And Jack came tumbling after...
SAM and I got back from a quickie ski weekend in Utah. Saturday at Alta, Sunday at Snowbird. The snow was cruddy by Utah standards, but still considerably nicer than the wet heavy stuff we get on Mt. Hood. In retrospect, I really wish we'd flown in Friday night so we could get a full night's sleep at elevation. Getting less than 4 hours of sleep (1.5 of which were on the early morning flight), going from sea level up to a base of 8K, top of the lift 10K? This doth not a happy acclimated Diane make. Urk.
In lieu of lugging my own beginner skis alone, I decided to leave them behind and rent some Demo skis. Saturday I was on some Volkl midrange skis that were nice and light and very nimble. Alta was a lot of fun, I have to say it their "skiers only" edict is kinda nice. Mt. Hood is so heavily dominated by boarders that getting on and off every lift is a big obstacle course. We did lots of blacks and tree runs and generally had fun poking around. On Sunday, I ended up with a too-long pair of K2s that were big heavy pigs. It felt like twice the usual effort to haul them around turns, tips sagging and tails dragging. Runs that should have been normal felt like twice the work, and I was certainly not skiing my best.
Which brings me to my next point. Unlike the vanity trail ratings that you might see at other ski resorts, Snowbird means serious business when they mark terrain as a double-black diamond. SAM and I swooped up to the edge of a steep couloir and faffed around for a while deciding whether we were up to it or not. We'd both done similarly steep runs, except this had a fairly tight entry at the top because of certain rocks and obstacles to get around. Ever optimistic and tending towards the "Aw hell, what's the worst that could happen?" mindset, I decided to launch off before I lost my nerve. I somehow fumbled the very first turn 15 feet from the top, and slipped and fell. And fell. And fell.
Unlike every previous crash where I've slid to a stop within a few feet, on this steep slope I just picked up speed and kept on going. After what seemed like a very long time in various positions (feetfirst headfirst bellyup facedown) and lots of cussing ("oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck") and repeated prayers ("please no rocks! please no trees! please no cliff!") the slope finally flattened out a bit and I was able to claw myself to a stop. Thankfully all in one piece, with nothing more than a few vague sore spots. Whew.
Some much more highly skilled skiers were kind enough to fetch me my skis and poles from various points along the trajectory. And so I rested where I'd landed, scooping snow out of various bodily crevices, and waited for SAM. He dropped into the bowl and then proceeded to do exactly the same thing that I'd done. I'm sure watching my performance didn't help his psychological state any, so he hesitated and lost control.
Fortunately he, too, was mostly fine, though much more emotionally rattled by the experience than I was. Granted, it was scary, but I'm not as traumatized by these sorts of things I guess. I mean, it was pretty scary in the moment but once I got to the bottom and knew I was uninjured, I felt fine about it. I certainly won't attempt another run like this without more experience and especially without being fully comfortable with my equipment.
We spent the last few runs of the afternoon licking our wounds and trying to get back in the saddle again. We managed to end on a good note, and then limped on home. I had far too much pork loin with mole sauce, followed up with a nice long hot bath involving epsom salts, and then a very early bedtime at 10pm.
Looking at the trailmap, I'm guessing it was somewhere between 400-500 feet of slip-and-slide. Trajectory is in red:
In lieu of lugging my own beginner skis alone, I decided to leave them behind and rent some Demo skis. Saturday I was on some Volkl midrange skis that were nice and light and very nimble. Alta was a lot of fun, I have to say it their "skiers only" edict is kinda nice. Mt. Hood is so heavily dominated by boarders that getting on and off every lift is a big obstacle course. We did lots of blacks and tree runs and generally had fun poking around. On Sunday, I ended up with a too-long pair of K2s that were big heavy pigs. It felt like twice the usual effort to haul them around turns, tips sagging and tails dragging. Runs that should have been normal felt like twice the work, and I was certainly not skiing my best.
Which brings me to my next point. Unlike the vanity trail ratings that you might see at other ski resorts, Snowbird means serious business when they mark terrain as a double-black diamond. SAM and I swooped up to the edge of a steep couloir and faffed around for a while deciding whether we were up to it or not. We'd both done similarly steep runs, except this had a fairly tight entry at the top because of certain rocks and obstacles to get around. Ever optimistic and tending towards the "Aw hell, what's the worst that could happen?" mindset, I decided to launch off before I lost my nerve. I somehow fumbled the very first turn 15 feet from the top, and slipped and fell. And fell. And fell.
Unlike every previous crash where I've slid to a stop within a few feet, on this steep slope I just picked up speed and kept on going. After what seemed like a very long time in various positions (feetfirst headfirst bellyup facedown) and lots of cussing ("oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck") and repeated prayers ("please no rocks! please no trees! please no cliff!") the slope finally flattened out a bit and I was able to claw myself to a stop. Thankfully all in one piece, with nothing more than a few vague sore spots. Whew.
Some much more highly skilled skiers were kind enough to fetch me my skis and poles from various points along the trajectory. And so I rested where I'd landed, scooping snow out of various bodily crevices, and waited for SAM. He dropped into the bowl and then proceeded to do exactly the same thing that I'd done. I'm sure watching my performance didn't help his psychological state any, so he hesitated and lost control.
Fortunately he, too, was mostly fine, though much more emotionally rattled by the experience than I was. Granted, it was scary, but I'm not as traumatized by these sorts of things I guess. I mean, it was pretty scary in the moment but once I got to the bottom and knew I was uninjured, I felt fine about it. I certainly won't attempt another run like this without more experience and especially without being fully comfortable with my equipment.
We spent the last few runs of the afternoon licking our wounds and trying to get back in the saddle again. We managed to end on a good note, and then limped on home. I had far too much pork loin with mole sauce, followed up with a nice long hot bath involving epsom salts, and then a very early bedtime at 10pm.
Looking at the trailmap, I'm guessing it was somewhere between 400-500 feet of slip-and-slide. Trajectory is in red: