Post Statute of Limitations Confessions.. AKA Stupid Stuff You DId On Skis

[Cheizz]

My 4th week of skiing ever. Although I am doing fine getting down blue and red slopes without too many issues, my in-laws are waiting for me at the bottom of the slope. 'It's nice to have someone wipe out every now and again', they say laughing. And sure enough, right in front of where they're waiting for me - the slowest of the bunch - there's a little patch of scraped-off snow, revealing some icy base. I brake, I skid over the patch, I hit the entire group, and crash into them. All 7 of them go down as dominos.
From now on, they are not mocking me for crashing. From now on, they fear me.

That's how you handle in-laws!

This was in 2011. Since then, they've become my ex-in-laws (nothing to do with this incident or with skiing).

 

[Prosper]

I think it was the ‘99-‘00 season, I was skiing Red Lodge, MT with my family. Everyone was done for the day in the early afternoon. Since I only got to ski a handful of times a year I wanted to ski last chair. IIRC that was the 1st season for the newly opened Cole Creek Drainage terrain. They had just closed the area since it was the end of the day but I wanted to take one more run. I ducked the rope, flew down a completely empty groomer and skied right onto a chair. Thankfully the lift was still spinning. Lifties yelled at me and rightfully accused me of ducking the rope. Got to the top of the lift, skied to the main base and had the best post-ski day burger I’ve ever had. Haven’t done it since and won’t do it again.

 

[Bad Bob]

This is the first I can remember, but over the past 65 years of skiing there have been several. Some involved being right side up, and some not so much.

Back in the stone age (mid 50's) skiing at one of the Cascade areas. I was about 5 years old. Making a run with my Dad and Uncle. They wanted to ski something a bit more exciting than I was capable of so they told little Bobby, ' ski around on the longer beginners trail and meet them where the trails came back together'. Off I go full of kid energy and excitement.
LOOK! There are slalom poles set up, I can do that! After 1 or 2 turns discovered they were hazard markers over a creek. Almost a slalom course. In the next instant I am hanging upside down dangling from my tips and tails (think Goofy in a Disney cartoon) connected by the beartrap bindings. Along comes a very nice man and asks if he can help me out of this pickle? My response was exactly what you would expect.
"No thanks, my Dad will be along in a minute." My Angle stayed with me till Dad got me out of the situation. Of course he shared the tale with Dad and Uncle, it became part of the family lore.

 

[Bad Bob]

1970 or so being upsidedown got a bit more involved than the above experience.
Skiing "Liftline" at Alyeska below the Midway Station. The entrance was kind of like Corbets at Jackson Hole, only there were stumps involved sticking out of the cliff and a chairlift right over the top. In my ski school parka, lining up the entry biffed it and caught an edge went off the cliff sideways; this was not a big thing it was maybe 15' with really deep loose snow below. The problem was I didn't get all the way over the cliff. skiing on something Solomon 505's and their unbreakable nylon run away straps, one ski got caught up in a couple of little stumps and the binding had released. The resulted in me hanging upside down by the run away strap, 8' off the snow, directly under the only chairlift (and half the people I knew in the world), in my ski school parka. A couple of friends finally saved me, had to lower someone down on a rope to release the strap.
Ended up buying a few pitchers that night.

 

[Pequenita]

There's a chance she's had more than one ?

Well, I was the one who got to her first and had the best look at the whole incident (and unclicked her from her skis), and there was nothing about it that looked particularly life-threatening to me, so I thought there was the possibility of another incident.

 

[Yo Momma]

Eons ago I was a beginner skiing for a day at Mt Tom, MA. One of the plastic poma discs was broken into a sharp point.... Yup I got that one and should have let it go but I panicked. I grabbed it put it between my legs like normal, it pulled fwd and ripped the entire crotch right out of my ski pants! Thank goodness "The Fellas Downstairs" remained intact! I felt no pain and was searching for blood as it had ripped out my long-johns as well... I skied back up to my friends Mom's house where we were staying on the mtn, w/ my crotchless setup!!! OMG His Mom could not stop laughing!!! I literally FROZE MY NUTS OFF during that run!

