Sound and fury are deceptive on ski slopes

By BRIDGET RAYWARD

We ski instructors often get comments about "those dangerous" snowboarders on our slopes.

One of my experienced ski instructors gave me some real insight into the hidden roots of such fears. He told me about his training to teach blind and disabled skiers, and being forced to wear a blindfold.

With his visual clues cut off, my friend told me he had been terrified and had fallen as a snowboarder roared by. It was only after he had ripped off his blindfold in anger that he discovered the snowboarder had not been close to him at all. The boarder had been more than 20 metres away.

Subsequently, he carried out tests to establish the noise level for skiers and snowboarders, and to his amazement found that a snowboarder makes a lot more noise than a skier.

Now snowboarders, like skiers, are really just human beings even if they do dress a little more trendily than the average skier.

But at Cardrona, where we have a 50:50 split with our clients, our accident and incident rates for snowboarders are almost identical to that for skiers. So it is not true to allege that snowboarders cause more accidents, or even to claim that snowboarders ski more recklessly.

So imagine yourself skiing down your favourite slope . Suddenly you hear the horrific noise of a snowboarder crossing behind, but well clear, and you are startled. But really, it's the noise. They probably weren't close at all. Bridget Rayward

* Rayward is director of the ski school at Cardrona, and president of the New Zealand Ski Instructors Alliance.