OUR MISSION:
Our mission is to promote snow sport safety and awareness through fun, hands on educational programs and events. Our goal is to inspire children and enthusiasts of all ages to explore the beauty of the mountains and ocean, while maintaining a healthy and positive lifestyle.
The Nickolay Dodov Foundation is committed to carrying on Nick’s legacy and spirit with the hope of preventing future accidents.
The Nickolay Dodov Foundation is a registered 501 Non-Profit organization.
www.nickolaydodovfoundation.com
OUR INSPIRATION:
NICKOLAY DODOV
At age three, Nickolay Dodov started skiing. By six and a half, he could handle the runs of his home mountains by himself. At eight, he strapped on a snowboard and fell in love. Nick’s passion led to competition both in Bulgaria, where he was born and lived until age thirteen, and in the United States, after his family settled in the small, mountain community of Bear Valley, California. Eventually, Nick brought his passion and skills to the backcountry, sharing experiences, encouragement and the amazing outdoors with kindred spirits in stunning terrain.
In March of 2012, Nick was killed in an avalanche while snowboarding in Haines, Alaska.The loss of his life has borne the Nickolay Dodov Foundation and prompts us to look with great care and deliberation at snow sports industry safety standards, as well as “the human factor” in extreme sports. We believe that through continuing snow sports safety awareness education, an individual strengthens his or her ability to assess situational safety in snow sports activities.
Nickolay was a beloved son, athlete, teammate, artist and teacher. A shining light with a great passion for life, Nickolay lived with heart. We wish you the same and strive to help provide access to information and skills that will enable you to participate in activities equipped with outdoor readiness.
OUR UPCOMING EVENTS:
With your support, the Nickolay Dodov Foundation will participate in school and mountain-based educational programs focusing on snow sports safety and backcountry avalanche awareness.
*Check our website for additions & updates!
www.nickolaydodovfoundation.com
Events:
*Bear Valley Mountain Safety Week: January 18-24
Snow Sports Safety Talk & Information Booth
at Bear Valley Mountain’s Winter Explosion!
*Avalanche training with Mountain Adventure Seminars.
2nd Annual Nickolay Dodov
SlopeStyle Competition
March 8, 2014
Along with great prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places, there will be a silent auction benefiting the Nickolay Dodov Foundation!
Tax-deductible donations accepted online or at the mailing address below!
Thank you for your support.
PO Box 5035
Bear Valley, CA 95223
209.753.2828
www.nickolaydodovfoundation.com
We presented Nickolay Dodov Foundation at the Annual Winter Fest in Bear Valley Ski Resort, California the weekend of November 29th and 30th, 2013. Thank you to the great team of board members; Joel Barnett, Lauren Schimke, Stephanie Forbes, John Jackson, Cate Wallenfels and Mike Page! Thank you to John Jackson who was signing autographs in support of the Foundation and sharing his love for snowboarding. Great to share the Foundation with so many people and see so many kids’ smiling faces! Thank you for all the love and support! Keep sharing our mission! The Foundation is grateful for all the support!
www.nickolaydodovfoundation.com
Couple of days after the event start snowing
alexnatalianickdodov 
Sending a donation your way ASAP. would love to purchase a tee with Nick’s artwork on it too. See you soon. xoxo. Thea
Thank you Thea
This is excellent. Pls be sure to tap-into and utilize as much as possible the pre-existing sources of information where tens of millions of $’s have already been applied to researching and promoting all forms of skiing safety prevention. Here is a partial list, in order of intensity of research and validity of information: BfÜ (Bureau for the Prevention of Injuries, Switzerland — the Swiss are intense about this because they have the highest per capita participation of all forms of winter sport activity, especially, skiing — and they determined decades ago that skiing-injuries and fatalities effect the GDP of Switzerland: therefore, by aggressively intervening safety prevention-measures into Switzerland, many of which are mandatory, the Swiss economy is bolstered through the work of the BfÜ. BfÜ publications can be obtained from the Swiss Embassy here in the U.S. or from BfÜ in Bern, Switzerland, directly. The info includes topics not only on equipment interventions, but also avalanche safety, etc.); ISSS (International Society for Skiing Safety — a truly international group of fully-focused medical and engineering researchers who have dedicated the focus of their professional careers, pro bono, to improve all forms of skiing safety: Hundreds of papers from ISSS-proceedings are published in ASTM STP’s and can be purchased, on-line through ASTM.); TÜV, Munich (the only independent testing lab in the world that certifies bindings according to international safety standards); ISO (International Standards Organization, Geneva, Switzerland. ISO 9462, 9465, 11087, 8061, 11088 and other international standards form the fundamental basis for equipment-related safety standards in skiing.); ICSS (International Congress on Science in Skiing, centered in Austria: a large group of young medical and engineering professionals researching and promoting all forms of skiing safety — the source of where certain equipment rule-changes arose for the FIS). There are other organizations, too: but those are the main ‘valid’ organizations. The main problem here in North America is that the older-researchers who dominate ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials, NSP (National Ski Patrol), and other such organizations — must ‘move-on/retire’ to make way for new, younger researchers who have new, solid safety prevention-measures that are being blocked by the stubborn-arrogance of the older researchers: they must give-way to the new researchers and new safety measures that will have a positive effect on winter-sport safety. I wish success to this new effort.
🙂 I should add that the sources for information on winter sport safety (above) applies to snowboarding, skiing, snowshoeing, back-country skiing, cross-country skiing, winter mountaineering, etc … (not only to alpine skiing) 🙂 🙂
Hi Rick, thank you very much for your support and for the very useful information. Thank you. Very kind regards Natalia and Alex
You can source (directly) info on avalanche safety (prevention and rescue) from BfÜ in Switzerland, and from members of ICSS in Austria. ICSS is meeting at this moment in St. Christoph/Arlberg. You may consider going to that conference, now.
If you would like to reform North American ‘safety culture’ (that’s the bottom-line problem) — you should lobby to have civil laws changed to ways that are similar in Europe. Presently, civil law culture here is that when there is a ‘safety problem’ — we accumulate ‘a sizeable amount’ of litigation cases that then point toward de facto case-law to ‘scare’ those who are in a position of cause-and-effect involving the safety-issue to ‘be self-compliant’. Here, de facto drives social reform on safety measures: this approach sometimes takes decades to have an ‘effect. In Europe (especially in Germany, Austria and Switzerland) safety standards developed collaboratively by ‘the elders’ often (but not always) becomes adapted as statutory law — thereby becoming preemptive — often (but not always) causing positive safety intervention before-the-fact. This way in Europe is in contrast, socially, to our culture, here, whereby here — the prospect of losing civil-litigation based on accumulated case law serves to scare those who hold the possibility of having related ’cause-and-effect’ into self compliance: the obvious problem with this approach is that the ’cause-and-effect’ action steps take place well after the effect. Case in point — the recent situation with the chemical factory that exploded in Texas … and the recent follow-through articles in NYTimes on how our culture will not self-enforce safety measures until AFTER the fact.
If we change our safety-culture then change our related approach toward preemptive safety standards that are enforced before-the-fact (like elevator regulations and compliance; or like car safety-inspections) — on a national level, then we will start to see real change in our safety-culture as in the way of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. However, as long as we have a lasse fare culture toward this aspect of ‘business’ (business/consumer safety) here in N.A., we will not see meaningful improvement in safety.
That’s my personal opinion on the crux of the situation.
Love you!