What is your most irresponsible skiing moment?

[Nick]

Don't incriminate yourself or anything, but have you ever done something skiing and thought afterwards, "That was really stupid"?

For me, It was when I was younger (maybe 14 ?) and flew over a blind drop, literally sailing over a young girl's head. she was skiing with her dad and was probably six or seven years old.

He came over and started screaming at me. I apologized and we parted ways. Luckily, there was no accident, but I probably could seriously have injured her. I consider it now to have been childhood stupidity, but even then I knew I had made a big mistake.

 

[ScottySkis]

Getting lost in the glades at Killington and walking 4 hours to the main road.

 

[mbedle]

I would have to say back in my 20's, i brought (talked her into it) a friend of mine who was a beginner skier down a diamond trail at Sugarbush. Needless to say, after she crashed really hard, she had to take off her skies and walk down the trail. I felt like a total ass for putting her in that position. Now days, I see parents taking their beginner kids down diamond trails all the time. I now think to myself how irresponsible of the parents and dangerous it is for the kids to be on that trail. Its kind of like if you can only drive 15 MPH in a car, you wouldn't go driving on the turnpike. You end up putting yourself and all the other drivers in a dangerous situation.

 

[steamboat1]

I pretty much did the same thing as Nick did but at Hunter Mtn. Blindly jumped over the edge of a trail with another trail below it. The only difference is I didn't miss the guy who was skiing below. Before hitting him I did a spread eagle so my ski's wouldn't be the first thing to hit him. Fortunately neither one of us got hurt. The only damage was I bent one of his ski poles. I'll never forget the first thing he said to me when we got up. He screamed at me "what are you F%#@% nuts". I think I was about 18 at the time & that guy was absolutely correct what he said.

 

[reefer]

Many moons ago when the kids were like 10 and 12, skiing, like golf, used to be an excuse to drink, actually basing my ski jacket purchase as to how many Budweiser’s I could fit in the pockets.
Needless to say, Humpty took a great fall with a couple summersaults involved, pockets unzipped, Budweiser cans rolling everywhere for a total yardsale and cocktail hour.
Kids just stood and stared with that WTF look..................along with a few others that skied by.
It was a good form of counseling because that habit ended on that day. To this day I now only partake in beverage during a lunch break.
Also was when I discovered micro-brews and never had another bud again..............................to this day.

 

[KevinF]

I jumped into the Viper Pit at Killington one time... I forget what the real trail name is? Bear Claw?

At any rate, I was going fast enough that I didn't land until I had cleared about half of the Viper Pit in the air. By the time I realized that I had landed and was still upright and hadn't died I had straightlined the other half of it.

If there had been anybody below me, it would have been seriously bad news.

 

[Nick]

My dad claimed that in Italy he flew over the people in line at a mid-mountain lift once. I'm not sure I believe it still

 

[Puck it]

Every day that I ski!!!!

 

[Smellytele]

Too many to count - I have to think about which one to write about first. I'll get back to you.

 

[deadheadskier]

When I was 14 I met some locals at A Basin. I skied the fingers with them and had a blast. That evening we got some snow. I was skiing by myself, but noticed some people heading out to the fingers, so I figured I'd follow them and be fine. 1st person in their group set off a slide. No one went down with the slough as the fracture line was below us, but we were all within 30 feet or so and watched it go. Had I or anyone else been caught in it, serious injury or death would've been likely. We "tip toed" back up to the resort boundary and made it out fine.

Young dumb and ignorant of the dangers of Avalanches I was.....

 

[wa-loaf]

Skiing too fast on a trip in California, I forget the resort, and took out a whole ski school class. They were adults and no one got hurt beyond bumps and bruises so it's still a little funny. They were all lined up and I knocked them down like dominoes. Just glad they weren't kids.

 

[MadMadWorld]

Don't incriminate yourself or anything, but have you ever done something skiing and thought afterwards, "That was really stupid"?

For me, It was when I was younger (maybe 14 ?) and flew over a blind drop, literally sailing over a young girl's head. she was skiing with her dad and was probably six or seven years old.

He came over and started screaming at me. I apologized and we parted ways. Luckily, there was no accident, but I probably could seriously have injured her. I consider it now to have been childhood stupidity, but even then I knew I had made a big mistake.

Connifer Connection? Either that or the lip on 10th Mountain. Those are my guesses. That stuff happens pretty much every night during school groups at Wachusett.

 

[ADKme]

When I first started glade skiing, I was at Oak Mountain and got a little too cocky. Went down way too fast and out-of-control, and after putting a couple solid turns together, the trees starting moving too fast. I clipped one with my shin, ejecto-skied, and catapulted into a tree with a good shoulder tackle. I thought I broke my clavicle, but x-rays said I was a wimp.

To this day, my family thinks I hurt myself by being crashed into by a wild skier on a blue trail. Shhh. :wink:

 

[from_the_NEK]

My first year of really skiing, I was at Jay Peak in mid-April 2001 (the year the got almost 580" of snow). I made plans to ski off the backside down the Long Trail to meet some friends that were snowshoeing up. There was so much snow near the summit that I couldn't find the Long Trail so I followed a pair of tracks into the woods off Vermonter. :dunce:
Flashback to the night before. I was playing basketball and got poked in the eye really badly. My eye couldn't handle a contact lens, so I was skiing in my glasses which kept fogging up.

