Bob Berwyn
February 28, 2003

Along with offering high-flying thrills, the terrain parks that have taken shape at nearly every resort in Colorado also have seen some serious spills.

And while Colorado law recognizes that skiing in its many forms is inherently dangerous, the new trend toward big jumps and other man-made obstacles appears to be generating an entirely new set of headaches for the ski industry.

For skiers and snowboarders, best option is to make sure that you have the skills and training you need to safely negotiate the man-made terrain features by taking a lesson or learning the necessary steps incrementally, by observing more experienced riders.

Many industry officials are understandably reluctant to talk about these concerns in any great detail, but its clear that ski resort managers have fixed their attention on the issue. One ski patroller at Breckenridge agreed to talk about terrain park safety but asked that his name not be used.

The patroller said that, in the past couple of seasons, the issue of terrain park safety has been near the top of the agenda when resort attorneys addressed employee orientation sessions at the beginning of the season. "It's been the number one issue across the board," the patroller says.

On the hill, patrollers have a variety of nicknames for the increasingly popular obstacle courses that reflect a macabre sense of humor. At Breck, some patrollers refer to the terrain park as "Thoracic Park," or "Job Security." A volunteer patroller at Heavenly says the popular name there is "Trauma Park." And a Forest Service official who works closely with the ski industry said he's heard Telluride ski patrollers refer to the popular Air Garden terrain park as the "Vegetable Garden."

"We've seen a rash of unconscious, seizing young people. We backboard them out of there and 10 minutes later in the emergency room, they're fine," says the Breck patroller, describing what he called transient concussions, incurred during hard landings on the packed, man-made snow. Upper body injuries are also becoming more common, including broken scapulas, something seen relatively rarely until the advent of terrain parks. One of the issues for patrollers is making sure they remain safe while they attend accidents in the park.

Peter Rietz, a local ski area attorney, says he can't address specific liability questions associated with terrain park operations, but acknowledges that the topic has received some attention in recent years. "I think the ski areas are always concerned with the safety of users and employees in a worker's comp setting," Rietz says.

In any case, the legal implications for participants are nearly always adverse, says Jim Chalat, a Front Range attorney who specializes in ski law. Under Colorado law, skiers and snowboarders participate in all aspects of the sport at their own risk, and the cases that have been decided relating to terrain park accidents have reflected that, Chalat says. Even if a terrain feature is constructed in a "stupid way," or if ordinary physics would dictate that a jump is going to toss you in the trees, courts have decided that the inherent assumption of risk still stands, Chalat says.

In the cases he's seen, Chalat says he's noticed a pattern of injuries to people who probably should not have been in the terrain park to begin with. "People should know what they're doing. From what I've seen, the people that are getting hurt don't know – they've had no experience getting upside down on a trampoline, and no conditioning.

"There's been a lot of discussion about how to make the parks as safe as possible," acknowledges Geraldine Link, director of public policy for the National Ski Areas Association. To address some of the safety concerns, the industry has focused on responsible use of the terrain parks, this season launching an educational campaign that includes consistent signage to be used in terrain parks around the country.

And as anyone who has skied through one of the local terrain parks can attest, there is plenty of prominently displayed signage at the entrance of each facility.

"It is an evolving part of our business," says Tim White, NSAA director of education. "In the last five or six years, the number of resorts with terrain parks has grown dramatically," White says, adding that the level of experience has gone up dramatically, both among the users and the builders.

And while terrain park builders are constantly checking out each other‚s work and learning how to build better features, there is no industry standard for the design and construction of rails, jumps and other features. In fact, that may be part of the appeal – each park has its own unique personality.

The Forest Service has been able to stay out of any lawsuits relating to terrain park injuries. Most Colorado ski resorts operate under National Forest special use permits, which assign responsibility for safety to the areas, says Ed Ryberg, the agency's regional winter sports program coordinator.

"It goes without saying that it's a little more hazardous," Ryberg says, referring to the potentially risky inverted aerial maneuvers prized by freeskiing afficionados. It's not clear if terrain park activities fit the inherent risk standard set forth in the Colorado Skier Safety Act, a law that predates the popularity of terrain parks. While resorts may use padding on man-made objects like snowmaking guns, terrain parks are completely different – they are studded with unpadded man-made metal obstacles like rail slides.

There have been attempts to hold the Forest Service at least partially liable for terrain park injuries, Ryberg says, describing a case in Jackson Hole, Wyo. Ryberg says that, at one point, local forest officials got a letter signed by all the town's orthopedic surgeons, basically saying, "This is dangerous – we have to do something about this," Ryberg says, paraphrasing the letter. Subsequently, the Forest Service was, in fact, sued, but was able to get out of the case. "We assign safety to the ski area. We trust them to operate in a safe way," Ryberg explains.

The Forest Service must also consider environmental impacts as terrain parks grow in popularity. The terrain features use huge quantities of man-made snow, he explains. That can be an issue in terms of stream withdrawals and also with regard to concentrating large amounts of runoff in a small area.

To save water, some areas are partially constructing terrain features out of dirt by sculpting the ground during the summer. And that raises another set of environmental issues, Ryberg concludes.