Harping on safety seems like it’s beating a dead horse these days. You’ve heard about it from your local shop, your mom nagging you to get kitted out in a full set of pads, or maybe from your significant other who’s just trying to make sure you get home in one piece. But here’s the thing; we’ll harp on it until the day we die, and so will your loved ones, because they don’t want you getting hurt and neither do we. Maybe you heard, and maybe you haven’t, a fellow shredder passed away at Whistler/Blackcomb when he suffocated on snow this past weekend, and that’s what sparked the desire to beat that dead horse one more time. Our deepest condolences go out to the rider’s family, and maybe the only silver lining to this sad story is that other riders learn how to be safer out on the mountain, and that’s what I’m here to talk about. I’ll break it down into the 5 main considerations for the TL;DR folk.
#1: Helmets
Yep, the most obvious form of safety equipment, the helmet. Did you know there’s no difference between hitting your head on ice when compared to asphalt? Both deliver a punishing G-force blow to your noggin, resulting in massive head trauma, internal bleeding, fractured skulls, or death. Pretty grim eh? Seriously though, just wear the helmet. $60 could save you from a life of wheelchair vegetation, countless pros have walked away alive because of their lids, and countless more have died without them. Approximately 40 people every year die while riding, and around 120,000 people are affected by an injury related to riding. When you consider that 46% of all injuries that kids suffer on the hill are brain-related, it makes you realize how many people are walking away with life-altering injuries that could have been prevented for the price of a tank of gas. So matter your skill level, don the hard cap of protection, set a good example for the up-and-coming riders, and let’s create a world where helmets are the norm… because they should be. (A special thanks to our friends at personalinjury-law.com for helping us out with this section; they deal with this stuff every day, every winter, and know first-hand about the risks and repercussions of not wearing a helmet.)
#2: Goggles
An often over-looked piece of safety equipment, the humble snowboard goggle is vitally important to safety on the slopes, and we consider snowboard goggles the second most important piece of gear a snowboarder can buy! Think of it this way, you wouldn’t drive your car around in the winter without a windshield, it’d be dangerous as hell, you wouldn’t be able to see anything with snow blasting your face, and it’d be miserable in general. So why do I see people still riding without goggles, and sometimes no eye protection at all?! Cover up your eyeballs with a good set of goggles, they’ll protect you, allow you to see even in adverse conditions, and good goggles will offer up immense peripheral vision so that you can see what’s going on around you, which is incredibly important too! Too many people are injured because they run into each other because they didn’t see the other person riding. Don’t be that guy that sends someone to the hospital because you plowed into them when you couldn’t see what you were doing.
#3: Friends
Ride with a buddy! This is an extremely over-looked and often not thought of piece of safety “gear”. The importance of riding with someone else can’t be emphasized enough, and this is why. Nobody else on the mountain knows (or cares, if I put it bluntly) where you are or how you’re doing. The exception is the ski patrol, and while they do a killer job keeping us all safe and sound, they can’t be everywhere at once, and if you get yourself into a pickle, the first person to realize something has gone wrong is your buddy that you’re shredding with. Even the best of us take a spill here and there, and you never know when that spill will end up leaving you unconscious in some deeper snow (all the better reason to wear a helmet!) and the only way you’ll get out of that alive is if someone finds you, and FAST. On the days you’re out riding solo, maybe opt out of the across-the-gate, gnarly side-country run for a day when you can share the joys of an untouched run with a friend.
#4: Limits
Ride within your skill limitations! The mountain is no place to be macho, snowboarding is as dangerous as it is fun, and it’s easy to get way in over your head real quick. Take it easy, ride safely, and push your comfort limits at a slow and steady rate. You can’t improve without venturing out into uncharted territory, literally and figuratively, but do it at a pace that’s safe and controlled. Don’t be winning any Jerry Of The Day awards like this poor two-planker above, ride within your limits.
#5: Avalanche Safety
This deserves an entire article to itself, and even an article isn’t enough to cover everything, but avalanches happen, they happen every year, and they even happen in-bounds from time to time. Fresh, untouched powder is a dream come true, but it also presents immense risk. The majority of avalanches happen within 24 hours of fresh snowfall, and 90% of all avalanches are triggered by the victims that they consume. Do your own research and take plenty of classes before venturing into the side country or back country, and just remember those two statistics I listed above. Leave exploring to more than 24 hours after fresh snow, check with local avalanche experts and your mountain’s ski patrol, prep yourself with avy gear, always ride with a friend, and avoid riding if the mountain shows any of the 5 signs of avalanche danger. We’ve covered avalanche safety in the past, if you want to know more, I highly suggest checking this link, and this link, and this link, and this link, and DEFINITELY take avy classes before attempting back country riding.
Staying safe and living to ride another day should be the focus of every snowboarder out there. If you don’t employ any of these 5 safety considerations while you ride, it’s not a matter of IF you hurt yourself, it’s a matter of WHEN. And because of the speeds and forces involved in snowboarding, it’s not unlikely that when that “WHEN” does come along, it could be fatal. Although I didn’t mention it in the top 5, you really should inspect all of your gear every time you ride, and if you don’t know what you’re looking for, bring it to your local core snowboard shop like Salty Peaks! We’ll take a look and make sure you’re good to go. Now get out there and go have fun, safety officer signing off.
