmets while skiing and snowboarding. It would impose a $25 fine on parents if minors are caught skiing or snowboarding without a helmet.

SB880 passed the Assembly last week 42-20, and was approved by the Senate 22-11 on Wednesday. The bill's supporters acknowledged that law enforcement probably won't enforce the rule, if passed, at private resorts. They said, however, that the bill requires ski resorts to post signs warning of the law.

The second bill, AB1652, was also was approved by lawmakers this week. It now requires ski resorts to develop and publish safety plans, and submit reports to state safety officials only when a fatal accident occurs. The ski industry had fought a an earlier version of the bill that would have required ski resorts to publish reports on how many people are injured or killed on the slopes, increase safety measures, and force minors and employees to wear helmets.
California has 32 largely unregulated ski resorts, including Heavenly Mountain Resort, Kirkwood Mountain Resort and Sierra-at-Tahoe. Data regarding injuries or fatalities occurring at ski resorts is only aggregated nationally by the ski industry associations; therefore, consumers are unable to get information about the overall death and injury statistics or the relative safety performance of individual ski resorts.

Numerous recent studies have found that traumatic brain injuries are the leading cause of injury-related deaths among skiers and snowboarders, and children in particular are at higher risk. A 2008 study conducted by University of Washington professor Peter Cummings concluded that the use of helmets could reduce the risk of serious injury in up to 60 percent of all accidents. Additionally, skiers and snowboarders who crashed or fell had a 15 percent reduction in the risk of any head injury if they were wearing a helmet. The Federal Consumer Products Safety Commission has found that more than 7,000 head injuries per year on the slopes in the U.S. could be prevented or reduced in severity by the use of a helmet. The CPSC study also showed that "for children under 15 years of age, 53 percent of head injuries would be prevented or significantly reduced in severity by use of a helmet.

To become state law, the governor must sign the bills by September 30th.

Posted by Linda Chalat at 11:47 AM | Permalink

SKI REX is not just a pre-season mega sale of ski and snowboard equioment. For the third consecutive year, the Colorado Ski & Golf and Boulder Ski Deals stores are offering ski and snowboard recycling on-site. Beginning Sept. 4 at the five SKI REX locations, skiers and riders can bring their unwanted skis, snowboards, cross-country skis, boots, poles and bindings to any of the SKI REX locations.

Equipment in good condition will be donated to charitable domestic programs. Equipment that is no longer safe or usable by these programs is transported to a facility south of Denver and shredded for use in a variety of new products including composite decking, flooring, furniture, etc. A nominal fee will automatically be added to the purchase of new adult skis, snowboards, and boots and all proceeds will be donated to Snowsports Industries America (SIA) to support their national Ski Recycling Program.

SKI REX hours are Saturday, Sept. 4 from 9am to 6pm and Sunday, Sept. 5 from 10am to 5pm. The final "tent" day is Monday, Sept. 6 from 10am until 5pm but the same deep discounts are available until Sunday, Sept. 19 at the following Colorado Ski & Golf locations:

• 2650 S. Havana, Aurora
• 7715 Wadsworth, Arvada
• 8100 W. Crestline, Littleton
• 2454 Montebello Square Drive (corner of Montebello & Academy), Colorado Springs
• Boulder Ski Deals - 2525 Arapahoe Avenue, Boulder

Posted by Linda Chalat at 9:58 AM | Permalink

A prominent former Australian television and newspaper reporter was killed Sunday when he collided with a tree while skiing at Perisher. Michael Meagher, 55, of Sydney, was skiing in the Guthega area of Perisher Ski Area when he took a shortcut through the trees off the Wombat's Lament ski run, an intermediate trail, at around 10 a.m. Sunday morning when he collided with a tree, according to those who witnessed the incident. He was not wearing a helmet.

Perisher Ski Patrol, NSW Ambulance and Perisher Medical Centre staff promptly attended to the scene, where Meagher was pronounced dead of massive head injuries.
Meagher was a senior member of corporate communications firm CPR, and was previously employed as a journalist with The Australian, The Bulletin and on television at the Nine Network. He had a senior role in media and communications with the Australian Olympic Commission during the 2000 Olympic Summer Games in Sydney, and also served as an associate editor at BRW Magazine.

Posted by Linda Chalat at 5:02 PM | Permalink

The toll continues to climb for Mt Hutt visitors. An 80 year old died as he was preparing to run a race slope:. This brings the number of deaths this season up to six

June 13 - Queenstown mum Janine Learmonth, 32, suffers a serious neck injury after being trapped by a chairlift safety bar at Coronet Peak

June 14 - Arthur Richardson, 60, from Christchurch, dies after his car veers off the access road at Mt Hutt and down a cliff when driving home from the mountain

June 23 - A 21-year-old female American student dies in hospital in Christchurch days after seriously injuring herself while skiing off-trail at Mt Hutt

July 12 - Christchurch woman Dimity Anne Tomkins, 54, dies after falling while skiing outside the boundary of the Mt Hutt skifield

August 6 - Snowboarder Nello Donaggio, 30, dies after sliding 100 metres at Mt Hutt and suffering multiple fractures and a major head injury

August 10 - An 80-year-old Japanese man dies at hospital in Dunedin after seriously injuring himself in a fall while skiing at Coronet Peak

Posted by Linda Chalat at 4:54 PM | Permalink

Another skier has died from injuries after falling about 300 meters at Mount Hutt Ski Area last week, the third skiing fatality on the mountain this season. The snowboarder, about 30 years old, was with two friends when he slid while traversing back from groomed terrain to the bottom of the Triple chairlift, a ski area spokesman reported. He appeared to have caught an edge while traversing the area. He was not wearing a helmet at the time of the incident, and suffered head injuries.