 

[kayco53]

I got yanked around the top terminal bull wheel by my back packs waste strap one time while in patrol uniform.

it scared the crap out of me as for a very brief moment I saw myself dangling below the chair as I went back down the hill. Luckily I hit the safety gate before that happened.

I bought the crew the first pitcher that night after work at the lodge.

Have done the same thing in uniform. Next time the strap got caught I broke the chairlift. Pulled on the pack so hard that the chair swing cut the wires to the safety gate. Fixed the wires before maintance got there so chair could unload and slinked off. Owned it and bought the beer.

 

[johnnyvw]

I think this happened maybe 15 or so years ago. Skiing at Camelback in PA. The center of the runs tend to get pretty well scraped off by noon, so I usually ski along the edges of the runs where the snow gets pushed to. I was skiing down Margie's, and the snowmaking had built up the snow quite a bit, so at the edges there was a drop off to the woods on either side. I managed to hook an edge, and went tumbling down the side of the trail. I came to a stop with my skis caught on a build up of snow and ice, with my head downhill. I tried a few times to release my bindings by hand...no luck. And being down off the side, I was not visible to anyone skiing by. I was thinking to myself "well, this is quite a pickle" LMAO. I finally managed to reach the bindings to release myself. Otherwise I may have been stuck until the spring thaw After that, I started carrying a whistle...you just never know (probably a good idea for anyone skiing alone, anywhere)

 

[graham418]

I have never done anything stupid or dangerous.
Honest Truthful.

 

[dbostedo]

I'd like to participate in this thread more... but I can't think of anything egregious I've done, having not skied very much when I was younger and stupider.

I did watch a friend of mine slowly ski backwards off the side of the run (which was built up through snow-making, so had a sizable drop into the woods) without realizing it. He was talking to me at the time - about how easy it was to learn to ski backwards. I warned him too late to turn back around, not realizing he didn't know the drop was coming. He was thankfully OK though - just a bit bruised from some rocks.

 

[Novaloafah]

Dumb dad moment about 10 years ago skiing with my Board riding oldest kid at our local bump. One of the trails has some of the lift towers in the middle of it. We'd been having a good time chasing each other around the hill (pretty empty weekday) when I decide to out run her to the bottom while treating towers like race gates (never raced in my life so pardon the term). In a glorious look at Dad screw up moment...I came too close too fast but fortunately managed to make a wild manouevre get my arms up so that I just clipped the tower with them as a bumper resulting in what i'm told is a sort corkscrew trajectory to a yard sale.
No real damage fortunately except for my vanity, but the kid got a good laugh once i got up.

 

[Crank]

I tend to learn from my mistakes. From this one I learned to not take my skis off on a slope. I've certainly told this story before and will likely be telling it again in the future.

1984 it was, (no Aldous Huxley reference involved). Tuckerman Ravine was glazed over that cold blizzardy day in May with an impenetrable and super slick crust. Some sort of AMC patrol roaming, ice axe and crampons ,not letting folks, the few foolhardy souls like us, climb all the way up the headwall. Maxed out on available altitude got as far us as we could we put skis on and attempted to sidehill it over to a treed gully between the Headwall and Hillman's Highway. Us thinking the wind may have deposited some snow in the trees. It had not . These trees were super tight and the ground was solid ice and I decided that to thread my way through I would take my skis off and carry them. Bad mistake. Almost immediately I fell on my butt and managed to not be able to grab a tree to stop sliding while at the same time losing my skis and poles which did, somehow, manage to get stopped by the trees.

Emerging from these uncooperative evergreens after just a few yards I gained speed and momentum and slid down another thousand or so feet of steep iced over mountain, bouncing over boulders and brush, clawed my way to a stop... momentarily, and slid another 500 or so feet before stopping. My "friend" no doubt freaked out by this would not carry my gear down to me so I had to kick my way through this unyielding ice crust back up to my skis.

Thinking back I'm really glad this happened when I was young because there is no way I could survive that at 65 without injury!

Lesson learned - Never take them metal edges off yer feet!

