Scary ski-ing/boarding

Good question, Ali. There are big differences between fear and actual risk. My riskiest moments in life, involved sitting down in the snow, exhausted, during a 50 mile fell race, feeling my eyes starting to close, and forcing myself to stand and get going.... And being in a canoe in South Australia that was dragged under a semi-submerged tree.... And getting lost on a mountain in Wales in a total whiteout, getting down safely on the wrong side of the mountain,having negotiated two big drop areas.

Fear, falling off the rockface at Leek Roaches, but being held on the rope in mid-air. Eeh, lad, you have to laugh....

Ski wise, risk, almost all whiteouts, where you cannot see, so you lose control of the situation. If at high altitude, I inevitably come off the mountain, if at low altitude, I head for the trees.

Fear, wandering into an avalanche situation on Cairngorm, realising what might happen, forming a plan with another guy who had done the same. One after the other, we both softly skied out. Half an hour later, two guys were buried. My fear was triggered by knowing the downside potential, but not having much choice about what to do. Also, being on the back end of the ackier, on a steepish slope at the top of the Club run in Niederau, not a piste, a run through the woods. We had the broken leg fixed and the guy strapped in. My scouse mate who was on the front, who I knew to be semi-psycho, was ready to roar off, but my skis were facing the wrong way, and the whole slope was unpisted sheet ice. I reached up to a branch above, and hauled myself up one-handed, turned the skis in the air, and shouted "GO". THAT was quite scary, the slope was steep enough that there were any number of outcomes. We brought the guy safely to the bottom, dumped him into the Krankenwagen, and settled for a pint. My mate asked me what my plan was, if it didn't work out? "Head left through the trees" says I. "That would have been interesting", says he "I was just going to head straight down, take a chance with the trees, and sort it out at the bottom."

Nowadays you have helicopters.....

Thanks Dave Mac, for those scary stories

I suppose it's partly about learning not to panic, however bad the situation is (or you think it is!).

We seem to be rather short on scary photos so far on this thread, so I've swiped AndyHull's very scary photo from where he originally posted it (in 'the amusing ski photo thread'), I hope he doesn't mind:

andyhull wrote:I can laugh about this now! If you look carefully you see I only have one ski on, the other is about 100 meters below. And yes it is that steep...

AllyG wrote:
We seem to be rather short on scary photos so far on this thread .......

Well, probably because a real scary moment would result in blured photos due to the hands shaking.

OldAndy wrote:

AllyG wrote:
We seem to be rather short on scary photos so far on this thread .......

Well, probably because a real scary moment would result in blured photos due to the hands shaking.

Perhaps the first time on skis is the most scary moment of the lot

Ah I remember it well...............

Most scary moment for me was finding myself in fog and not being able to see the edge of the piste/steep drop off. Serious sense of humour failure at that point.

Perhaps the reason there are few sacry photos is because the last thing you think to do in a really scary situation is take out your camera and pose??

Ally,

What in the world is in the picture you just posted above???

It sure doesn't look like snow.... and the picture is not very clear either, so even enlarging it, I still could not figure out what is it....

... ... but what came to mind, as I am staring in utter disbelief at the surface, is that it kind of resembles a beehive structure (at least in the portion closest to the camera view)... ... so that would be indeed scary: skiing on a gigantic blanket of beehives

Hi Cat,
It's a dry slope, made of some kind of matting, here in Wales. Don't they have slopes like that in the U.S.A.?

The photo is of my older daughter's class at school, when she was about 11 years old (13 years ago), learning to ski before they went on their first ski holiday (to Geilo in Norway).

I learned to ski on a slope just like this, in London at Alexandra Palace, when I was only 8, and I broke my shoulder on another one of these slopes, about 10 years ago. The mat is pretty hard, and rough, if you fall on it, and it is more difficult to ski on than real snow, so if you become good on the mat you are generally even better once you get on the snow.

Indoor snow domes are much more like the real thing, but they don't have any in Wales and they are much more expensive to learn to ski on.

I took my first tentative steps on the local dry slope. I wanted to be able to put on my boots and skis like I knew what I was doing as a minimum before I went to a proper resort. It taught me a lot, including how hard and nasty dry slopes are (they should be taken to task by Trading Standards as they are sprayed with water and are anything but dry!). However, here in the flatest part of the country, we have to use them if we want to ski!!
Just don't put your fingers through the holes if you fall, can be very nasty!