Recently a friend of mine has been taken out by an out-of-control skier during the Southern hemisphere season. He was taken out in bad way, requiring surgery and extensive rehabilitation.

This prompted my acknowledgement that over the past several years there has been an increase in near misses or serios incidents on the slopes. This was caused by an increase in winter sports uptake. In addition, as the world emerges from pandemic induced lockdowns, guests may not have had the opportunity to practice their skills, thus increasing risks of accidents.

Whilst the number of participants increased, the ski industry has not been able to increase the supply exponentially. Not surprisingly, due to ecological, economic, or regulatory constraints, resorts have not been expanded overnight. This means more peoples on the slopes, increased wait time for lifting, and overall increased anxiety on the slopes. Also ski instructors have not been magically summoned to complement ski schools across resorts. This left some guests, either learning by themselves, or from friends and family. This was in addition to those skiers and snowboarders who have never been sought and received any professional instruction.

The attitude of “I don’t need lessons” is even more prevalent in the mountain biking world where most of us learned to ride a bicycle at a young age, and decide no instruction is required when taking the bikes off road. As most MTB trails are single track, any accidents involve the rider only. To put things in perspective, skiing is better compared to car driving. One can figure it out by themselves, watching YouTube videos or learning from friends, but most of us take compulsory training and must sit a form of examination. Also, once obtaining the licence, most of us would practice our skills daily, ensuring they remain current. The comparison does not advocate for licencing skiing, it is made purely to paint a better picture.

There will always be those not wishing to take lessons and skiers with limited experience on the slopes. There is nothing one can do about it, and no amount of awareness campaigns from the industry will change that. Going back to the driving comparison, I raised the topic of a potential “defensive skiing” discussion within ski instructors forums, with little success. As ski instructors we are taught to train our guests on safety during lessons, and all of us impart that knowledge.

I asked several of the guests I regularly ski with, friends and family about skiing safety, and I was rather surprised by the results. There was little conscious awareness about on resort safety. Upon reflection I recognised the reduced emphasis on safety in resort when compared to back country. When taking guests for introductory lessons out of bounds my instruction style changes focus from a technical perspective to a safety one: line of approach, consider dangers, weather, how to get out, know your location and so on. In resort, most of this gets lost in the focus on technique.

I asked my focus group about in resort snow safety. Initially I was told they do not know much about. When prompting with targeted questions such as: where you stop on the slope, what do you do when trails merge, what happens when someone is down or how you do safely descent a steep slope, amongst everyone the answers kept flowing in. Everyone had an answer, remembered a drill we did, an analogy, a situation, or a discussion. This is when I understood, that as in resort skiers we take a more relaxed approach to skiing, we are safe, there is ski patrol and boundaries. There is that too, but there are a lot of other skiers and snowboarders who have no idea what is going on. Most of the people I talked to admitted they are focused on improving their technique and failed to consciously acknowledge safety points raised during lessons.

Below are some tips to consider for your next skiing trip to maintain stay safe: