In 1998, the most recent year for which figures are available, there were 3.6 million snowboarders, about twice as many as five years earlier, according to the ski and snowboard retailers association. But the percentage of boarders over 35 stayed about the same, at around 11 percent. By the end of today's lesson, the adult students have noticeably improved. Glueck, the social worker, and Rubanenko, the surgeon, collided with each other once, but now the two can wind down the slope without assistance. Jasper Shealy, a ski-safety researcher at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, N.Y., says there are more injuries associated with snowboarding than skiing, but that's mainly because more boarders are beginners.
Skiers are more likely to suffer torn knee ligaments.
In snow sports, fatalities tend to result from collisions with fixed objects, Shealy says, and skiers are two to three times more likely to sustain a collision-related injury than snowboarders. The board stops you and you get slammed into the surface. It's hard to get to a tree.