Mountt Hutt has the largest skiable area in the South Island of New Zealand (3.65 square kilometers), and a vertical height of 683 meters. It attracts a wide range of abilities, with a "magic carpet" lift for beginners, good intermediate and advanced runs, and access to large off-piste areas. The most advanced runs on the mountain are through the rock formations at the top of the field known as "The Towers", and the South Face.

The snow season is from June to October. Mount Hutt prides itself on and historically has been the first ski area, or ski-field as it is revered to in New Zealand, to open at the beginning of each season in the Southern Hemisphere.

Prior to this season, the resort had no fatalities since 2005. But it has been a deadly year for the ski area. In July, a 54 year-old woman died while skiing with her daughter outside the skifield boundary. A month earlier, a 21-year-old American woman died after injuring herself while skiing, also off-trail. And in June, a 60 year-old man died after his car veered off the access road as he was driving home from a day at the mountain.

Posted by Linda Chalat at 1:30 PM | Permalink

Last Friday morning in Pakistan, Swedish mountaineer and professional skier Fredrik "Frippe" Ericsson fell to his death while attempting to summit K2, the world's second tallest peak. Ericsson, age 35, was attempting to become the first man to ski from the summit to base camp. Ericsson was climbing above camp four (8000 meters, the final push before the summit), near the crux of the climb called the Bottleneck, when he slipped and fell over 3,000 feet.

K2, the world's second highest mountain at 28,253-foot, was part of Ericsson's larger goal to ski the world's three tallest peaks, Everest, K2, and Kangchenjunga. K2 was the first of the three, and this was his second attempt at skiing down the mountain. During his first ski attempt last June, he lost his climbing partner Michele Fait to the "savage mountain."

Reports state that Ericsson had been acclimatizing on Pakistan's K2 for weeks, and had been waiting for a new weather window to make his second summit attempt of the trip. The Austrian news agency APA reports that Ericsson was climbing with female climber Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner when he slipped and fell over 3,000 feet off a steep cliff. Kaltenbrunner, who is trying to become the first woman to climb all fourteen of the world's 8,000-meter peaks without oxygen, immediately retreated down the mountain to safety.

Posted by Linda Chalat at 1:32 PM | Permalink

While an aching head may seem an obvious indicator of harm, athletes don't always recognize the severity of injury, or become concerned too late. If a helmet could indicate the severity of a blow suffered by the wearer, then questions of when to seek medical attention may be eliminated.

And such a helmet is being developed for skiers. The helmet contains seven accelerometers - sensors that measure changes in velocity - that continuously monitor the forces experienced by the head. For example, if a skier were to take a tumble, the sensors in the helmet would keep a record of the forces exerted on the head as a result of the body's de-acceleration during the fall.

A sporting goods manufacturer, Riddell, currently sells a similar type of football helmet, which measures impact data and sends this information wirelessly to the sidelines where computers are being monitored by coaching and medical staff. Riddell's helmet sells for $1,030.99.

A helmet often prevents an injury, but in the case that it did not, a 'smart' ski helmet would alert the skier to the severity of the fall. The ski accident that led to the death of actress Natasha Richardson last year is an obvious example of the benefit of such a helmet.

At this point, the ski helmet is a lab tool and not a consumer product. The helmet will aid in work to study traumatic brain injury - the kind that doesn't cause obvious brain tissue damage - within the first 24 hours of impact. The hope is to understand what is happening at the microscopic level in order to prevent potential brain damage.

Posted by Linda Chalat at 3:02 PM | Permalink

Freestyle athletes can hit the slopes in Colorado even in the summertime, thanks to Copper Mountain. The ski area has brought Colorado onto the summer training scene with Woodward, an indoor/outdoor ski-and-snowboard training center.

The jumps and rails of the resort's Catalyst Terrain Park are covered with snow and with athletes, even though wildflowers are blooming just a few steps away. The indoor facility is also busy with dozens of skiers and riders of all levels, from beginner to pro. And that's grabbing global attention from the current and future leaders of the sport.

Now in its second year, Woodward is expected to serve a total of 450 campers this summer -- triple the number that used the facility during the 2009 summer camps. Since its opening in February 2009, almost 10,000 people have developed their skills at Woodward for a total of about 25,000 sessions. The average age of a Woodward guest is 15, but the training center has hosted guests from 8 to 53.

Woodward at Copper is an off-shoot of the original Camp Woodward, located in Pennsylvania, it is a state-of-the-art training center known worldwide in gymnastics circles. Top-level snowboarders have been taking advantage of Camp Woodward's foam pits, tumbling strips, spotting belts and trampolines for years. With the opening of the Copper location, athletes can now train in the gym and on the slopes in one location.

The 35-foot-tall indoor jump replicates the largest jump in Catalyst Terrain Park. But instead of landing on snow, athletes gently plop down into a pit of thousands of bright blue foam cubes. Launching tricks into the pits and on trampolines before taking them to snow gives athletes a head start on critical aerial awareness and timing. This changes the learning process from "the huck-and-hope method" to a safe progression that begins with fundamentals and builds from there.

Posted by Linda Chalat at 2:20 PM | Permalink