The sport I love is being taken from me

1/2 the problem is the mentality of skiers:
1) Give up lessons far too early
2) Insist of skiing in groups of mixed ability. Which inherently means someone is frequently miserable and being a menace to remaining skiers on piste.

Of course it would be very easy to enforce better skiing practice given how accessible GPS devices are. Setup go slow zones; if you exceed perhaps you lift pass takes a 10minute - 1hr break for you to consider yourself. It would also be informative to give an idea how busy any given slope might be. Not sure is reasonable for someone to tell me how fast to ski a slope but no problems within say 50-75m of a lift line.

Chris N, From your own description of events events, you are entirely at fault. You said you were straight lining, and the other skier was carving turns. You must have been "up hill" from the other skier immediately prior to the collision. That's the rule we have to follow. Sometimes it's a pain, having to slow down, or stop. Again from your description, you saw that the other skier was likely to enter your path. At that point, you were uphill of the other skier, but chose to continue straight lining to maintain speed.

I wish you a speedy recovery. Please though, don't say it wasn't your fault.

BTW. It is customary in the US for skiers to jump the queue if joining other members of their group who are waiting in line.

Chris - first and foremost my sympathy for your injury. It sounds bad, but work hard and recovery will follow. Being a keen skier I know of the frustration not being able to skip would bring me, but think and act positive.

I am assuming from your hospital trip that you were either in Serre Chevalier or possibly Vars/Risoul? I know Serre Che quite well, not that its relevant. I was mildly interested where this happened.

Ranchero talks about skiers as if they should all be experts, take lessons every time, never ski with anyone slightly less able than themselves - yet forgets the vast majority of skiers on resort slopes are holiday makers, many of whom probably one ski once a year, possibly at times lose sight of the dangers of skiing, and are genuinely out to have a good time and enjoy themselves forgetting maybe some of the slope etiquette. Nobody is perfect. But people should be allowed to enjoy themselves providing they aren't reckless or malicious, and I am sure the guy you collided with wasn't either, just in his own zone by the sounds of it.

Heres the thing that concerns me: you collided with each other. You saw him coming at you, you failed in my mind from your description of events to avoid the collision, assuming you could carry on (clearly at some speed) in the hope the other guy would either see you and turn away or miss you anyway. It is apparent from your version of events that you were uphill of him, and therefore it was your responsibility to avoid him, especially as you mentioned you had a concern about his skiing before the collision. No matter what the skier in front does, and if they are going to turn off or stop they should really check to ensure its safe to do so, but come what may the skier behind HAS to be responsible for giving them enough room and avoid hitting them, and probably to a degree ASSUME the skier in front is going to do something unpredictable. Expect the unexpected I always think.

Therefore, as terrible as the injury sounds, trying to apportion blame to the other guy who was clearly carving quite happily on an open slope without causing anyone in front of him any danger, is wrong. You saw him, you should have either stopped, slowed down, moved to the other side of the slope, or taken some kind of avoiding action rather than wait for the collision which from your description clearly could and should have been avoided. His ski collided with your boot, it was an accident, it wasn't deliberate. It may have been that either or both of you should have been more alert and aware, but at the end of the day I really think you need to accept this wasn't the FAULT of the other skier. He will no doubt be having trouble sleeping worrying what happened to you, or thinking back to the accident at times, but it was not his fault in my opinion. Let it go, concentrate your energy on recovering and don't feel sorry for yourself about it. S**t happens in life, and you get 2 choices - sink or swim. I suggest you put your arm bands on and get on with getting back to fitness again, albeit a long hard road and I repeat: my sympathy for the injury. Good luck.

As for the slopes of Europe - yes they can be horribly busy sometimes in certain resorts, hence why using some common sense and etiquette should be applied. I do believe people ski with less tuition than before, and yes there are often large groups skiing together of mixed ability. Friends, family - people do like to ski with each other and so they should. They are as entitled to the mountain as you, me, or anyone else. Its something we all love doing after all.

Hi - I know how you feel- I also have had ACL reconstruction - I ski again but not with great confidence. But take heart my friend fell after skiing over a broken bottle and needed both ACL doing one three months after the other, this was 1 year after having spine fusion , and at the same accident as the knees she broke 3 ribs avoiding the glass. She was skiing again this year and again although cautious she did better than me. I have another friend who was knocked out by a border and broke collar bone and pelvis in 2 places, 2 years later someone took her out getting of a chair, and she broke pelvis again and shoulder- and guess what she is also back skiing- It is the most depressing time after a ski injury but I am same age as you - tings do take longer to heal but it will get better and in a couple of seasons you will be back out there.

Where do you and your friends ski Nadia sounds like somewhere to avoid?

""We were skiing in a straight line to gather some speed........single skier off to our left who was lazily carving long turns but increasingly coming closer and closer to us"

When I first read this I assumed you were wisely aware of a carving skier coming from BEHIND you (this is possible if you look behind sometimes on a schuss run....as there is often someone quicker coming along those). Although that made no sense as a carving skier is unlikely to catch and overtake.

So actually the skier that took you out was IN FRONT until the last minute and you could see he was carving about and of course totally unaware of your existence. Man....this happens to us every day of the skiing week and you must always assume the skier in front is gonna take the craziest possible line (as 1 time in 100 they do).

You were the uphill skier and this guy in front decided to make a perhaps in your opinion shitty manouever and you had not left yourself enough escape room.

Sorry about the injury - but everything about this story sounds like you put yourself into an impossible position and it is basically your fault. Normally you can actually assess the ability of the skier in front in a nano-second (noob, intermediate, pro) etc. In this case he was carving on a schuss run so at the lower end of skiing ability!!