Ski Safety Blog

The final few weeks of a season that has covered Loveland Ski Area with 547 inches of snow, Loveland is offering discount lift tickets to anyone with a 2010-2011 season pass from another ski area. The discounted rate is $30, which is $16 off the ticket window rate.

The ski area is on pace for its second best snow season in its 73-year history, spokesman John Sellers said, adding that there's more snow in the forecast for this week. It currently has a 117-inch mid-mountain base and 100 percent of the area's terrain remains open. Loveland closes on May 8.

And Arapahoe Basin Ski Patrol reported a 100-inch base Tuesday morning just in time for the annual Locals' Day party.
It's the deepest the base has been all season. It's also the deepest it's been since 2003. To celebrate, the Basin and KSMT The Mountain are throwing a Locals' Day party today. It includes a free air and style competition in the Treeline Terrain Park with cash prizes.

The ski area is on pace for its second best snow season in its 73-year history, spokesman John Sellers said, adding that there's more snow in the forecast for this week. It currently has a 117-inch mid-mountain base and 100 percent of the area's terrain remains open. Loveland closes on May 8.

And Arapahoe Basin Ski Patrol reported a 100-inch base Tuesday morning just in time for the annual Locals' Day party.
It's the deepest the base has been all season. It's also the deepest it's been since 2003. To celebrate, the Basin and KSMT The Mountain are throwing a Locals' Day party today. It includes a free air and style competition in the Treeline Terrain Park with cash prizes.

Posted by Linda Chalat at 5:38 PM | Permalink

The season isn't quite over yet, Loveland plans to close May 8th and Arapahoe Basin plans to close June 5th. So
Colorado Ski Country isn't releasing final skier visit numbers until after that, but the industry group has said visits at its 22 member resorts this season were up 3.4 percent through February compared with the same period a year ago. It said subzero temperatures over New Year's weekend and highway closures likely held visits down, while good snow around the U.S. and Europe might have kept skiers home instead of heading to Colorado. Breckenridge, Vail, Beaver Creek and Keystone don't belong to the group and will release their season figures later.

Posted by Linda Chalat at 5:42 PM | Permalink

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has fined Wolf Creek Ski Area $17,000, alleging "serious" workplace violations following an investigation into the death of the area's ski patrol director in an avalanche in November.

After several months of investigation into the death of longtime patrol director Scott Kay, the administration found three alleged violations. The administration fined the area $7,000 for the lack of specific training and protocols for avalanche-control work as well as a violation of state law that required Kay to work with another employee when using explosives to mitigate avalanches. Another citation levied a $5,000 fine because Kay was not wearing a helmet when he was swept away and buried while conducting lone in-bounds avalanche mitigation Nov. 22 before the area opened. The penalties also included a $5,000 fine against the ski area for the lack of handrails on metal stairways in the area's summit house.

The OSHA report describes the accident as: "The employee, working alone, set off an explosive charge and then skied across the face of the slope instead of skiing across the top of the slope."

The OSHA area director in Englewood, said state statute requires a minimum of two workers and federal laws governing workers' personal protection equipment support the use of helmets by patrollers doing avalanche mitigation. OSHA found that this was not an isolated incident, and that violations of safety requirements had occurred previously.

In 2007, OSHA fined Crested Butte ski area $67,500 after alleging workplace violations following the January 2007 death of a grooming machine driver. Earlier, an OSHA investigation into the November 2002 death of a Keystone employee who drowned in a below-ground vault used for snowmaking led to a $128,250 fine.

Posted by Linda Chalat at 4:21 PM | Permalink

Ski resorts in Massachusetts would be required to hand out helmets for free with all ski equipment rentals, under proposed legislation being considered by the state House. After a constituent's son was seriously injured during a ski accident, a state representative learned that his constituent's teenage son was discouraged from wearing a helmet by ski resort attendants renting him equipment, but he opted to wear one anyway. It was what saved his life when he hit a tree. The bill (H 638) would also require ski resorts to report injury statistics annually.

Posted by Linda Chalat at 4:12 PM | Permalink

A provincial government report has blamed human error for an accident that injured a child at Marble Mountain Ski Resort in western Newfoundland, Canada. The girl broke her pelvis in February when she fell seven or eight meters from a chairlift.

The Government Services report said its investigation found the accident happened because the girl wasn't properly restrained in her seat. It also found the lift attendant was positioned in such a way that he could not properly see the chair and its riders. The department has ordered changes so the attendant can see whether skiers are properly secured in their chairs.

Officials first thought that no one had been injured in the fall, but the ski area general manager said physicians discovered that the girl had suffered a cracked pelvis after her parents brought her back to the hospital. She had been examined immediately after the fall.

The girl's fall was one of two ski lift incidents at Marble Mountain in February. In the other, a chair fell about a meter to the ground after it slipped off a cable.

Posted by Linda Chalat at 4:08 PM | Permalink

When a Senate committee unanimously approved a bill that would put Colorado on daylight saving time year-round, nobody appeared to testify against it. But it appears Colorado ski resorts have awakened to the impact of such a schedule change, and promise to challenge the bill at the next opportunity.

Sen. Greg Brophy, R-Wray, got his Senate Bill 22 through the energy committee on a 6-0 vote last month. Part of the support for the change is that Coloradans would appreciate the extra outdoor recreational time his bill would afford them in the evenings, but ski resorts are more concerned with how the time change would affect them in the mornings during their peak winter season.

Members of Colorado Ski Country see it as cutting an hour off of morning skiing due to a delay in opening. The extra darkness in the morning would require ski resorts delay performing avalanche maintenance and other important work to make the slopes ready for skiers and snowboarders, which would push opening times back. SB 22 next faces the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Posted by Linda Chalat at 11:24 AM | Permalink