Day 57 - CRASH!! off the peak

The day started off perfect:  a bit of a lie in first thing in the morning, breakfast at Wildwood, sunny sky, a bit of fresh snow, no wind, and moderate temps.  By 11:30am we were heading up Symphony Chair for another run through the trees.  Spent most of the afternoon out there, dropping the cornice and finding good snow through the trees and on the creek bed.

We headed to Harmony once Symphony closed and dropped down towards Peak Chair.  We were on our way to Christmas Trees when our snowboarding came to a grinding halt.  As I was slowly traversing on my toe edge under one of the rocks to get to the entrance, there was a sudden void on the track and I fell straight down about a foot which knocked me backwards and down the steep Peak face.  I tumbled back doing a couple of backflips, hit three rocks on the way down and somehow managed to stop with my feet facing down about 25 feet later.

A few weeks ago, a guy was killed falling off a cliff not far from where we were.  There weren't many details given about his death but we know where he fell from.  As I was tumbling like a rag doll, the only thing that went through my mind was "this is how people die out here" --
I was also praying that there weren't any more rocks to roll over as I had no idea what was beneath me when I fell.

As I came to a stop, I was hyperventilating and my entire lower back was in pain.  Irish rushed down to make sure I was okay and to keep me from moving, at least until I got my breathing under control.  I laid there for a good five minutes or so.  Finally I tried moving my toes and arms and luckily everything felt fine.  The only thing that hurt was my lower back or tailbone area.  I stood up and I felt I could snowboard out so we made our way down.

We were in Frog Hollow at this point.  Luckily the snow was soft with no moguls.  It was when I went over some bumps that the pain was the worst, putting pressure on my legs individually instead of equal pressure on both.  At one point the trail flattened out and I had to walk about 20 feet.  That was the worst.  We made it back to the bottom of Red Chair and downloaded in the gondola.  Irish took me to the clinic where we spent the next four hours.  Luckily nothing is broken, just a severely bruised lower back and sacrum.  I was told no physical activity for 7 days but I'm hoping to get back to work by Monday or Tuesday.  Even if that means teaching a Level one class.