The National Ski Areas Association calls the third week in January beginning with MLK weekend, national safety “week.” For ski areas, the week is just one small part of what they call, safety season.

“We address safety all the time in every department,” says Leigh Nelson, president of Welch Village, Minn. “It’s not just a slogan or program.”

“We have intertwined safety into our entire culture,” echoes Tom Horrocks, communications manager at Killington. “From our employees to our guests, safety is something we focus on year round.”

And the emphasis appears to be paying off. All across the country, ski resorts are reporting that fatalities and serious injuries are down.

“I think resorts’ skier education efforts are having a very positive effect,” says Troy Hawks, communications manager at NSAA, adding that serious injuries were down significantly last year.

“It’s hard to come to any hard conclusions based on just one year,” Hawks says. “We like to look at data over 10 years.”

Over the last 10 years, NSAA says deaths from skiing and snowboarding have averaged 37.1 annually. Last year there were 22 fatalities. Serious injuries (paraplegics, serious head injuries, etc.) likewise dropped from an average of 43.7 per year to 40 last year.

“When you consider we’ve set records for skier visits five out of the last six years, and also the growth of freestyle terrain, I think the fact that injuries have not gone up as well is an excellent testament to what the resorts are doing,” Hawks says.


Two-pronged emphasis
Most resorts report that they look at safety from a couple of different angles. There is the year-round focus. And then there is the week-long chance to take the safety message to a higher level, have some fun with it and maybe even drive business.

“We work off two safety documents every year,” says Rich Burkley, VP of mountain ops at Aspen, Colo. “The first is a year-round document that we review every year to see what we can improve.”

This season, for example, Burkley says Aspen made a big push to improve high-volume intersections and lift loading safety and efficiency. Last year the resort focused on out-of-bounds skiing safety and education.

“We see what we’ve done in prior years and what we can improve this year,” Burkley says.

The second document Aspen prepares each year addresses national safety week. Each mountain comes up with its own menu of activities and awareness programs. At Aspen Highlands, guests were greeted with a statue of a skier wrapped around a tree decorated with the skier’s responsibility code. At Buttermilk, lift attendants wore Donald Duck hats and handed out cards with safety messages and duck puns—“Don’t quack your head,” etc. At Snowmass, children petted rescue dogs.

“Some years are better than others, but over the last 10 years we have reduced the incidence of serious injuries,” Burkley says. “I don’t know if there is a direct correlation between our safety programs, but I do know that across the board the biggest thing that helps reduce risk is awareness.”


Safety can be fun
In the nine years since NSAA started national safety week, it has turned into almost a mid-winter carnival at many resorts. There are banners, poster contests, raffles, pop quizzes, helmet giveaways and discounts, avalanche training, rescue dogs, safety tents, free hot chocolate, resort schwag, scavenger hunts and variations on all of these.

Last year, for example, Northstar-at-Tahoe took the scavenger hunt to a new level when it handed out GPS systems and maps with the coordinates of different “safety caches” around the mountain. This season Northstar set up radar guns on popular trails and invited skiers and riders to guess their speed down the slope. If they guessed within 5 mph they got a free hot chocolate.

“People were astounded at how fast they could get going,” says Jessica van Pernis, PR manager. “They think they’re going 12 or 15 miles an hour, and they were really going 30. It really makes people aware of how fast they’re going and how quickly they can pick up speed.”

Schweitzer used “trading cards” featuring pictures and safety messages from ski patrol and other safety personnel to get the safety message out. Children were encouraged to collect the cards throughout safety week and the rest of the season with a drawing for season passes and other prizes at the end.

“It was wonderful to see kids swarming ski patrollers, asking for cards, trading cards with each other,” says Jennifer Ekstrom, communications manager.

Killington took free photos of kids next to the “heads up” logo. Okemo took free photos of guests after they took their helmets off, then put the pictures on its website and invited people to vote for the best “helmet head.” Those getting the most votes won free ski passes. Crested Butte’s safety tent handed out 30 gallons of free hot chocolate, several bags of candy, 1,000 stickers and well over 1,000 responsibility code cards. The tent was so popular CBMR kept it open an extra weekend.


“Park pass, please”
Terrain park safety has become another major focus at ski resorts, not just during safety week but all season long. More and more areas, following the lead of Stratton, Vt., are encouraging, and even requiring, users to get a safety ‘pass’ before using the parks.

Stratton started the trend five years ago when it gated its parks to all but pass holders. To get a pass, users must attend a safety education session (SES) located in a classroom on the mountain. The session includes an overview of the area’s terrain parks, as well as a video on park etiquette and safety, focused around the NSAA’s Smart Style code. Afterwards, attendees must sign an assumption of risk document. The first year Stratton required a pass only for its advanced park. Now all of the parks are gated and require a pass to enter.

“It has reduced the number of injuries and the seriousness of injuries that we see in freestyle terrain,” says Seth Boyd, director of risk management.

This year, Stratton teamed up with Burton to teach the SES curriculum as part of its beginning freestyle terrain lessons for children 12 and under. Attendees receive a park pass after the lesson.

“I think it’s more effective at that age to teach safety on the hill than for kids to watch a video they might not understand,” Boyd explains.

Boyd says the response to the pass program has been positive.

“It puts everybody on the same page,” he says. “It eliminates the family who wants to ski and ride through the park to watch users go over the jumps and stand in the wrong place. Now you can go into a park only for its intended use.”

Boyd said parents especially like the program.

“They like the fact that we’re sitting down with their 12-year-old and talking about the risks of using freestyle terrain before we let them go in.”

There are many variations on the park pass idea. Some areas, like Stratton, restrict their parks only to pass holders. Others only encourage users to get a pass by attending a safety session.

However ski areas address it, they all agree: safety awareness works.

“We have a very good safety record here,” says Nelson at Welch Village. “The reason is because we focus on it all the time and second, because I pray a lot.”

Amen.