Pardon the pun...I couldn't resist...but it truly does describe the week Michelle and I just had up at the ski slopes. We set off early last Sunday morning after having busily prepared all our new (and handed down) ski gear the night before. I didn't know what to expect when we got there. Checking the Perisher Blue webcams all week I noticed a steady decline in the snow cover but weather reports indicated a strong cold front was due on Sunday, and was expected to bring snow.
For Michelle's first true skiing experience (not counting the near tragedy of our little Swiss incident), I decided that it should be as pure as possible. No waking up at ridiculous hours every morning to scrape the snow and ice off the car, strap the skis to the roofracks and drive the possibly icy Alpine Way, just to be the first person to drag all your gear and squeeze onto a packed skitube carriage for the journey up the mountain. Instead, I thought staying on the snow at Smiggins would be ideal, and I wasn't far from being right.
We arrived in Jindabyne at around 2pm and headed up to the Skitube terminal at Bullocks Flat, where we left my little black Audi for the week and jumped on the skitube to take us up the mountain to Perisher. When we got there and had a look outside, I was shocked to see that the entire Perisher Valley was brown instead of white!! Apparently a huge downpour of rain on Friday and Saturday washed much of the snow away and conditions on the slopes weren't much better! We got a lift to our accommodation for the week, the Snow Bunny Ski Lodge in Smiggins Holes, dropped off the luggage in our room, lucky number 7, and went to pick up our hire gear, with grey clouds gathering over the mountain.
The line up at the hire place was almost out the door, and having pre-booked didn't earn us a place at the front of queue. I was quite amused by somebody's observation that we were lining up for Snows hoes...check out the photos in the gallery to see what I'm talking about! While we were waiting there were murmurs in the crowd that it had begun snowing! Curious to see for myself, I headed outside and found that in the half-hour or so that we'd been waiting, about 2 or 3 cm of fresh snow had fallen outside and had started covering the big brown patches of mud. Excellent! By the time we picked up our gear, about 2 hours later, the valley had turned into a classic winter wonderland, about 10 cm of fresh snow covered just about everything, and it was still falling! I was now getting very excited at the prospect of fresh powder on the mountain the next morning! We had the first of many great meals back at the Snow Bunny and bedded down for the night in anticipation.
I woke at around 3am! The heating seemed to be broken and the room was absolutely freezing! I rugged up a bit and tried to get back to sleep. The alarm went off at 6.30am and we hopped in the shower...no hot water!!! What was going on? Not too happy about the lack of heat but all was forgotten when we looked out our window to all the fresh snow that had fallen overnight! After a big breakfast and a converstaion with little Brendan(more about him later) we collected our gear and jumped on the bus for Perisher, as all lifts were still closed in Smiggins.
Michelle met up with her first timer's class and I headed up the mountain for my first carve in over 3 years! I felt a little rusty at first, especially with the poor visibility higher up and the deep, heavy cover on many of the runs. It didn't slow me down too much though and I spent most of my morning tackling the blue runs in Centre Valley, Mt. Perisher and Sun Valley. Caught up with Michelle for lunch and was happy to find that she was really enjoying her skiing, although a little bit frustrated that she still couldn't make turns! I spent a bit of time with her on the magic carpet at the base of Front Valley, but she was determined to get an extra lesson this afternoon and she apparently scammed a free level 2 lesson!! I decided to look for some shelter out of the wind and snow and thought that Pretty Valley might provide this...I was wrong. Virtual white-out over here as well, still had a good time though. Michelle and I decided to build a snow chicken outside our lodge...quite a pathetic little thing really...?!! Hot water was back and running and so I thoroughly enjoyed my first hot shower! Brendan, the little nine year old I'd met at breakfast had challenged me to a game of pool, but in order to be fair to all the other kids we decided to team up and and take on some of the other little pool sharks...seriously these kids were good!! Went to bed early all rugged up prepared for the cold night ahead...unfortunately the heating worked fine tonight, so I completely overheated at around 1am and couldn't get back to sleep!!
Woke to beautiful blue skies and some more fresh snow...couldn't wait to take on Mt. Perisher's groomed Tower's run this morning. When I got there the weather was starting to close in, but I managed to get a good run on Towers before I was talked into heading across the mountain to the Eyre T-bar, conditions were apparently fantastic with lots of fresh stuff to carve up. It turned out to be a bad decision...Having skied groomed runs for the first two hours of Tuesday morning in relatively good visibility I was definitely getting the groove back, feeling very strong and balanced in my turns, and probably feeling a little bit too over confident. I headed across to Eyre and found the conditions not too different, although the cover was a little heavier and visibility had definitely deteriorated. I thought that I'd tackle the Eyre Bowl, a natural half-pipe just to the right of the regular Eyre run, that I'd skied the day before and found quite heavy, maybe some softer stuff today. I really should have checked it out before entering it at speed...I went up one lip, turned and was heading for the other when my right ski caught in some heavy snow and spun me around, causing me to ski backwards for a few metres before crashing and snapping my head backwards heavily into the snow. My goggles and beanie came off in the impact and I was a bit dazzled and confused by the sudden brightness. The first sign that something was wrong was a deep burning, tingling sensation all through my left arm and a dull pain in my neck. Hmmm...not good! Silly bugger that I am, thought I'll just twist my head from side to side and try and "crack" it back into place...pain override stopped me from trying that again, and now I was a little bit worried. I waved down a passing snowboarder and told him to get some help. The feeling in my arm had reduced to a dull tingling (something I'd been more than used to over the last few weeks), but the pain in my neck was getting more noticeable. I gathered my gear and formed an "X" with my skis and stocks and rested on my backpack.
After a few minutes, I'd gathered my thoughts and figured that I was probably ok and that I would be able to walk again!! Just as I was gingerly getting up and about to put my skis back on, ski patrol found me. I explained what had happened and was told that as a precaution, all neck injuries had to be stretchered off the mountain with a neck brace and strapped to a back board. I'd always joked about how cool it would be to be carted off the mountain by ski patrol in a stretcher...but was quite embarrassed when it was happening for real! The ride down was surprisingly smooth and they got me into a transport vehicle to the medical centre in Perisher Valley. It was really weird getting the cliche TV medical drama "patients eye view" of the ceiling and looking up doctors and nurses noses, etc...quite surreal! I had a chat to the nurses about what happened and also explained the recent medical history about my neck problems. X-rays were taken and I was told that any abnormalities would mean I'd have to be transported to Cooma or Canberra for CT scans! The nurse was a bit concerned with some of the narrowing between my vertebrae on one of the early films and said that he'd seen people sent for CT scans for much less. He tried again and went outside to consult with the doctor. I really felt like I was okay, but the uncertainty over my X-rays was starting to worry me...had I caused more damage than I thought? After a few nervous minutes I spoke to the doctor who explained that given my past history, the X-rays didn't indicate that there was any recent spinal injury. He told me that he had a 100% record on spinal injuries and that he thought I was ok. The neck brace was removed and I was able to stand up-right for him to show me the X-Rays. Apparently, he had broken his neck previously, but his X-Rays didn't look as bad as mine did!!! Thanks doc!! If he hadn't have known about my pre-existing neck problems I would have been on my way for a CT scan! He recommended I take the afternoon off, but that I should be ok by tomorrow morning...sweeeeet!!
I rang Michelle to tell her I'd be a little late for lunch and that I had a bit of a story for her!....more tomorrow
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