They have also taken the programs to the slopes, where members of the ski patrol or management have stopped violators of the responsibility code, a practice that would have been rare a few years ago.
In separate interviews, spokespeople for three areas regarded as pacesetters for safety awareness programs—Winter Park, Colo., Gunstock, N.H., and Mammoth Mountain, Calif.—have said emphatically that their areas do not need nor want reckless skiers. At all three areas, the feedback from the programs has been positive, with skiers praising management for taking control.
Procedures for stopping skiers on the mountain follow somewhat the same pattern at these three resorts, as well as three other surveyed. An offending skier is stopped and then given a briefing on the Skiers’ Responsibility Code. The skier’s ticket is marked so that a second stop for recklessness means suspension of skiing privileges. Some areas will return the ticket—but only after the skier has gone through a skier education program.
Spokespeople for the three resorts also agreed that their programs had worked because of the total commitment of management and high degree of involvement and enthusiasm from employees.
On the day after Christmas at Winter Park, 500 employees received a five-page memo from Jerry Groswold, president, detailing an expanded Skier Education Safety Program. The program started two years ago, said Sherry Shelton, vice president of administration, in response to concerns about the increase in skier collisions that had been noted at the area, and in response to complaints from customers about skiers going too fast.
The memo explained that Winter Park is committed to the program because of its concern for the welfare of skiers and because “serious accidents and fatalities reflect poorly on our industry and can discourage new skiers or repeated skier visits.”
It also pointed out the difficulty in creating behavior changes, noting the five steps involved: awareness change, opinion change, attitude change, values (lifestyle) change and finally, behavior change. Each step leads to the next, the memo noted, explaining that the Winter Park program is aimed at working at the first level, awareness.
In considerable detail, the memo outlined procedures for stopping skiers who violate the responsibility code, emphasizing that area representatives must be in uniform with name tags clearly visible and that they must be polite, yet forceful, with violators. The memo specified how warnings are to be handled and included a chart detailing offenses and disciplinary actions of revocation or suspension of skiing privileges. It also suggested exactly what the area’s representatives should say to offending skiers and what actions they should
take if offending skiers become belligerent or angry.
Other aspects of the program included a system of mazes, made from orange colored net fences, to control fast skiing at critical places on the mountain; a video presentation to educate skiers on safe skiing; signs, notices on tables, buttons and “Courteous Skier Cards” to be handed to guests in recognition for their help with accidents, or with other skiers or children.
“The program was implemented because we want people to enjoy themselves and not be threatened by a minority of skiers,” said Shelton, adding that it had worked much better than anticipated.
Employee involvement was encouraged by a slogan contest with a first prize of a round-trip ticket anywhere in the United States.
“We received 500 entries,” she said. The winning entry, “Safety’s our goal . . .Control is your role” appeared on buttons and flyers throughout the area this past season. Next year another slogan, “Know your limit. . .Ski within it” will be used. The change, she commented, is to maintain interest.
Gunstock, a much smaller ski area, implemented a comprehensive program this past season following the death last year of a well-known skier at the area, who had hit a tree.
General Manager Dick Tapply said the program had a number of thrusts. Three out of 20 trails have been designated, top to bottom, for slow skiers only; the ski patrol has been made more visible with new uniforms; and the area has instituted a “red sticker” program in which violators of the Skiers’ Responsibility Code, as determined by the ski patrol or management representatives, are tagged with a sticker carrying the slogan “Ski Smart. . .Ski in Control.” A second offense results in the revocation of skiing privileges. Next year, Tapply said, offenders will be required to participate in a safety training program in order to have their skiing privileges restored.
Tapply said the area also realized the importance of emphasizing responsible behavior to very young skiers. Accordingly, he said, “We instituted a program which included a test booklet distributed to fourth and fifth graders at the six elementary schools in the area’s immediate skier population.” Local banks offered $100 savings accounts to the pupils who made the best entries in the booklet. “We had 500 entries and six winners, one from each school,” he said.
In addition, he said, the area required all the school ski teams to participate in a safety awareness program that included a 15-minute video presentation, followed by explanations of the Skiers’ Responsibility Code and ski patrol duties. Other aspects of the program include a junior ski patrol and the inclusion of safety information in all ski school lessons.
Tapply said the program had been well received, particularly by parents. He also expressed enthusiasm about efforts on the national level, commenting “the more that’s done there, the easier it is for us.”
The safety awareness program at Mammoth Mountain, an area that routinely handles 16,000 to 18,000 skiers on a weekend, centered around a cartoon character called “Mogul Mike” who appeared in a video program, on posters and in coloring books.
