It has been an unusually hot month and snow has been scarce, fortunately snow has come and I will be skiing with one of my good friends at Sugar mountain on Friday. Until then enjoy some lovely picture of Snowshoe's slops taken a couple of weeks ago and this brief report (*it was not posted on the internet because I did not submit it)...enjoy Kasey B!
Skiers Beware!
I was skiing at Snowshoe during New Year’s holiday and the weather was mixed. The first 2 days of my 7, were hot and it even rained. The weekend was a drag to ski in. Fortunately, as you can probably see from the pictures above, on Sunday it snowed and from then on it was great condition to ski with until I left on Thursday. That is not say it was not a dangerous time.
I relish skiing in terrain parks; it is what I am good at! Moreover, Snowshoe has plenty of professional terrain park jumps. These jumps are at least 7 ft gaps and had 50 ft lead-ins. It is extremely dangerous out there, Snowshoe has at least 7 full time medics and ski parole on the terrain parks at all time. There is a reason for all this staff out there and I found out first hand. I was standing at the top of the lead-in waiting for my turn to drop in; when I saw a boy (about 13-14 years old) ski down with his father and go over a 10 ft jump. As I watched, I saw this boy lose control in the air and badly hit the ground. The people at the top next to me gave the appropriate “Ooohhh, that must of hurt that little dude” expressions. After about 2 min, it was my turn and I leapt off towards the jumps! As I approached the jump where the boy wiped out on, I slowed down. As I came over the jump, I saw the boy on the ground 40 ft away from me with a medic and his fatter. The boys skies were right in front of me so I then picked up the skies and circled behind the father, boy and the medic. As I took off my red tinted goggles I realized what was on the snow, it was Blood. The boys head was bleeding and the medic was screaming at the father not to move or touch him because his back could be broken. As I stood in shock staring at them, the medic yelled into his walkie-talkie saying, “Get me an Air-E-Vac! I have kid with a serous head injury with some possible head trauma; he may also have a broken spine.” At that moment, I realized something, if the boy indeed had a spine injury it would probably be higher up on the spine since he had a head injury. If this were correct that would mean he might never be able to walk again.
During my time at Snowshoe, I saw many broken bone in the terrain park (and even helped one person). I would even admit it was rather weird walking though the town square of Snowshoe looking at the numerous people with arm slings and leg casts.
So folks, here is what you should learn, DON’T do things that are out of your skiing range. I have managed to stay injury free in my skiing life (knock-on-wood) by doing a few simple practices. Those practices are, judging jumps before I hit them, carefully assessing terrain, skiing with-in my limits and most important thing of all...Quit when I start felling tired. If you do those four things, you will dramatically decrease your chances of injury.
Be well folks,
Sincerely your skiing pal,
Kasey B
