Unfortunately I will be starting with a sad tale. It concerns a lad called Jasper 'Jaz' McGrath, aged 19, who came to Vail in the hope of getting a job waiting on tables as last year to fund his first love, snowboarding. He stayed with his 21 year old brother and slept on the sofa and, because he didn’t find a job, couldn’t afford a ski pass so had to hike up the mountain on foot each day to get above the lifts where there are piste staff checking passes. Once there he could move freely around the mountains and loved to go off-piste among the trees and in the powder snow fields. He waved goodbye to his brother (who was working that day), on Wednesday and set off for the hills. On Sunday his brother reported him missing and on the following Thursday he was found, a mile off-piste, at the bottom of an avalanche he had probably set off himself. Apparently Colorado is famous for hollow snowfields which can’t take the weight of either added snow or a person, and so is prone to avalanching. Jasper managed to break just about every rule of skiing or boarding and paid the price. No-one knew where he was going or when he was due back, he was way off-piste in ‘wild snow’. He had no avalanche equipment, no radio transponder, no helmet and he was on his own. Sad to say, but an accident waiting to happen. His brother said that ’at least he died doing what he loved’. I would say that I doubt it, I’m sure he died choking, scared and frustrated at the final realization that he was going to die, and I doubt he loved it.
In an unrelated incident and showing that accidents can happen to even the more experienced skier, an instructor met her death in a tree well. A tree well is created where the overhanging branches of a pine tree stop the snow building up against the trunk while the snow continues to fall around the tree. A hollow well forms that can be 5 or 6 ft deep with walls of solid snow, and a roof of the lower branches that may be covered in snow. The hollow may be full of branch bits, twigs and needles. In trials by Colorado University, 90% of volunteers dropped into one failed to get themselves out and this lady Instructor was no different.
Two sad tales to bear in mind when out and about.
We have come across what must be Channel Dave (or more likely Channel Bud) and it features wall to wall fast cars, World Rally Series, 1001 ways to die (bizarre accidents retold in graphic detail using actors and a Doctor explaining exactly how the dismemberment or disemboweling or whatever happened), cage fighting, and just about anything requiring large doses of testosterone to participate in or to watch. There is little difference to the UK program, apart from the size of the participants. I’m hoping that the lateral distortion is a trick of the large screen rather than the actual shape of the people but I’m not sure.
Sue has recovered to a certain extent from her injuries and went out skiing and was taken out by a boarder who started off from the centre of the piste without looking, right into Sue’s path. No real harm done but shaken not stirred. When we got down, we had a turkey sausage sandwich at a bakery which had a bad effect on Sue causing her to vomit and feel nauseous for 4 days. When eventually she went to the Doctor, he thought it was a reaction to the Ibuprofen she had been taking for the damaged shoulder, and gave her some anti-nauseous pills which then made her so drowsy she felt wiped out all day. A real downward spiral but happily all is well now and she is fully recovered from the fall and the drugs that fixed it, and from the drugs that fixed that.
As Sue has been not skiing, I have been going out solo and suffered my first major fall on a day when it was snowing heavily. Unfortunately the visibility was poor and as I joined a black run from the side, I crossed too far and went onto a mogul field on the far side, and at some speed. I just had time to realize what was happening, tried to turn to come back out of the bumps, when I took to the air. When I opened my eyes several seconds and 30 yards later and looked back up the slope, my one ski was sticking up vertically in the snow and the other was several yards to one side. Two kind Samaritans retrieved my skis and brought them down to me and waited while I recovered myself and got my breath back. The gent said that that was a real ‘18 year old crashout’. I asked what he meant and he explained it was the sort of crash you don’t want to have if you’re over 18! Being old and brittle I understood exactly what was meant. Apart from a bang to the head (thanks helmet ), I wrenched my shoulder and am having difficulty in raising my arm. Ah well, Ibuprofen and Arnica here I come.
The hot tub isn’t and I am getting frustrated with the wretched thing. The hot tub man came out again and is due back soon after putting in a pump and heater to remove the ice forming in it.
We have been writing up all the recipes we use so that in theory, I could take over from Sue if she was incapacitated and she could take over from me doing the bits that I do in the way of cakes. I am now the official bread-maker and take great pleasure in producing seed bread or rolls.
The recipes are not available at a good bookshop near you yet - but who knows?
Sue managed the spot of the month with a sighting of two Weasels bouncing over the surface of the snow in front of her, just after she had put the camera away – ain’t that a pity!
Our guestless sojourn is nearly over and on Thursday we have 4 in followed in short order by several other groups and throughout February we go up to 11 and 13 so a bit of a turnaround and we will be earning our crust. During this time we have been writing letters (how quaint, you say), to the relatives who are not teched up blogwise. The Post Office provided the stamps – eventually, after the good lady behind the desk grilled me on where I was living, did I like the food, weather, the snow, people etc and finally relinquished the stamps at a speed that makes sloths look as if they are on speed. Still, the queue that formed behind me seemed good-natured enough, so all was well.
As I mentioned before it has started to snow. Hallelujah brothers and sisters! The locals have been shaking their collective heads and predicting a snow disaster but as there was 8 foot (that’s right, 8 foot!) in Eastern California over the last two days, we are looking forward to the storm coming this way. We have had about 6 inches so far and it makes such a difference to the skiing. Instead of scraping down skinned, or icy slopes, everything goes quiet apart from a swisshhing sound, the trees slip on snowy overcoats and the piste-bashers spring forth and start grooming real snow instead of the artificial powder of recent times. On one run, as I approached the edge of the slope to spec out what was what, I looked down and saw a string of eleven grooming machines in a staggered line across the piste, growling their way downwards in perfect symmetry, with lights flashing and sirens whooping. It looked rather like a picture I have seen of multiple (17 if memory serves) combine harvesters working a huge open area of corn. Same technological approach, different product, same result (ie gold in coffers). These machines are quite extraordinary with a snowplough on the front and a dibbler on the back that acts just like a cultivator with the resultant snow crumble being smoothed, compacted and ridged. After waiting for the machines to track out the bottom of the run and starting off up the other side of the valley (they will go up a 45 degree slope), we were presented with the most perfect run on the mountain. It just doesn’t get any more freshly groomed than this and I zoomed down it twice to take advantage of it.
We went to the cinema in Edwards to see The Lovely Bones by Peter Jackson of Lord of the Rings fame. It is an atmospheric movie with a stunning performance by the young lead Saoirse Ronan after her debut in Atonement. But while the photographic qualities are outstanding as Jackson explores the mid-world of semi-heaven where the heroine is stuck, and the tension-building skills as the murderer is closed in on were well in evidence, I felt it just lacked sufficient cohesion to bridge the two worlds of before and after death. With one or two plot slips / hiccups, it is probably the case that this is one of those films that should have stayed as a book.
We have finally been adopted as a staging post by the local magpie population. The choice of birds is pretty limited with Eagles, Ravens, Magpies and a small Tit being the only ones we've seen apart from one mystery bird that we saw but were unable to identify. It looked pretty imperious, like a hawk, but the camera was down-stairs so I missed photoing it.
Finally, I love the directness of some of the signs we see. On the piste we get 'Whoa there Cowboy' and 'Haul on them Brakes' at piste junctions and this one I saw in a parking space in Eagle. Perhaps the enforcers just can't spell 'a good kicking'!
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