I've heard a lot of skiing stories that end with "dont hit the trees, they always win in a fight". Well, today I accidentally had a small experience with that. The reason why I crashed and burned was that I was trying on a new pair of goggles (they are like swimming goggles in size and shape). They have a slightly too dark tint. It slightly screwed with my depth perception and perception of where the bend was, and it also affected my perception of the steepness of the slope. Together, that was a rather painful combination. To further make matters worse, I had agreed to race down to the bottom (there was no one on the slope ATM). So I was moving, much more than usual. Anyway, due to the above mentioned impairments to my vision, I made a serious calculation error, followed by physical contact with a 4'-5' tall pine sapling followed by the pole for the artifical snow maker. Luckily, the pole was wrapped in padding, and the pine had slowed me down. The odd thing in this story is that I snapped the pine sapling in half. Literally. It wasnt even hanging on by a strip of bark... we are talking about total separation. And the stump was shaped like an ellipse (about twice as wide as it was high), with the major axis 90 degrees off the direction that I impacted at. Of course, I was concerned afterwards as I watched my left leg (I hit on my upper left thigh) twitch erratically. It really freaked out the guy who asked if I was alright. Our conversation went something like this:
Him: "Damn that must of hurt. You alright?"
Me: *moves legs and toes, checking to see if they work* "Yeah, I'm OK" *leg goes into random twitching soon after*
Him: "Why is your leg twitching like that?"
Me: "Well, I did just smack into a fscking pole. But it doesnt hurt so far... its more of numb"
Him: "I'll make sure you can stand up"
Me: "OK"
Two things to note from that conversation. One is that I didnt even notice the damn pine tree impacting. I brought my friends that I was racing by afterwards to show them that I did, in fact, wipe out, hit a pole, and leave a slash in the padding (from my ski). Then I discovered the pine tree sitting in two pieces, along with the packed in snow on the trunk. The second thing is that the fscker never actually helped me up. He just stood there watching me. All this while my left leg was essentially asleep.
Currently my leg hurts like hell, but I now have a story for quite a while, along with bragging rights over my uncle, who often (and always) loses when he gets into an altercation with a tree while skiing.
BTW, seeing as I can walk OK, I'm pretty sure I didnt break anything. I was pretty worried about that, though, prior to getting up.
Him: "Damn that must of hurt. You alright?"
Me: *moves legs and toes, checking to see if they work* "Yeah, I'm OK" *leg goes into random twitching soon after*
Him: "Why is your leg twitching like that?"
Me: "Well, I did just smack into a fscking pole. But it doesnt hurt so far... its more of numb"
Him: "I'll make sure you can stand up"
Me: "OK"
Two things to note from that conversation. One is that I didnt even notice the damn pine tree impacting. I brought my friends that I was racing by afterwards to show them that I did, in fact, wipe out, hit a pole, and leave a slash in the padding (from my ski). Then I discovered the pine tree sitting in two pieces, along with the packed in snow on the trunk. The second thing is that the fscker never actually helped me up. He just stood there watching me. All this while my left leg was essentially asleep.
Currently my leg hurts like hell, but I now have a story for quite a while, along with bragging rights over my uncle, who often (and always) loses when he gets into an altercation with a tree while skiing.
BTW, seeing as I can walk OK, I'm pretty sure I didnt break anything. I was pretty worried about that, though, prior to getting up.
Facebook
Twitter