Like Smokey the Bear, who tells how to prevent forest fires, Mogul Mike serves as the spokesman for ski safety, appearing virtually everywhere. Don Redmon, director of health and safety for the area, said Mammoth widely used the Skiers’ Responsibility Code, but since it also has the Mogul Mike symbol, Mogul Mike appears on the code instead of the standard drawing. Mogul Mike also appears on posters with safety messages that are displayed prominently in the ticket and cafeteria areas, sports shops and in restrooms. The posters are for sale, he said, with the proceeds used as donations to the skier education fund. Mogul Mike is also the central character in a Young Skiers Activity Book that is distributed to families at the area with a 45 r.p.m. record on safety inside.
Mammoth not only posts the Skiers’ Responsibility Code, it also puts it on a business card-size format with tips for skiers printed on the reverse side. The area makes a particular effort to bring the safety awareness program to schools and ski clubs, using the Mogul Mike videotape as the attention getter.
Redmon said that lift passes of reckless skiers are marked on the hill by ski patrollers and members of management for a first offense; the ticket is removed for a second offense and the skier must then participate in a safety awareness program and take a test before having the ticket restored. Other facets of the program are the use of “SLOW” banners on the trails and megaphones to stop reckless skiers.
Mammoth is also pushing for a local ordinance, he said, that will incorporate the Skiers’ Responsibility Code, plus prohibit such other practices as skiing with stereo headsets.
The season’s injury statistics aren’t all in, but Redmon is confident that the serious injury rate will be down. In fact, he said, one of the ski patrollers had commented “You’re giving us an easy year.”
Three other ski areas surveyed reported success with specific aspects of safety programs.
This past season Hunter Mountain, N.Y., instituted a program with the acronym of HELP, the letters standing for “Hunter’s Educational Learning Program.”
The program is enforced by the ski patrol and the courtesy patrol who station themselves at spots where management believes offenses will occur. Reckless skiers are stopped and their tickets removed. They are then directed to a booth at the base of the mountain where management representatives told to them about their violations before reinstituting skiing privileges.
“The program operates primarily on weekends,” said Tim White, mountain operations manager. Reviewing some statistics, he said that 400 skiers were stopped during an 11-week period, and that the majority of them were males between the ages of 15 and 30, and within that majority most skiers were in their early 20s.
He said he could not prove the correlation between the HELP program and the fact that during the same period skier collisions had decreased by 50 percent despite a 20 percent increase in skier days, “but I like to think that HELP helps.” The big advantage to the program, he said, is that it has forced skiers to cooperate if they want to have their tickets back. He said the program has benefited from weekly training sessions in which members of the courtesy and ski patrols exchange experiences and learn from each other about how to deal with potentially uncomfortable situation.
In Massachusetts, Jiminy Peak last year distributed 50,000 flyers during the months of February and March outlining skier safety codes and regulations. Specifically the flyers cited a section of the Massachusetts General Laws regarding skier behavior, as well as requirements adopted at Jiminy Peak in respect to slow speed zones, reckless skiing and the area’s strictures against head phones or skiing under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
“We think the flyer has had a positive effect,” said Dave Bulmer, director of marketing. “Both advisors to our ski programs and the skiers themselves have taken it seriously. We think it has also sparked interest in our ski school . . .we find that more kids are asking for ski instruction. They want to learn to ski responsibly.
Bill Gray, director of the ski patrol at Park City, Utah, said that members of the patrol work in rotating teams and that patrollers are assigned to ski safety for one week at a time. Those patrollers, he said, are responsible for maintaining the “Slow” signs in congested areas and for stopping reckless skiers. Team members are equipped with bullhorns, he said, and “if we see a problem, we use the bullhorns.”
“We keep it positive,” he said, “with a focus on education rather than punishment. But we do take ski passes and we can use Ordinance 91.” The ordinance, he explained, is a county law that places reckless skiing in the category of a misdemeanor that carries a $299 fine.
At least three conclusions emerge from the six interviews:
- Safety awareness programs work at areas because of absolute management commitment to their objectives, a commitment that is reinforced by the enthusiasm of employees to making them work.
- The anxiety about dealing with skiers who become belligerent when stopped for infractions of the Skiers’ Responsibility Code is not proportionate to what actually happens. The overwhelming majority of offending skiers are cooperative when approached in a positive way.
- And finally, any fears expressed by marketing people that aggressive safety awareness programs will drive people away from the slopes because of the negative connotation of “traffic cop” have not materialized.
In spite of the considerable concern expressed by ski area managements and ski organizations about the safety of participants, statistics indicate that skiing results in fewer fatalities per 100,000 participants than five other major sports.
Chris Stoddard, the technical and educational program administrator for the National Ski Areas Association, said that skiing fatalities ranked at the bottom in a comparison with boating, football, snowmobiling, swimming and water skiing. He said he took the figures from “Accident Facts — 1984” published by the National Safety Council.
The council lists the number of deaths per 100,000 participants in the six recreational activities as follows:
| Activity | Deaths per 100,000 |
|---|---|
| Boating | 2.35 |
| Football | .30 |
| Alpine Skiing | .19 |
| Snowmobiling | .69 |
| Swimming | 2.40 |
| Water Skiing | 2.60 |
