Back to the re-cap...My season ended with a dirt bike crash on 6/30, about 8 hrs before I was planning to leave for Tahoe where I was going to ski Squaw on 7/2. With friend following me, I was able to ride dirt bike less than a mile to where it is stored and my car was parked and, after a couple Aleve, drove myself about 2 miles of dirt, then 10+ miles of pavement to nearest Kaiser. I could not keep seat belt on or drive using left hand as both were painful, due to broken, but not displaced clavicle/collarbone and four broken and slightly displaced ribs, all on left side. They gave me a prescription for Norco that I filled and let me drive the less than 10 miles home and had me return in 24 hours for an X-ray. After the X-ray (which my wife drove me to), I returned to urgent care to try to get better meds as I was in a lot of (not unexpected or undeserved) pain. Instead, they sent me to Emergency where I had a vent with suction installed to prevent lung that was separating from chest wall (pneumothorax) from collapsing. I spent my first three nights ever in hospital and was released on 4th of July after being told not to go to altitude for 6 weeks. The entire time standing or walking has been OK, but getting up or down caused a lot of pain to the point where, while in hospital, it took IV morphine and a switch to Percocet to control it. The area in upper chest wall where they put vent was the worst and today is the first day I got out of rented hospital bed in the morning without giving 1/2 a Percocet time to kick in. I think I can now make it on the 3 x 600 mg Ibuprofen they want me to take with meals. The advantage of these are that I can drive during the day which I did not feel comfortable doing on stronger meds and I can have a beer or wine or two in the evening which I did not do with Tylenol and opiod-containing meds.
Really back to the re-cap...51 days plus a 600 vertical foot morning of patch skiing from Carson Pass in June vs. 52 days previous year.
Vertical was 1,161K down 40K from previous year
12 days each Heavenly and Kirkwood
7 days Northstar
4 days Whistler Blackcomb (with new snow every day)
2 days each at Alta (snow started falling on Sat and 20" new by Sun), Bachelor (also new snow, but top never opened), Mammoth, Park City and Squaw
Single days at: Altabird - hiked toward Devil's Castle twice
Mt Baker* - deep new snow, but too warm and crowded
Mt Hood Meadows* - new snow, a lot of wind, top and Heather Canyon not open, but got two laps into Private Reserve
Mt Rose
Sierra-at-Tahoe - another great day here
Stevens Pass*
White Pass*
Notes: *=new to me area. On January 23 I skied untracked at both Northstar and Heavenly.
Besides all the powder days, my other season highlight was having my wife join me at EpicSki Whistler Gathering in March, at Alta in April and for trip to Mammoth for Memorial Day weekend.