Industry News
In June of 2019, the Alliance for Skier and Rider Responsibility was formed. The non-profit group was formed after the founder broke both her legs while taking a ski lesson when a snowboarder ran into her. Their goal was to make the slopes safer for everyone on the hill.
Now, after three years, the organization is dissolving. Despite tireless work, ski resorts and related organizations just didn’t get behind the work they were trying to accomplish. This was disheartening, as their goal wasn’t to promote more slow zones or govern how riders behaved. They simply were trying to raise awareness. When they couldn’t pinpoint ways to handle the disconnect, they decided it was time to call it quits.
Based on initial survey results, the group focused their early efforts on the skier and rider “Responsibility Code.“ They found that the knowledge and awareness of the code were mediocre at best. Simply making everyone more aware of the code could increase safety.
The idea was to start in Summit County, CO, and expand from there. They did find success in getting the responsibility code posted on Summit Stage buses. This was paid for by Summit Mountain Rentals and Summit Resort Group with the Alliance for Skier and Rider Responsibility getting credit. From there, they were hoping to post the code in hotels, shops, rental cars, clothing tags, and anywhere they could think of. However, the momentum never gained traction.
It was this mediocre response that didn’t justify continuing as an organization.
There is no doubt that the organization was trying to do good work. Hopefully, someone can continue it down the road. Maybe ski resorts will take more responsibility to make sure their visitors are well educated on how to keep themselves and others safe.
At Tenney Mt, when you bought an all-day ticket, you also got a coupon worth 1/6th of a ski lesson. These were accumulatable and transferable. And with each season ticket you got 2 ski school lessons. In this way, the mountain subsidized the ski school. From experience, we learned that Tenney skiers both skied better and were safer, had fewer accidents. However, this was before the craze for ever-increasing uphill capacity crowded the downhil and before snowboarding introduced it turn periodicity that clashed that of the skier.