Gore Mtn Jan 17 & 18

Sharon

Sharon

New member
I forgot to carry my camera on Saturday, and it was pretty cold that day anyway, so I didn't take any photos.

We managed to stay warm with Toe Heaters and Hand Warmers, extra layers and balaclavas. We stayed in the woods and kept moving. Everything skied beautifully. I had about 8 people skiing with me until early afternoon. Sadly our friend broke her leg in The Cirque and that killed all buzzes and we did what was necessary to get her to safety. The Gore Mtn Patrol did an excellent job of getting her out of the Pin Ball Alley of that glade (3/4 of the way down). She did a twisting break of her tibia and messed up her knee very badly. She is probably in surgery right now. It's been a rough few days for her.

We managed to salvage the late afternoon after she was in good care on her way to the hospital.

Sunday was a minor, yet sweet powder day.

My friend Eric had never been to Gore and was eager to ski anything and everything that was off-piste. So we did. Here are a few highlights.

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Eric was happy to be skiing with a coupla rippin chicks
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We dragged our snowboarder around with us and he kept up quite well, even through all the schlepping that is required at Gore Mtn
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Eric ripping The High Line
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or is it De Ja Vu
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The Cirque Glade
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Nice! I'm threatening to go up there this weekend for the first time since, euh, :oops: 2002. If I play my cards right, I may get Harvey's homer tour.
 
Definitely go. It is fully open and there are some really sweet glades.

They mowed down every mogul except on Sagamore (kinda) and some on the bottom of lower Rumor. Other than natural bouldery trails like Double Barrel and Dark Side, the run under the Straightbrook quad below Hawkeye, there aren't any real mogul runs to speak of. Lies was groomed smooth, and it was fast and fun...but overall the trails were flat and fast and due to the cold, made no sense for us to go anywhere but in the woods to keep warm. We skied a glade every run and never repeated each day (except when we had to circle back into The Cirque to get help to our friend).

Oh, btw, The Cirque had a few places that were worn down to rock. I enjoyed the challenge of hopping through without hitting any rocks or sticks, but for anyone without these skils, could mean ski damage.

We never waited on a lift line all weekend. There was a line at the Gondi after we went through the first time in the morning, but we pretty much walked right through the corral at 8:30, but by 10 we had heard it was backed up. Everywhere else on the mountain was pretty much "ski up to the lift".

OH, and we discovered that taking Hedges from Burnt Ridge to Tahawus Glade was far superior to skiing out Echo to get out of there. It is also far superior than taking Tahawus to Tahawus Glade (there's a bit of an uphill trudge to get in there, which is more work than skiing there from Burnt Ridge).
 
I am so sorry to hear about your friend. That is just awful.

Do you think her injury was cover (or lack of cover) related? Was she dodging something?

Great report and photos. You can probably imagine my reaction to it. Yowza :!:
 
Harvey44":1a56tqsb said:
I am so sorry to hear about your friend. That is just awful.

Do you think her injury was cover (or lack of cover) related? Was she dodging something?
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She said she never hit anything. She said her leg went one way and her body the other. Sometimes, if a person gets scared or nervous, they don't make good quick decisions and this kinda thing happens. The Pinball Alley in The Cirque has some steep and tight sections and I think it made her nervous and indecisive.

A week earlier another friend of mine was trying out glades for the first time. She's a solid intermediate skier, but has fear issues and is generally a nervous person, but she wanted to get over her anxiety and ski in the woods. She did really well the first few runs in the easy glade. Then we took her to a glade that was a little skied off and icy and she didn't make quick and decisive decisions and ended up skiing into a tree. She was ok, just bruised. But she knew what the problem was immediately. She knew the problem was more in her head than anything and that is what steered her wrong.

2 weeks in a row I had friends follow me into the woods and get injured....so on Sunday I took a stance and told people not to follow me (except Pam, Eric and Kelly). I feel badly enough as it is. I don't want any more injured friends and will try to keep this from happening on my watch by not encouraging them to follow me.
 
i believe skiing is so rewarding because it's so much about conquering your fears and trusting your abilities to "let it ride" through the wobbles.. conversely, if you mentally psyche yourself out, you get in trouble quickly.

off piste certainly isn't for everyone. best wishes to your friend on their recovery. props to them for trying
 
Sharon":24yff1cf said:
2 weeks in a row I had friends follow me into the woods and get injured....so on Sunday I took a stance and told people not to follow me (except Pam, Eric and Kelly). I feel badly enough as it is. I don't want any more injured friends and will try to keep this from happening on my watch by not encouraging them to follow me.
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That's the whole thing with social skiing. Very hard to get people who are on the same page, with skills, attitude and desire. The Westies ski with the same basic group (+/-) all the time and they know each other well. Seems like a great situation to me.

I can see how Sharon could be put in a tough spot. She's very social and friendly, but is also an ski-addicted ripper, who wants to challenge herself.

