Ski Theft, Worth the Worry?

Do skis/ boards get stolen in ski resort towns?  Yes.  Are you likely to get your skis stolen?  No.

 

We at Gravirax heard some concern about skis getting stolen from our rack.  We do encourage people who are worried about their skis being stolen to invest in a bike cable lock and thread it through the rack and their bindings.  Still, we wanted to explore this concern.

 

We reached out to a number of resorts and got data for the past 3 seasons from Breckenridge, Vail, Sun Valley, Park City, Stowe, Crested Butte, and Aspen/Snowmass.  To be fair this is not a robust statistically significant sample size, and if I was doing graduate level research, I would be on my way to a failing grade.  The data gets even worse.  A number of these communities have multiple departments that could take a report of a theft.  For example, in Aspen there is the Aspen Police department, the Snowmass police department, the Pitkin County Sheriff, and Aspen Ski Company.  Any or all of these groups could receive a report of stolen skis.   Am I sure that we managed to get all the data from every possible agency in each town?  No.  And there is even more reason to be suspect of the data, in many cases skis are reported stolen and later found, but the police are typically not informed about skis being reunited with their owner.  Also, I am sure not everyone who has their skis stolen or mistakenly taken reports it to the authorities. 

 

Our analysis has even more flaws.  It seems both Vail Resorts Inc and Alterra Mountain Company really don’t want to share data about total skier visits by resort.  This was particularly surprising with Vail because as a publicly traded company they should be willing to disclose information about their business.  After repeated communication with their investor services it became clear that they would not provide granular data about skier visits by resort.

 

I do have some experience in collecting and analyzing data.  I assumed when I started this project that I would easily be able to get accurate data regarding the number of skis stolen and the number of skier visits per season for the past 3 seasons, take the average of that data and say with a 90% confidence that on any given day you had xxx% chance of having your skis stolen.  Whoops.  That is what assuming will get you.  So, how can I say with confidence that you are not likely to get your skis stolen.

 

I made some assumptions to come to this conclusion and any good analysis will be upfront about their assumptions.

1.      I assumed that most reports of theft went to police departments and not the resort communities, so I limited the reporting data set to city police departments and county sheriff departments.

2.     I made a heroic assumption that the number of skis not reported stolen was about equally offset by the number of skis reported stolen and later recovered ---given the conversations with police departments I heard much more about skis being recovered (typically someone innocently took the wrong skis, and they were returned to the rental company or hotel) so I believe this to be a conservative assumption.

3.     I assumed earlier data about number of skier visits was a useful indicator of skier visits over the past 3 seasons.  Sometimes I was able to find the right data for the right year but often that was not possible.  So for skier visits I took the exact data when I had it and when I didn’t I rounded down data from other years by 15% and used that for total skier visits in an attempt to be conservative.

 

Results

 

 

21-22

22-23

23-24

Average

Breckenridge

52/1.8M=.003%

12/1.8M=.001%

35/1.8M=.002%

.002%

Vail

24/2.2M=.001%

3/2.2M=0%

4/2.2m-0%

0%

Sun Valley

0/450k=0%

1/450k=0%

0/450k=0%

0%

Stowe

3/500k=.001%

4/500k=.001%

3/500k=.001%

.001%

Park City/ DV

31/2.5m=.001%

37/2.5m=.001%

24/2.5m=.001%

.001%

Crested Butte

8/450k=.002%

5/450k=.001%

3/450k=.001%

.001%

Aspen

15/1.5m=.001%

19/1.5m=.001%

13/1.5m=.001%

.001%

Total

 

 

 

.001%

 

 

Across these 7 ski resorts the chances of you getting your ski/board stolen on any given day are about 1 in 100,000.  To be fair some folks are much much less likely to get their skis stolen.  If your skis are in your rack, then on your shoulder, then on your boots and then back to the car your odds of being a victim of ski theft are zero.  There were no recorded cases of ski jacking (ie someone stealing the skis from a person).  If your skis spend hours or days unattended outside of restaurants, bars, etc maybe your risk is 20X higher or 0.02%. 

 

There are a lot of risks you take when you go skiing and riding.  Everything from tearing an ACL on the slopes, getting hit by someone else on the hill, breaking a wrist in the parking lot, hitting a tree or even getting caught in an avalanche.  Yes, it’s even possible your skis might get stolen, but the odds of getting your skis stolen is 4 Sigma event, or in real terms not a risk worth worrying about.