As the colder weather approaches, so does the winter sports season. And with that season come injuries — and plenty of them. There are an estimated 800,000 injuries reported as a result of winter sports each year.

Take a look at skiing alone. According to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), yearly expenses for medical bills, legal bills, liability, work loss and pain and suffering associated with skiing-related injuries add up to billions of dollars.

So what to do about this phenomenon among skiers?

The AAOS offers the following tips:

• Skiers should ski with partners and stay within sight of each other. If one partner loses the other, he or she should stop and wait.
• At the start of each new day, skiers should take a couple of slow ski runs to warm up.
• Skiers should watch out for rocks and patches of ice on the ski trails and should make adjustments for icy conditions, deep snow powder, wet snow and adverse weather conditions.
• Skiers should stay on marked trails and avoid avalanche areas, such as steep hillsides with little vegetation.
• Skiers should buy boots and bindings that have been set, adjusted, maintained and tested by a ski shop that follows American Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM) standard job practices.
• Skiers should check the binding of each ski before skiing. The bindings must be properly adjusted to the skier's height and weight.
• Skiers should rest when fatigued. Most injuries occur when skiers are tired at the end of the day.