Hey Sharon...were the water crossings in Cirque frozen over?
 
Harvey44":g0ltyqyk said:
Sharon":g0ltyqyk said:
2 weeks in a row I had friends follow me into the woods and get injured....so on Sunday I took a stance and told people not to follow me (except Pam, Eric and Kelly). I feel badly enough as it is. I don't want any more injured friends and will try to keep this from happening on my watch by not encouraging them to follow me.
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That's the whole thing with social skiing. Very hard to get people who are on the same page, with skills, attitude and desire. The Westies ski with the same basic group (+/-) all the time and they know each other well. Seems like a great situation to me.

I can see how Sharon could be put in a tough spot. She's very social and friendly, but is also an ski-addicted ripper, who wants to challenge herself.

Hey Sharon...were the water crossings in Cirque frozen over?
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Water crossings are frozen, but be sure to take the high line, as the lower line is still a tad wet on the first crossing. The others are just whoop-d-doos...and watch the whoop-d-doo getting out of Twister Glade onto Echo.

We had a group of 10 at the time and 4 of them decided to tale the groomer around and meet us. She could have chosen the other route with the others, however, she wanted to challenge herself, though I believe her confidence was lacking. A few of us were talking about what happened, and it seemed that she was nervous and uncertain but decided to go anyway. Since I had only been in the glade once before this season, a full month ago, I didn't remember how difficult it was, just remember it being a really cool glade and was psyched to be there again. I'm sure that energy pulled her in, and for that I feel responsible.

Her surgery is scheduled for Friday in Rochester. I'm going over to her place in a little while to keep her company and see if she needs anything.
 
Just visited my friend who broke her leg, made her some lunch and did a few things to help her out.

She told me what happened...she hit a rock and it grabbed her ski and the binding didn't release and her knee twisted and fractured her tibia. She said she was fine in there and was just trying to pick her way through. She didn't feel as though she was in over her head.

She is going to have it repaired on Friday and the prognosis is good. She'll be walking within 12 weeks (probably sooner) and she plans to ski next season. She is also planning on having her bindings checked. She said they have never released before.

Getting bindings checked annually is probably a good idea yet I bet most of us don't do it frequently enough.

I used to have mine checked once a year when I would bring them in for the end-of-season tune, however, now Bubba tunes my skis, so that doesn't happen.

At least my bindings were newly mounted this season on my current skis, so they are fine...the others should probably be checked.

Anyone interested in a condo in Breckenridge for 8 days for $600? She has to cancel her trip :(
 
Sharon":3mh7fdk5 said:
...she hit a rock and it grabbed her ski and the binding didn't release and her knee twisted and fractured her tibia.

She is also planning on having her bindings checked. She said they have never released before.

Anyone interested in a condo in Breckenridge for 8 days for $600?
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Sounds like it's not as bad as it could have been. That's a small relief.

I don't currently ski on releaseables. That's scary enough.

Skiing on something you are EXPECTING to release, that doesn't release. Ouch. How old is the setup? So somebody overestimated her aggressiveness and it didn't release, or it was never set at all? Yikes.

I know a guy who moved out to Breck for the winter. I'll pm him to see if he knows anyone.

Oh yea ...I wish I had a Bubba.
 
Harvey44":y78xevbi said:
Oh yea ...I wish I had a Bubba.
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Everyone wishes they had a Bubba.

I'll be leaving him for 2 weeks to ski in Utah...I'm sure others will be bugging him to tune their skis and such...he doesn't do binding release checks.

and as far as my friend's bindings go...she's lost a lot of weight over the last few years and I bet since she had her bindings mounted originally maybe 3 years ago (at least) she's lost 10-20 lbs.
 
Sharon":3d5dsy05 said:
She told me what happened...she hit a rock and it grabbed her ski and the binding didn't release and her knee twisted and fractured her tibia.

She'll be walking within 12 weeks (probably sooner)
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Oy, that brought back my tibia episode -- sorry, if you've heard this war story before. January 2003 right after a top-to-bottom rain/freeze event. I was at Snowbasin, where six inches of light snow fell on top of hockey-rink ice. While watching a friend scratch down a steep pitch in Middle Bowl, I traversed from a cat track into an ungroomed section. Not paying attention to what was ahead of me, I skied right into an ice shelf. I pitched forward, but not enough for the bindings to release. Goodbye tibia. They checked my bindings (set only at 6!) at the base, and nothing was wrong with them.

I have no idea what's going on with your friend's Fx, but mine took much longer to heal than the broken femur I incurred nine months earlier. I was on crutches for almost four months and then a cane for another six weeks. Really sucked.
 
My condolences. Adam reports that Molly (who had ACL replacement last March) was skiing deep powder at Grands-Montets in Chamonix all day long today. Patrick and I can only imagine... :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
 
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