Forms, forms, forms....

Early October now and we've already had the first snows on the Cairngorm Mountains. I love this time of year as the nights draw in, the leaves turn and the frosts arrive. Not long til winter. The downside is that this is the time of year when I have to shake the dust off the injury forms that we use at the 5 ski areas in Scotland and update them if necessary. Usually, this doesn't take too much effort, but this year I have decided to re-do several sections - the one relating to wrist guards in particular. This used to be a standard - guards worn - Yes/No, but its not as simple as that now. There are so many guards on the market - short ones, long ones, ones you wear on the palm side, others on the backside, guards in the gloves, guards out the gloves etc etc... you get the picture. And thanks to excellent work by my French friends in Medicins de Montagne, we now know that certain guards are better than others, whilst some guards can actually cause injuries. So its important to know exactly what type of guard snowboarders are wearing and the form has been redesigned to allow us to do this - more questions for the ski patrol to ask, I'm afraid, but it is an important point.

Also, thanks to a generous donation from the Catherine Smith Memorial Trust fund (via Tim Walker of Glenmore Lodge), I have been able to print 10,000 colour snow sports education brochures that will be distributed between the ski areas and some ski shops this winter. Always difficult to strike a balance between getting the messages across without bombarding people with too much information, but I hope I got the balance right on this one. You can let me know if you see one of them.

Stay safe on snow.