Sick/Injured During a Ski Trip

This is kind of a downer subject, but it might present the opportunity to share some lessons learned. Do you have stories about getting sick or injured during a ski trip/vacation? What happened and how did you deal with it?

I've been pretty lucky over the years, but a dark cloud hung over a five-night visit I made to Mammoth Mountain in April 2022. Before the trip my wife and I had been exposed to Covid by a close family member who had tested positive for it. I had prepaid for my condo at Mammoth. The family member did not require our assistance and neither my wife or I had symptoms at the start of the trip to Mammoth. The two of us soldiered on and made the 500 mile drive from SLC to Mammoth.

About halfway through the five-night/four-ski-days visit to Mammoth my wife started exhibiting symptoms (sore/horse throat, fever, cough). Covid famously presented itself with strange and varied symptoms. My wife had sharp pains in her abdomen at onset and we though she might be having a gallstone attack. I took her to the Mammoth Hospital, but they couldn't find a good reason for the pain. It went away, but she was pretty miserable with more typical symptoms and a day later tested positive for Covid.

I still had no symptoms and after ensuring my wife was reasonably comfortable I kept skiing for another 1.5 days - not without some guilt. I minimized my trips inside the Mammoth summit gondola to four in three days (and only once after finding out wife was positive). I was alone for one of the gondi rides. I also pulled up my buff whenever riding the gondi or chairs with others.

If the above sounds like a bunch of excuses for continuing to ski and interacting with the public after exposure to Covid, I apologize. I was able to complete the four ski-days I had planned for the trip. But on the return drive to Utah I started exhibiting symptoms too and tested positive for Covid two days after we returned to SLC from Mammoth. It was the first time my wife and I had caught it and you don't realize the dilemma that can be caused by the idea of stopping your life and going into full isolation mode, so I probably didn't strictly follow CDC guidelines. Hopefully we didn't give it to anyone else, particularly the Mammoth Hospital staff.

I had symptoms like a bad chest cold with fatigue, seriously for about 5 days, mildly for about 5 more days. I didn't ski for 9 days, but was able to do light household and yard chores after the first 3 or 4 days. While I was sick with Covid I missed one very good powder day in the Wasatch, but overall I was thankful that our variant of the corona virus wasn't too debilitating.

My April 2022 Mammoth trip report.

I broke and dislocated my collar bone and broke mt thumb in a crash while in the Dolomites back in early 2018.
I look back now and admit that it was stupid to keep skiing. But in my defence I didn’t know the collar bone was actually broken until I got back to Australia. It’s disclosed (at the sternum end) to this day.

I documented our first bout of COVID in March 2023 between Pocatello/Pebble Creek and Big Sky.

My broken rib collision at Mammoth in April 2008 was also detailed here.

I've had two other injuries that ended or interrupted a ski season. I snapped an ACL in 1976 at Mt. Baldy as a beginner. I tore the meniscus in the same knee at Targhee in February 1995, fortunately on the last day of a 5-day trip. As in 2008 I resumed skiing later that season.

Liz has had more major injuries. The broken shoulder at Mt. High in January 2020 was detailed here.

Liz also had a season ending knee injury requiring surgery in Rendezvous Bowl at Jackson in January 2007, before I knew her.

Luckily for me, the only two injuries or illnesses during a ski trip were relatively minor. The seasons that were over 15 days for me have all happened in the last 15 years, after age 50.

Tweaked a calf muscle at Timberline in WV while skiing on a groomer in foggy conditions with a friend who was there for the first time. Was looking back to me sure she was following. We had a slopeside room for 2 nights. I didn't ski the next day, could walk around gingerly when I met her for lunch. Drove home the next day (6 hours), instead of back to the Massanutten timeshare unit I was using as a home base. Went straight to ortho urgent care. The PA was sure the knee was fine (no ACL, not a skiing injury) and it was just a calf strain. Drove back to Mnut the following day because that was a holiday long weekend with plans to ski with my friend's tween. Took is easier the rest of the season. Ironically made my skiing technique better in the long run. if I was dialed in, nothing hurt. If I got lazy, I could feel the call complain.

The season after all of my ski buddies were vaccinated for COVID-19, one of them was exposed just before arriving to join an informal group trip and turned out to be contagious. He tested negative after learning about the exposure. But he tested positive a week later. We were at Taos with about 20 others. Some were better friends than others. Some were sharing rooms, some were not. My friends were all at the Alpine Village Suites, a slopeside lodge. Patient Zero felt tired in the middle of the week. He was in my Private Ski Week with two others and did not skip a lesson (mornings only). He had two bad nights, before and after the day he felt "off." Felt fine afterwards. I had similar symptoms a day later. Was fine after about 36 hours. Same story for a few other people, but not everyone we knew. After he tested positive on the way home the following Monday, most of my friends self-tested and were also positive. By then we were all feeling fine. Felt bad for the oldest (over 70) who had lingering symptoms, mostly fatigue, for several weeks. He was the roommate of Patient Zero.

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MarzNC said:

Tweaked a calf muscle

Click to expand...

I did that by skiing into a dip in bad vis on my first out of 4 days cat skiing at Chatter Creek in 2010. I came to an abrupt halt but not with enough force to eject. Fortunately the calf is well protected in a ski boot so the remaining skiing was not compromised. But walking around the lodge was painful, especially stairs which I had to do sideways. When I left Chatter Creek 3 days later I still had some discomfort but I could walk reasonably.

Somewhat related.
My credit card insurance covers for “on piste” snow sports. I obviously pay the extra for the “off piste” I do in Europe trips. Do I need to pay the extra for my North American trip considering I only ski inbounds?

In my case, the binding popped eventually. Was glad it did because otherwise I think there would've been more damage. Since that was in January, it had an impact on the rest of my season. In some ways provided more incentive to get back to working on ski conditioning during the off season. I'm not only a better skier in 2024, I'm stronger than I was 5-6 years ago. Even though I'm pushing 70.