Thoughts on Slope Safety

With renewed debate about wearing of helmets to prevent head injuries, it's also worth considering the risk of high-speed collisions with slope users/obstacles and the many thousands of accidents involving just one person.

The BBC is running a story today on whether there is a need to mandate helmets for snowsports based on the record number of head injuries this season on the Austrian slopes (Link to BBC story). After watching this I spent a few minutes looking for related articles online and found much more than I was expecting. Sadly, a report on the timesonline says a mother of three was killed last month as a result of colliding with another skier, also in Austria. Whilst she wasn't wearing a helmet, her fatal injury is reported as a severed aorta, and the other skier suffered spinal injuries (article from The Times), so perhaps helmets in this case would not have made a difference.

If the media becomes overly focused on the helmet issue, it will miss the point that safety on the slopes needs all skiers/riders to stay in control and follow the alpine responsibility code. This means following rules about how you move around the mountain and how you interact with other slope users. Not necessarily something everyone wants to do on their holidays, but important nonetheless.

Unfortunately, in the rush of fun that comes from sliding down a slope at speed, many people forget or disregard the alpine responsibility code. Others have no idea that the people in front of them have priority, or that they should look uphill and give way to people coming down fast before pulling out, or that they should stop where they can be seen. It sounds so obvious, but I see many near misses every week from people skiing or riding too fast without regard for their surroundings and other users. Don't get me wrong, I love skiing fast, but I do so with an expert level of control and a constant focus on what's around and in front of me.

When guests ski with me, they often comment on how many of our instructors now wear helmets. This is in part due to a new rule that helmets are mandatory for childrens' lessons and for instructors teaching in gladed areas (trees). However, I've come across many instructors over the last couple of years who choose not to wear a helmet. This is either from personal preference, or even a culture/tradition of alpine skiing where there seems to be some kind of stigma associated with wearing a helmet as an instructor.. almost as if a helmet means you aren't skilled or confident enough to avoid falling. Interestingly, because the media focus is on increasing number of accidents in Austria, many of the Austrian instructors I've met will admit to wearing a helmet when ski racing (often mandatory), but not when ski instructing or free-skiing.

I personally wear a helmet all the time when skiing; I even teach beginners in a helmet. When I first started skiing I didn't wear one, but as I began to ski faster and tackle more challenging terrain I started to think about buying one. It took an incident in Andorra to make my mind up; I watched from a chair lift as a skier lost control in an intermediate bump run and fell in a way that one ski came off and was flung in the air before falling down and landing on his head, knocking him out and leaving a significant blood trail as he slid down to a stop. Now does my wearing a helmet mean I think I might do the same? Of course not. But I find it both warmer and cooler (ah, the venting) than a hat, and the number of times people clunk me on the head with their poles or skis, or bring the lift bar down when I'm still helping someone, or ski out of control close to me when I'm teaching is enough to make me happy to wear one.

I hope that helmets will become an accepted and welcome part of the alpine kit along with boots, baselayers and gloves. I think helmets should be mandatory for all children under a certain age (13/14?) but I'm still on the fence on whether they should be mandated for all adult slope users. Part of me thinks people should be educated as to the risks but then given a choice of whether to protect themselves or not. And there's also the argument that mandating helmets makes snowsports seem more dangerous than they actually are. However, with more people traveling at faster speeds due to better equipment and trail grooming (without necessarily having the skills to do so other than balance and bravado) and a growing number of head injuries every season, I can see that helmets may become mandatory, if nothing else than to keep insurance premiums from going through the roof!

Lastly, I stumbled across this blog, http://www.skisafety-blog.com/, which I think should be read by anyone who enjoys snowsports as a reminder that bad stuff does happen and that despite how we might feel at the time, we are not invincible on the slopes!

Interski Inspiration!

Interski 2011 has been and gone and many people will be completely unaware of its purpose. It was founded in 1951 as a way for European alpine nations to get together and share insights and demonstrations of ski technique and ski teaching. Since then it has gone global and the Interski Congress is held every 4 years and sees the best technical skiers from every alpine nation turn up to put on a show. Interski 2011 was held last month in Austria and there's some fantastic footage of the technical demonstrations appearing on YouTube. 


I was fortunate enough to attend this year's Canadian Ski Instructors Association training for fully certified instructors last week and be trained by three members of Canada's Interski team who were not long back from Austria. It's inspiring to train with such gifted ski trainers and I'm happy to have benefited from their experience fresh from the Interski Congress.  


Whether you're a ski instructor or a recreational skier, it's well worth watching some of the demonstrations from Interski... spotting the differences between alpine nations in their skiing style is fun, or just being inspired by seeing the best of the best doing what they love.


Here's some footage taken on an informal "technical comparison" day, arranged by the Canadian team. Try hitting pause on 1:42 for an unbelievable shot of one of the Swiss team; my personal goal is to some day be able to recreate this! The Canadian team appear at 4:24 - go Canada, go CSIA!




And for those who want to get more into the Canadian approach.. here's "form determined by function":