Pajarito-Bred
New member
BC received about 7" of new snow this week, on top of a good base, and the morning sun promised to yield to a bit of fresh by the end of the day.
We started off riding up the two snazzy new access quads, which deposited us at at the top of Strawberry Park for a warm-up cruise on sone fresh cordurouy. I can think of many, many places where Vail Associates could have spent their chairlift dollars more wisely- Chairs five or ten at Vail, maybe.
Athough a bit of three-day-old snow on top of aging, toothy bumps left us looking for a few more cruisers, none of the classic steeper groomers (Harrier, Golden Eagle and Raven Ridge) had been touched. We headed up the Grouse Mountain quad to explore and found some nice soft snow on the bumps off to the left of the ridge. The lower part of Raven ridge required a little change in technique-- The newer snow was piled here and there, with old groomer ice in between.
Next we headed up to explore one of my favorite 8 bump runs at BC, goshawk. It typically has well-preserved snow, and is steep at the top with lower-angle moguls near the bottom that ski fast and fun! On this day, however, the Goshawk field was very firm adn ridgy, with piles of newer snow stacked randomly around. I didn't feel consistenly in my comfort zone, came out of a turn, failed to get onto the next one, and accelerated across the hill to stop for a break. then I heard and felt a *twink* in my right (downhill) knee. I came to a stop and sat down in snow, and (reportedly) let out a red-hot blue descriptive terms to express my frustration. I've skiied in far nastier moguls than those before, without being thrown out my comfort zone like that. I 'll have to rationalize all this some more- but not here-
After a few long minutes pressed to the snow with varying degrees of dizziness, I traversed gingerly acoss the troughs and peaks, into the trees, over to the groomer next door. After hanging out in the lodge ar Red Tail Camp for a while, my ski buddies arrived after a couple of great runs without me, for lunch.
Naturally the smart thing to do in this situation is to visit the ski patrol hut for ice and advice. Or I could just ski groomers the rest of the day, since it didn't hurt tooooo much. I guess I ain't smart enough to choose option one. The next day, it was more swollen and sore, and skiing on it didn't seem fun or smart- especially since the plan was for A-basin, and the steeps of Pali would be off limits on account of the knee.
I was leaning back a bit at the time I felt the twinge (*snap* just seems too cruelly descriptive) and felt a bit of pain on the outside of my knee, not in the center where the ACL is supposed to be. I'm not aware of any twisting motion at the time of the (oh****)!
I'll have it checked out by the Dr. first thing tomorrow-- but I did some research online that helped reassure me that what I did to my knee was not as bad as it could have been. I'm still able to wander around, it doesn't really hurt toooo bad, and didn't swell up right away. So my string of skiing injury-free ends, after 37 years. Considering I survived cable bindings, primitive Salomon 202's and 444's (not to mention the 727's) and my entire teenage years without injury, I'm still pretty lucky.
and more importantly, we were staying at the condo of a enthusiastic skiing friend who had skiied his last run two years ago after a very short retirement- and passed away last year, leaving his condo full of his old and new skiis, photos, and memories, it would feel ridiculous to even complain at all.
I have quite a few friends who've been through all this knee stuff before and came through it well, which is encouraging. We'll see what the Dr. says about what I gotta do to re-habilitate myself, and what is to beocme of the rest of my ski season.
We started off riding up the two snazzy new access quads, which deposited us at at the top of Strawberry Park for a warm-up cruise on sone fresh cordurouy. I can think of many, many places where Vail Associates could have spent their chairlift dollars more wisely- Chairs five or ten at Vail, maybe.
Athough a bit of three-day-old snow on top of aging, toothy bumps left us looking for a few more cruisers, none of the classic steeper groomers (Harrier, Golden Eagle and Raven Ridge) had been touched. We headed up the Grouse Mountain quad to explore and found some nice soft snow on the bumps off to the left of the ridge. The lower part of Raven ridge required a little change in technique-- The newer snow was piled here and there, with old groomer ice in between.
Next we headed up to explore one of my favorite 8 bump runs at BC, goshawk. It typically has well-preserved snow, and is steep at the top with lower-angle moguls near the bottom that ski fast and fun! On this day, however, the Goshawk field was very firm adn ridgy, with piles of newer snow stacked randomly around. I didn't feel consistenly in my comfort zone, came out of a turn, failed to get onto the next one, and accelerated across the hill to stop for a break. then I heard and felt a *twink* in my right (downhill) knee. I came to a stop and sat down in snow, and (reportedly) let out a red-hot blue descriptive terms to express my frustration. I've skiied in far nastier moguls than those before, without being thrown out my comfort zone like that. I 'll have to rationalize all this some more- but not here-
After a few long minutes pressed to the snow with varying degrees of dizziness, I traversed gingerly acoss the troughs and peaks, into the trees, over to the groomer next door. After hanging out in the lodge ar Red Tail Camp for a while, my ski buddies arrived after a couple of great runs without me, for lunch.
Naturally the smart thing to do in this situation is to visit the ski patrol hut for ice and advice. Or I could just ski groomers the rest of the day, since it didn't hurt tooooo much. I guess I ain't smart enough to choose option one. The next day, it was more swollen and sore, and skiing on it didn't seem fun or smart- especially since the plan was for A-basin, and the steeps of Pali would be off limits on account of the knee.
I was leaning back a bit at the time I felt the twinge (*snap* just seems too cruelly descriptive) and felt a bit of pain on the outside of my knee, not in the center where the ACL is supposed to be. I'm not aware of any twisting motion at the time of the (oh****)!
I'll have it checked out by the Dr. first thing tomorrow-- but I did some research online that helped reassure me that what I did to my knee was not as bad as it could have been. I'm still able to wander around, it doesn't really hurt toooo bad, and didn't swell up right away. So my string of skiing injury-free ends, after 37 years. Considering I survived cable bindings, primitive Salomon 202's and 444's (not to mention the 727's) and my entire teenage years without injury, I'm still pretty lucky.
and more importantly, we were staying at the condo of a enthusiastic skiing friend who had skiied his last run two years ago after a very short retirement- and passed away last year, leaving his condo full of his old and new skiis, photos, and memories, it would feel ridiculous to even complain at all.
I have quite a few friends who've been through all this knee stuff before and came through it well, which is encouraging. We'll see what the Dr. says about what I gotta do to re-habilitate myself, and what is to beocme of the rest of my ski season.
