Heels over Head

What a day this was setup to be. It started off by making contact with the rents a couple of times and finding out that the road had been opened and they were setting off. It then turned slightly downhill when my boot liner for my right foot refused to go in and took me forever to sort out both at the lodge and at the ski hill.

When i did finally get underway i just went for a nice easy run and saw on the way up the Deer chair a run which had hardly been touched, covered in powder - i had to lay my mark so i went down skiing what can only be described as heaven!

With air temperatures around -20C without wind chill i warmed up before lessons started in the Day Lodge.

Anyway lessons got underway with Simon as Colleen was ill, which was awesome cos i really like his teaching style. We skied powder and trees all morning - beautiful!
Just before lunch though the day changed for good. We were travelling along a traverse to get to a run, but it is very rocky in places - skis and rocks dont miss btw so i tried to avoid one particular patch. This is where it went wrong; badly wrong, although my memory of the event is vague i have been told that i tried to get back onto the traverse path but never made it! Instead i went backwards down what was described as a very steep slope, the first thing that came inton contact with this slope was my head or helmet and then i somersaulted backwards losing a ski in the process again smashing my head on the snow. I then ended up lying faceup in the snow not at all with it; i briefly tried getting up and realised i couldn't - that was when my instructor became alittle worried and rapidly came and joined me. After doing the first aid course at the weekend i realised that i had suffered big concussion and was entering shock - not good, i was also very concerned over my neck and back.
This meant that the next 40 mins were taken up by ski patrol being called and them placing me on a spinal board and into a sleigh (better known as a blood wagon!). I then endured a 10 min ski down the mountain in the freezing cold and wet and before i knew i was being lifted into the back of an ambulance. From here i was carted to hospital to be checked over and xrayed. Nothing happens rapidly over here and the hospital was no different. Fortunately about 3 hours later i had the all clear and was picked up by Jenny our ski host and taken home to the lodge with no more than a raging headache!

I made a call to the rents and agreed to meet them for dinner. We did a little shopping and returned to their hotel for a very hot indian where i relayed the days events to the rents as mum looked on in disbelief! Oh the things parents think you are doing when you aint!
Anyway good to see the rents and looking forward to skiing with them tomoz.

Laters peps - my head hurts it needs a rest!