For some guys, Fall offers more to look forward to than the return of football to the TV screen. With the promise of snow in the air, they're dragging skis out of the closet and getting ready to hit the slopes.
Snow skiing is a great form of wintertime exercise, and over the years it has become much safer.
With the development of better safety bindings and boots, one study of Vermont skiers has documented a 48 percent overall decline in injuries between 1981 and 1992. Today, fewer than three in a thousand skiers are injured for each day of skiing. In particular, those nasty spiral fractures of the leg have dropped 94 percent, and ankle injuries in children are far less common. The scene at the slalom isn't entirely rosy, though. So much for the notion that youngsters are basically unbreakable.