In my former employment as “Tax-chick” (State and Municipal Premium Tax and Regulatory Compliance Specialist) at a large insurance company, my duties included reading mortality and morbidity studies, on behalf of actuaries who didn’t have time. (”TC, come to the staff meeting and explain the tobacco-marker studies to so-and-so.”)
One of the studies found that a person engaging in recreational winter skiing for four years had the same risk of serious injury as a person playing four years of NCAA college football. Would you get on the football field with Florida State and University of Tennessee? Of course not! And if you want to be able to walk when you’re 70, you don’t want to be skiing when you’re 60!
Did you include cross-country? That seemed somewhat less dangerous than downhill.