It was a rather warm sunny day at Jay and the snow on the south side of the mountain was very sticky unconsolidated cream cheese. It was very hard to turn in the tight trees (actually the tree branches due to the 10'+ of snow on the ground). After a couple hundred feet of vert I realized I was too far skiers right. I decided I would take off my skis and walk toward where the LT should be. I took one step off my skis and sank up to my armpits in the snow. I stopped sinking when I grabbed my skis. My feet were not touching the ground. It took me a few minutes to get my feet back on my skis. By this time I was covered in sweat and I decided right there that I just had to go down and work my way over to Rt 242. I made every turn very carefully since, at that point, I realized that if something bad happened to me, there was a very real chance no one would ever find me before the bears coming out of hibernation would. :-o

I finally made it down to the road and hiked nearly a mile back up to the top of Rt 242 where the people I was supposed to meet were just getting in their car. Apparently, one of the girls didn't bring snowshoes and they only made it about 100 yards up the trail before she was post holing so bad that they turned around :roll:. Keep in mind this all occurred right before cell phones became common and none of us had one so we couldn’t call each other.

 

[Hawkshot99]

Last winter a friend and I were going back and forth all winter doing speed runs to see who could be the fastest. My best run on GPS I hit 81mph. Didnt crash or come near anyone, but looking at that # has made us realize we were idiots and we slowed down.

Sent from my SGH-S959G using Tapatalk 2

 

[SIKSKIER]

Oh boy,where do I start?Here's 2 that come to mind.Skiing way too fast down the old Middle Cannon trail which was a twisty bobsled run when it was icy.It was.Went off skiers left where it dropped off a lot and ended up stuck 5-6 feet off the ground in a bunch of trees.Didn't get hurt but needed help to down and out.

After one big drunkfest at our hangout at the top of Cannon I was bringing down a full trashbag of empties that included many bottles.About 200 feet from the bottom I take a flying header and myself and the bag explodes all over Lower Cannon.Broken glass and cans everywhere.And a red face.

 

[MadMadWorld]

I was 16 and a instructor at Wachusett. It was February vacation and I was teaching the kids program. During February vacation it wasn't uncommon for there to be 150 kids to 10-15 instructors...sheer chaos. That day I was charged with the task of teaching ALL of the level 4-7. This meant about 16 kids from ages 4 to 12. And of course most of them were not put in the correct level anyways. I did my best to pair the kids up with as many adult singles as possible but trying to organize this when you are getting the stinkeye from everyone who has been waiting in line for an hour.

Well I slipped up. I let a 4yr old get on the lift with other kids in the class. I sat helplessly 2 chairs back as her tips dug into unloading ramp. To make matters worse, the bindings never released. The ski snapped in half and she miraculously landed in the netting. Thank god she didn't injure anything but I was forced to spend the rest of the afternoon inside the ski school because the director was concerned that her father might go after me. Talk about life lessons!

 

[Nick]

Connifer Connection? Either that or the lip on 10th Mountain. Those are my guesses. That stuff happens pretty much every night during school groups at Wachusett.

it wasn't at Wachusett, I think it was actually Okemo. I'm not 100% sure though.

 

[dlague]

Well I can certianly name a few:

1. Skiing at Bretton Woods racing my brother-in-law and my son. We were heading down Waumbek and at one point there is knoll followed by a steeper pitch that comes up by surprise (if you have not skied there much) and some people decided to stop on the bottomside of the knoll. All three of us launched off the knoll and luckliy cleared or landed next to the group. (we then stopped and warned them of their location being in a blind spot)
   
3. Another time skiing fast approaching another skier - studied his pattern then decided to pass and low and behold he had a change up and I nearly plowed over him! Made myself small and squeezed by!
   
5. When I was younger, wanted to launch off a big kicker and realized at the last second that it was all ice. Tried to stop, lost an edge and lost it! Headed over the kicker on my ass and landed on my back, had a massive yard sale and blacked out! This was at the base of former Brodie Mountain and the jump was for their slush jump on St Patricks Day, but the slush pond was not there yet.

We all have moments where we think back and come to some sort of realization! These experiences either create wariness, build wisdom or exaggerate foolishness!

 

[tnt]

Me and a friend found a cheap hotel on the access road at K-ton some winter break a long time ago. Had great skiing with tons of fresh snow. First night, we wisely left the car at the hotel and walked and hitch hiked to the bars, which we thought was the smart thing to do. We also thought it was smart not to bring hats an gloves as you know, we'd probably lose them....

At 2 in the morning , got a ride home in the back of a pick up truck. We were surprised at how cold we were. Took us a long time to get our fingers moving again. found out the next morning it had dropped to about 20 below over night and there we were in back of a pick up going 60....

I know that wasn't skiing, but still, always scratch my head at that serious of poor decisions.