 

[crgildart]

First time I decided to venture a little OB I was about 13 years old... headed down the backside of Buck Hill beyond the double at the top before the quad was installed, back in the t-bar days. I had seen what looked like a jump, no sucker tracks though. This was PURE stupidity. I hit the blind jump and directly on the other side was a giant corrugated steel culvert kind of like this sunk in the ground for snowmaking infrastructure I guess.. maybe a foot of the steel showing above ground. I didn't have nearly enough speed to clear it and my tips hit the opposite side and dove down slamming my shins on to the jagged metal edge top rim. Ripped my pants, shins bleeding through them. Took me a good 10-15 minutes to get back up and limp back down to the chalet base lodge.

 

[Yo Momma]

#2 .... Actually #1 ... Snowmass one of my favs... Skied off trail into the woods at almost full speed to take as Phil Liggett (Tour De France) says; " ...A natural break..." The moment I crossed from full sun to full shade the snow grabbed my skis and I double ejected in a Superman dive, head first right into a tree. I remember each arm on either side of the tree trunk as I embraced the tree. BAM!!!!!! I sat there for a moment dazed and confused but thankful for my trusty old Leedom helmet (my ski BFF!). I got up and started doing my business only to notice an older guy about 4 trees over doing his business who had witnessed the entire wipeout. He calmly called over and was like; "That was some dive!!!... You okay?"

I was good, just amazed to find my skis still parallel and stopped like an Equal sign and then the blank snow between there and my point of impact. It was a sad day when I returned home and had to retire my Leedom...

 

[Bill Miles]

Several come to mind:

Riding the old double chair solo at Snoqualmie Summit, somebody got on with me at the mid loading station. I wasn't prepared for the jar as he got on and went shooting off the platform into deep snow.

Trying to impress a gal with a fancy turn, fell and jammed a finger and she skied off.

Skiing Deception at Aspen Highlands thinking new snow covering the moguls would make it easier. Not so. Fell, lost both skis, tumbled quite a ways, and had an exhausting climb back up to my skis.

 

[Shawn]

When you're 12 years old, night skiing, away from adult supervision, when most other skiers on the mountain are kids from other schools, there's a certain pleasure to acting like kids. One of the highlights, in our minds, was we would compete with kids from other schools on the chairs ahead of us or behind us on the lift to see which chair could scream a certain "funny sounding" word the loudest.

 

[tch]

Last year's crash comes to mind...
Was skiing off-piste at Brighton on a sunny day with softening snow. I was totally cool -- until the run funneled into two moguled chutes where the shade had kept the snow icy. Trying to be too careful, I caught a downhill edge and started sliding, picking up speed until I self-arrested ( ) by slamming into a copse of trees. That was stupid enough. But then....

...I decided I could save myself. It took me almost 45 minutes to gather myself (resting every minute or two to catch my breath), find my skis, and posthole down to a blue groomer after which I wobbled down to my car, de-booted, and drove to my daughter's house. Where I spent the next two days lying in bed before flying back east. Home, I went to the doctor: four broken ribs (two detached), a big bone bruise on my right hip, and numerous welts on my extremities with some internal bleeding.

At no point during this ordeal did I think about calling ski patrol for help or stopping at the medical station at the base. DUMB, DUMB, DUMB!

 

[slowrider]

So bunch of us college guys were spring skiing at Bachelor when we found a nice wind drift roller. We all lined up and one at a time hit it. Well John took his turn and being John hit it with speed. Got launched and landed full body slam. He gets up and the Snow is all red. OMG he's bleeding!!! The rest of us ski down to him and it's like are you ok? Call ski.patrol. John's laughing. He landed on his Bota bag full of red wine.

 

[Bill Miles]

One more:

Resisted going from safety straps to ski brakes for a long time.

Fell near the bottom of Aspen Mt., ski windmilled around on the strap and head me on the top of the head (hat, no helmet).

Smarted a bit, but didn't think too much of it until I saw blood dripping on the snow as I was putting my ski.

Next skis had brakes.

 

[crgildart]

So bunch of us college guys were spring skiing at Bachelor when we found a nice wind drift roller. We all lined up and one at a time hit it. Well John took his turn and being John hit it with speed. Got launched and landed full body slam. He gets up and the Snow is all red. OMG he's bleeding!!! The rest of us ski down to him and it's like are you ok? Call ski.patrol. John's laughing. He landed on his Bota bag full of red wine.

Why is that funny? All the wine gone?? That's not funny..