These high-energy, challenging sports require physical skill and conditioning. Last year the challenge drew nearly 14 million people to downhill skiing, cross-country skiing and snowboarding, according to the National Sporting Goods Association. With challenges come risks, however. More than 137,000 people slid from the slopes into the nation's emergency rooms in 1996.
Experts offer plenty of ways to avoid problems.
Second, you must pay close attention to what everyone else is doing, not just yourself. The variety of pacing helps make skiing popular. Blame twisting and bending for the second-biggest block of damage. Skiers most often hurt knees, snowboarders wrists. Most fatalities occur when a skier along the edge of a trail stops paying attention, loses control and hits a stationary object such as a tree, Ms. Gardner says.