Frantasmic said:
Two words: pommel lift. I've never met one that I can ride. It looks easy in theory, but my butt apparently doesn't speak pommelese.
Guess mine is language impaired too because I have the same problem!
Okay - a few I came up with. Worst place is Caberfae Peaks in Michigan (although Mt. Brighton, MI is close - my kids have always called it Mt. Sucky so that will give you an idea). We skied Caberfae when they were younger (only once). The lifts have no bars (granted most in MI don't), but go right over a huge glade of pine trees. I was terrified I would fall off, and even more terrified my kids would. All I could think of was bouncing down those trees, or even worse, landing directly on top of one!
One of the lifts also exited fairly steeply and probably 10 feet from the lift was the back of the mountain (pretty much rock and nearly straight down). There was no barrier and once again I was terrified that one of my kids (or I!) would go right over the edge. I just kept thinking lawsuits the entire time we were there (which ended up being a couple hours and mostly in the gift shop and cafeteria!)
Long time ago incident was the first time we took my younger brother skiing at Pine Knob, MI. He was 13 and although he hadn't skied before, quickly took to it and was going fast and doing (small) jumps. Well, he went over one jump and totally wiped out. And laid there. And laid there. Finally we worked our way back up to him and (still laying there), he said in a small voice "Something VERY BAD has happened". Expecting the worst, we asked what. He held up one of his skies, now in two pieces (a rental). We were obviously relieved it wasn't his leg instead. Took it back to the rental shop expecting to pay a ton of money and they were like "Oh, yeah, these skis are ancient. Happens all the time!"
Fantasia - if you don't like falling on your butt, I strongly recommend sticking with skiing instead of snowboarding! HUGE difference in the learning curve. Even after many years of doing both, and considering myself probably a high intermediate in both (no half pipes though!), there's just a big difference in falls. I'd say I never fall more than once a year in skiing (and we probably ski 30+ days) and when you do, you have plenty of warning. You lose your balance, do everything to regain it, and eventually tumble (usually down an advance slope). Snowboarding is the opposite. You're going along a fairly easy slope, everything is great, then BAM - you're looking at the sky from the ground. It's not just me - all my kids snowboard better than I do, yet take serious tumbles frequently (yes, we all wear helmets). Even going up lifts I watch expert looking SB'ers just suddenly wipe out. Only advantage to SB'ing is that your board stays on and you can usually use your momentum to get your board back under you and keep going (while maintaining an "I MEANT to do that" look!) Skiing wipeouts usually result in what we call a "yard sale" with poles and skis ending up in 4 different locations!
Scariest was at Boyne Highlands going up the high speed lift when my youngest was about 4. He was a competent skier, but just too short. On this occasion, we thought we'd pulled him up far enough back onto the seat, but as we pulled away, he slipped off. I was holding him by the arm, but couldn't hold on!
I'm trying to yell back to the lift guy, but he's not paying attention. Finally I had to decide to drop him because we were just getting higher and higher and there was no way I was going to get him back on.
He ended up being fine, but it was a horrible decision to make!!
Oops - one more. Oldest son was racing for one of his first times. He had braces and got a bit too close to one of the gates (poles) which caught him in the mouth. Ended up with his lip caught in the braces. Had to finish the race, then ski to ski patrol where they had to pull his lip out for him - ouch!
Boy - even another one - it's a wonder we keep skiing! Middle DS was at Crystal Mountain, MI for NASTAR regionals - he was about 8. We were staying at the resort and evidently the whirlpool had somehow given him septicemia (sp?) in his finger. He finished racing and his finger was swolen up to about the size of a large hot dog (brat?) and was bright red with tons of pus underneath. Ran him to ski patrol where they kept asking how he'd gotten burned. Insisted he hadn't and they finally conceded it could be a bloodstream infection. But we had to fill out all these forms where they asked us how long he'd been skiing, if they were our skis or rentals, etc., that had nothing to do with the injury. Finally to us to go over to Frankfort ER. This was in the evening by this time during Super Bowl Sunday and DH had to drive him 45 minutes in a blinding snowstorm where they gave him antibiotics and sliced and drained the finger. Next morning it was back to huge again so we packed up and drove the 4 hours home to go to the pediatrician who had to drain the finger again and put him on a different antibiotic. Everywhere we were the entire staff was coming in because they'd never seen anything like this before. Nicely, though, we did receive a cute follow-up card from the ski patrol later that week
!
Should we quit skiing now that we're ahead?
