While I like to think of myself as an unstoppable force on skis, it turns out I’m no match for an immovable object. My “adult” ski season this year met an untimely demise near the end of the day on January 22 when, on a bushwacky gravity traverse at Bohemia, I hooked a ski under a submerged, but securely-cemented-into-the-snow tree branch, and came to an immediate dead stop, in non-releasable bindings, from somewhere between 5-10 mph. The results? my first orthopedic injury in 36 years of skiing, specifically: a grade-II MCL sprain (“moderately high-grad tearing”), meniscocapsular sprain peripheral to the body of the meniscus, a deep fissure in the patellar cartilage, and moderate strain of the hamstring tendon.
After about a month off of skis, I was able to get back to skiing (parallel turns only, no tele) the local molehills with my daughter (she turned 5 at the end of January and, much to her mother’s horror, is now really ripping it on the groomers), but decided to skip two tentatively-planned western trips, and any additional weekends on the U.P.
The totals:
5 MRG,
2 Bohemia,
Somewhere between 15 and 20 (I lost count) on the local molehills with my daughter.
Due to my injury, my “adult” ski-day total this season (7), is by far my worst season since 05-06, the year my daughter was born. On the other hand, I have really been pleasantly surprised by how much fun I have had skiing with my little girl, and I did do more of it this year because I didn’t head west.
At this point, even with a healthy knee, I’d be done with skiing for the season anyway (this weekend will be the last lift-served skiing in the region), as the short regional whitewater season has begun. The creeks around Lake Superior have started to run and the water will only last until late May or early June. I got in two class III-IV warm-up runs last Saturday on North Shore just outside of Duluth and am now thinking of the lingering snow pack in the Superior basin only as water in reserve for the ongoing runoff.