My favorite posts on social media involve friends sharing their passions, particularly those of an artistic, outdoorsy, athletic, or adventurous nature. Kindred spirits exploring and engaging both the world around us and ourselves, each of us doing so in our own special way. None of us able to adequately describe what drives us. But the drive needs no explanation because we share it.
As I ascended into the ravine solo, I muttered to myself a safety checklist of things to review: evaluate the undermining, don’t let previous tracks cause safety assumptions, temper the excitement, review the hanging snowfield on the headwall, don’t let showmanship override safe decisions, etc.
I had not skied the ravine solo in quite sometime and I did not have another skier to discuss concerns with. After this adventure, I now have a few more things to think about next time such as get into better shape next year and stop skiing before you get too tired. Every year in the ravine brings a new lesson.
The ravine held more snow than I had expected with three unique skiable patches: Left Gully, Chute, and Sluice. All were a reasonable 150ish foot vertical. Chute had even more snow above the choke but it looked dicey. Skiers were already on both the Chute and Sluice patches as I approached. I was interested in trying for one run on each patch but I decided to approach and evaluate the Sluice patch first and not make any plans yet.
The Sluice patch had solid connections along the trail side and even a reasonable exit ramp well above the patch’s end. Higher up, I still couldn’t see any major undermining on the trail side of the patch. Turns would need to be tight to avoid the headwall side but I have skied on patches in much worse condition. I clicked in and gave it a rip. My turns were a little more tentative than they have historically been but it was a solid run with good form and tight turns.
The skiers on the Chute patch had already departed and the other Sluice skier was contemplating a hike to the summit. Sluice skied well but the allure of getting all three patches was strong. Neither Left Gully nor Chute patches had any undermining and the Chute patch looked to have just barely more vertical than the Sluice patch while also being much wider. Left Gully looked tight and shorter but adventurous. I changed into my hiking boots and began the slog over to Left Gully.
Fatigue was setting in by the time I reached the bottom of the Chute patch. I was not set on going to Left Gully, my thought was to see if I could get there without too much difficulty with the brush and just ski Chute if Left Gully was too much of an inconvenience. Which it seemed to be at the time. But in hindsight, the real inconvenience was that my energy was fading fast. I climbed up the left side of the Chute patch and changed back into my ski boots.
Once on the patch, I side stepped up a bit as I wasn’t quite at the top of the patch but almost. I knew I was tired. I had thought about skiing the Baby Chute patch on the other side of the rock after this run but even that seemed like it might be too much. Maybe I was done after this run. I started skiing… one turn, two turns, oops!
I have no idea what happened. Maybe I hit a rock barely covered by a thin layer of snow. Maybe it was an extremely icy spot unseen amongst the mostly soft surface. But whatever it was, it threw me and I was too tired to make the recovery. I fell backwards onto my side and started sliding, forearm scraping the snow as I went. My skis were thankfully downhill but I couldn’t dig in and stop the slide.
It was slow motion and fast forward at the same time. I remember thinking about the large rocks at the bottom of the patch. Why couldn’t I dig in and stop? The patch was not that steep. The glacial nature of the snow made it impossible to fully dig in my edges. My descent was steered towards the rock band splitting the patches and I used the edge of the snow to stop my descent.
My left forearm was pretty cut up from either the snow or the rock or both but it certainly could have been worse. I got back up as fast as possible and finished skiing down the patch so onlookers would be assured that I was alright. My arm was bloody and scraped but my pride hurt much more. I had taken a fall in a no fall zone but thankfully my only injury was some missing skin.
Patch skiing will continue for one final weekend. But this coming weekend will likely be limited to just Baby Chute only. Left Gully probably won’t make it until this coming weekend and Sluice patch will become dangerously undermined any day now. I knew going into this past weekend that it was now or never for decent patch skiing. And I got my fill to tide me over until next year.