Whistler (Part 3) - Skiing

Oh yeah, we skied at Whistler too.

With the 7ft of new snow they got that week, Friday (2/18) was an amazing bluebird powder day. We skied Saturday and Monday too. Since it didn't snow all weekend, Monday was a day for cruising on the groomers.

I finally rode the Peak 2 Peak gondola!

After skiing for a couple of hours, Laura and Nick decided to race each other down a steep blue groomer. I joined in at the last minute. As we quickly learned, racing is never a good idea when you don't know the mountain.

The three of us were blazing down the hill full speed. Laura and I on skis and Nick on his snowboard. As we got down the first slope Laura and I slowed to navigate the lip announcing the start of the second slope. Apparently Nick missed the memo and went sailing over the lip full speed, launching himself into the air.

After flying about 8ft high for about 10 seconds, Nick crashed hard. Luckily he had the presence of mind to try to land the jump, so he hit board first. But he didn't land it. He was leaning back too far and fell backwards, careening down the hill. His goggles shot off his helmet immediately and he ended up a good 40ft downhill from them after a series of unintentional somersaults and helicopter spins.

We're pretty sure he knocked himself out for a few seconds:

That's a Concussion

His helmet cracked as did its interior Styrofoam padding. Nick had to be tobogganed off the mountain by ski patrol. He got an x-ray at the clinic and everything looked fine so they released him.

A chronic headache (that's just starting to go away 2 weeks later) and $1,300 Canadian dollars later, Nick learned a valuable lesson that Laura and I already knew: it's OK to lose the race if it means avoiding a concussion.

But at least Nick won the race.