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When an avalanche ripped down a popular run in Palisades Tahoe on January 10, killing a 66-year-old local and trapping several others, the ski world was shocked. Avalanches in in-bounds, controlled ski resort terrain are rare—but sadly, the death it caused is not. A couple months later, a 58-year-old man died after crashing into a tree at Keystone Resort. The incident marked the third death at Colorado ski resorts in just two weeks.
It’s easy to forget that skiing is a dangerous sport. It’s marketed as approachable and luxurious, with happy toddlers pizza-ing down the bunny hill and fur-clad couples enjoying an on-mountain Champagne lunch. But the truth is that skiing can be hazardous, and sometimes, even deadly.
In an attempt to see exactly who is getting injured and killed out there—and how—we dug into stats provided by the National Ski Areas Association, the trade group which represents over 300 alpine ski areas in the U.S. The results were both expected and surprising.
The NSAA compiles two fact sheets after each ski season. One reveals the number of on-mountain fatalities and the other the number of catastrophic injuries—defined as “life-altering injuries” such as paralysis. We’re still awaiting this past season’s data, but of the 46 peoplewho died at NSAA ski areas in the 2022-’23 season, 42 were male and 37 were on skis. Of the 53 catastrophic injuries, 42 were male and 44 were skiers. The majority of both incidents occurred on intermediate terrain.
Here’s the twist: Most of the on-mountain fatalities during the 2022-’23 season occurred to people who were between the ages of 51 and 60. So while the stereotype is that the young guns hucking cliffs and skiing way too fast are paying the ultimate price, in reality, it’s the middle-aged guys.
We asked Dr. Mark Aoyagi, a Certified Mental Performance Consultant and a sport and performance psychology professor at the University of Denver’s Graduate School of Professional Psychology to walk us through how men process dangerous situations.
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“Men are more likely to take risks than women generally speaking” Aoyagi told SKI, and that the reason is anthropological. “You can imagine the evolutionary benefits of a subset of people that are willing to wander away from what is keeping us alive here to see what might be better elsewhere. The explorers tended to be men, though certainly not exclusively. So, this helps to explain and understand why more men are risk-takers.”
In today’s world, Aoyagi said he believes males are more likely to take unhealthy risks in extreme sports like skiing due to peer pressure and a lack of awareness of their own actual abilities. Social media isn’t helping. Watching videos of people launching off cliffs or straight-running a groomer — which Aoyagi says can come off as “crazy, stupid, or highly skilled,” depending on your perspective—also plays a role in risk taking.
OK, but why the 51- to 60-year-old demographic?
“I think the stereotype ‘risk-taker’ would be a 16-18 year old bombing down the hill or doing extreme things in a terrain park,” Aoyagi acknowledged, “… but what it seems like we are missing is the risk of 51-60 year olds not recognizing the decline in their athletic ability generally, skiing/snowboarding ability specifically, and the decrease in resilience/survivability.”
“As a person close to entering my 50s, I think this is a great reminder that risk-taking means something very different,” Aoyagi said. “We might be radically underestimating the risk involved in skiing/riding on an intermediate run thinking that this was nothing for our 25 year old selves. So I think there is a needed recalibration of risk for this age group.”
While the most-impacted age range for on-mountain fatalities in 2022-’23 was surprising to Aoyagi, the data on catastrophic injuries was not. According to the report, people between the ages of 16 to 20 accounted for most of the 53 catastrophic injuries last ski season. Again, most of them male.
For this age group, Aoyagi said, risk can be very psychological. “The fact is that the CEO of your brain (the prefrontal cortex) isn’t fully developed until your mid to late 20s,” he explained. “Among other things, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is responsible for modeling the future and understanding consequences. So teenagers don’t just believe they are invincible, they literally can’t reason out how they could die.”
Most of these deadly or catastrophic incidents occurred on intermediate terrain. Only one of the fatalities happened in the terrain park, but 10 of the 53 catastrophic incidents occurred there.
So, if you’re a male skier, what can you do to mitigate your risk?
Understanding your limitations is a good place to start. Your 55-year-old self might not be able to ski what your 25-year-old self could, and that Instagram-famous big-mountain skier may be more qualified to drop that cliff than you are. To that end, being aware of peer pressure and avoiding situations where you feel pressured can go a long way to mitigating on-mountain risk.
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Similarly, Aoyagi said alcohol “dampens one’s ability to comprehend consequences and model the future,” while some drugs can increase impulsivity or dopamine levels, which can lead to more risk-taking.
That all said, risk-taking is not the enemy. In fact, Aoyagi says healthy risk-taking is essential.
“Simplistically, I would say you could categorize risks as ‘calculated’ and ‘naive.’ Calculated risks are based on a progression of skills and self-awareness where the person has a good understanding of what they can do in that space,” Aoyagi said. “This is the person who does a five-foot jump and then a 10-foot jump and gradually builds up to a 50 foot jump,” he said.
Alternatively, Aoyagi explained that a naive risk is when you see someone go off a 50-foot jump and you think, “they did it, so can I.”
Seeing as the era of Red Bull events, the Freeride World Tour comps, and social media stunts aren’t going away anytime soon, the best we can hope for is more education around the science of risk taking to get through to male skiers before they make poor decisions on the slopes.
