I’ve been a skier for a long time; since I was 12 actually. In fact, my third time ever skiing I got lost in Strawberry Bowl at Snowbasin. This was before they’d expanded for the 2002 Olympics so where I ended up was considered ‘Out of Bounds.’
I knew where I was, so I suppose I wasn’t really lost. However, I was not as skilled of a skier to be where I was that day. I had arrived at my dilemma by zagging when I should have zigged and the friends I was skiing with had no idea I had gone off trail and out of the area. This happened at about 11:30 in the morning. I had to climb through chest deep snow up one hill and down another, then up a draw to reach the ski area again.
Crying most of the way, I didn’t get back inbounds until about 3:30pm. It was a day I’ll never forget. I learned quickly that before I try that again, I probably ought to increase my skill at skiing.
Many years later, I was skiing at another Utah resort. I had found myself in an interesting predicament as I was skiing along a ledge that measured roughly 18 inches wide and dropped off about 100 feet below, not to mention jagged rocks on every side.
I had led a friend on this path and he ended up falling down a rocky slide which broke his bindings and boots. I lost my footing a few moments later and fell backwards into what I thought was oblivion. About 10 feet below the ledge I was on, I felt the very hard surface of a rock in the small of my back that literally bent me backwards in a way that the human body was not meant to bend.
Later on my friend, (or former friend by this point) and I were conversing in the cabin trying to get warm and talk about our day. He pulled an electronic device from his pocket that I thought was a walkman. (What we used to call personal music device’s pre-iPod days.)
Turned out it was a GPS unit. Though I had seen them in stores and on commercials I never stopped to try it out. He let me look at it and serious trouble started when I realized it had a MPH setting which could tell how fast the unit was travelling.
It didn’t take much for the next thought in my mind to be, “I wonder how fast I could get going on ski’s if I went to the steepest part of the mountain, tucked the poles under the arms, and descended?”
Surprisingly, he let me borrow it.
I made my way to the top of the lift. I set the GPS unit to measure speed and began my descent. As I was passing skiers and snowboarders left and right, it occurred that I had better at least ski within enough control that I didn’t kill someone. I didn’t think about myself.
At a couple of points along the route, the hill would seem to drop out from underneath me and I would find myself airborne. When I didn’t land as soon as I thought I should, my arms would begin to do that panic backward circle motion. Finally I would gently come down to earth again and continue on the course.
When I reached the bottom I was proud to see that I had topped 51.7 miles an hour. Nearly 52 MPH on ski’s! Without a helmet no less.
Probably not something I would do again, but I did live to tell about it and I didn’t kill myself or anyone else.
This brings me to why I thought I always wanted to visit Switzerland. (You’re thinking, what does that have to do with your own personal idiocy?)
I read this article yesterday regarding a new program they are starting on the slopes of Switzerland.
The Swiss Ski Patrol, or Gestapo as I’ll call them, are apparently going to hide in the trees with radar guns and measure skiers speed as they go by. They apparently took some ‘crash dummies’ out and conducted ‘tests’ determining that anything over 30kmh is not safe. I’m just sorry that my fond memories of Crash Test Dummies, Vince and Larry have degraded to this.
For those of you not up to speed with your conversion to mph that would be: 19mph. Even better is that if a skier is traveling more than 50kmh (31mph) it is “potentially fatal.”
I’m proud to say I nearly tripled the speed limit in Switzerland as I was traveling 82kmh during my immature and bold display of testosterone on skis.
I now understand the reason that Switzerland is the sissy independent country in the world that doesn’t pick a side. They’ve been too busy babysitting the ski slopes for speeders.
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