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Stowe, Saturday, March 7th, 2015 Groomers, woods and a spectacular crash

billski

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Parking has become a real PITA, since they shut down the area over at Spruce. Cars line the roads by 10am. Anyways, we get an early start, so we always get a desirable spot. Who cares. It's all about the skiing.

Started the day at minus 12. Met another cast of usual suspects. Did a few runs off the gondi, some little fun spits of woods here and there. Went inside to see some of the injured reserve on the (bar) bench. Felt really bad for these guys, but they come anyways. Spit off from the groomer aficionados and hit the bench and angel food. The top was another PITA for two old guys, but then it mellows out about 1/3 of the way down. We tortured ourselves for three runs in there, then went in for some liquid refreshment.

Met up with a pro Ski Cross champion friend and hit the slopes with her. This kid can smoke. People say we ski fast, but this is the difference between a Gulfstream jet and a fighter jet. In freaking credible. She pulled away from us like we were snowplowing or something. We stood on a lip on top of Hayride. By the time she was 20-30 seconds from blastoff, we could not spy her anymore. She was very kind to wait for us.

We of course we used this as an excuse to fire up the afterburners. Still couldn't even come close to catching her. No matter how fast we were, she kept pulling away. Then came the crash. My long timer ski bud and I were flying mach schnell. He was traversing the hill right to left, and I left to right. I was up hill of him, hit some chatter and slid right into him. I'd say each of us was at about 30 mph. My skis met his bindings, he flew into the air with a double eject, and I was down, out of my binding sliding, sliding, sliding, faster faster, faster. I was doing cartwheels on my stomach. Or back. or both. Anyways. I was way, way down the hill from my equipment. Both of us were fine, as was the equipment, but apparently the whole thing was pretty spectacular to watch. Everyone that came over to attend to us figured there must have been major, major carnage. After a lot of help to rescue our equipment, we snapped back in and skied down to where our skier cross friend was waiting. She had stopped to wait for us, and didn't see the instant of collision, but said that it was quite dramatic and quite scary to watch. And she was so freaking far away that she wasn't even sure it was us, but figured so when we had not come down for a while. She kept talking about it the rest of the day. I would have loved to see the movie.

Some general photos for the uninitiated.

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more to follow...
 

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billski

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smores

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Kickin' back on the Gondi. Gotta love these low liftline days. By 1pm the crowd had pretty much disappeared. It was ski on to the Forerunner. Imagine that on a Saturday. We've had a pretty blessed year of good fortune.
 

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mulva

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Damn cool that you're okay! I've been at Stowe the past 2 days. I thought I saw you on Goat with 2 others early this afternoon. Just judging by the avitar pic. I had a rough go at that trail today on brand new skis, my wife and kid fared much better :) Anyway, glad you and your friend are alright!

- Tom
 

deadheadskier

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Very lucky. I had a similar crash with a friend in high school only I was the downhill skier. The damage was a dislocated shoulder, fractured C7 and some short lived nerve damage. Ski season ended for me that day.
 

billski

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Damn cool that you're okay! I've been at Stowe the past 2 days. I thought I saw you on Goat with 2 others early this afternoon. Just judging by the avitar pic. I had a rough go at that trail today on brand new skis, my wife and kid fared much better :) Anyway, glad you and your friend are alright!

- Tom
Hey Tom, Ha! I left a note in the "trips" section of this forum just to let anyone who cares know I was going. I don't think anyone uses it. It was a fine day, started off cold, but the sun broke through, with no wind, it was awesome. Would have been fun to meet you. We usually hang at the Midway bar afterwards, and sometimes during the day.

Liftline was the trail where we had our little spill. And I'm not talking about beer!

BTW, the food at Picasso was very good this weekend.
 

Warp Daddy

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Bill first of all GLAD u r OK !!!! damn that is a scary impact. I understand your zest for letting em run and share that same insanity :dunce: btw it is a good insanity IMHO . My buddy a former Dartmouth racer and i were letting em run friday and yesterday and according to my Snow trace app. were hitting 55 but the conditions were primo and not much skier density at Titus either of those days


But last Saturday ,My son and i were at Whiteface an d altho i ski fast for an old fart i couldnt catch him either ,and it NCAA eastern regionals that day so the Mtn was crowded and i saw a similar impact about 5oo or so ft ahead of me just beneath thelip of a headwall ,....scary stuff, takes lots of Advil , Icy Hot , Tiger Balm and good hootch to shake that stuff offf.... Again glad ur OK

I know u got skillz brother and i also know how much ulove this stuff so i ain't gonna preach at ya :thumbup:. just ENDURE. Brotha!!!

Vibes
W
 

bigbog

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Billski, billski, billski....can't take you anywhere bill!;-)...others must've thought of it as somekind of company brand binding or helmet demonstration.... Beautiful pics though....think I should get my butt over there while the conditions don't get too solid.....
*Sentence structure is reading pretty clear Bill(ie non-Scottyskis-ish).. so it seems like you came out of the day without major head damage.
 
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