Women in Ski Patrol
Carol Starkey | August 5th 2025 | News
Women in Ski Patrol
The United States (US) National Ski Patrol (NSP) has a women specific program. Their mission statement is “To empower patrollers by advancing skills and developing leadership in a women-focused program”. At the Federation of International Ski Patrollers (FIPS) congress examples from their program, training, videos and comments from female patrollers were shown. One of their key missions and the initial focus of how they began was to encourage women in ski patrol. They wanted to be positive role models and visible to women to encourage more women into a career in ski patrol. This initial work exceeded their expectations and developed into a women-focused program.
The US NSP women specific program looks specifically at aspects that affect women, for example, shorter stature affecting sled handling and routes down the hill, particularly with larger casualties; these are often not just women specific, and things learnt have been used by all, including those with injury and those that are older with lessons learnt about efficient sledding and utilising alternate/modified manual handling practices.
Other ski patrols have a varied ratio of male: female patrollers. None have a specific women-focused program but note a greater female presence recently with the increased presence being welcomed and noted to be an encouraging factor to other female patrollers. Challenges have been and are still present for female patrollers, albeit, felt to be decreasing. Issues noted were abuse, derogatory language, patronising comments and sexist remarks. Some female patrollers at FIPS noted that they had previously felt a need to try to keep up, deal with heavy loads etc for fear of being told that they did not belong or that it would provoke patronising comments. There was a 1:0.8 Male to female ratio in BASP snow patrollers attending FIPS.
BASP would like to encourage equality and diversity within patrolling. For further general information please contact BASP. There are also many videos on women in ski patrol, primarily from the US NSP, on YouTube. Details for the US NSP website, Facebook page and program advisors email are below.
https://www.nsp.org/Web/NSPWebsite/Navigation/Programs/Women-s-Program.aspx
https://www.facebook.com/nspnwp/
Dr Chloé Gelder (BASP Member/Trainer)
