3 Sisters 7 Days

I always wondered how often people fall out of chair lifts. In fact, this question entered my mind practically every time I rode past a “Sit Back, Hold On, Be Safe” sign on my way up to snowboard. Now I know that chair lift falls are statistically  "rare" events … that, unfortunately, include my own eight-year-old son Parker.

When the chair lift I was riding yesterday afternoon stopped, I assumed someone had fallen disembarking from the lift. Then I heard people on the ground below say that someone – maybe even two people – had fallen out of a chair near the top of the lift. The woman in front of me said that someone two chairs of ahead of her saw a child fall. Just about then, I watched two of my children ride across the crest of the mountain from the lift to a moderate run. Although I knew that Parker was riding behind them, and ahead of me, it still didn’t occur to me that my child was the one who had purportedly fallen out of his chair.

We started moving again and I, along with just about everyone else on the lift, looked down. Within seconds, I could see who had fallen – Parker! He’d fallen over 10 feet – maybe 12-15 feet – into an un-groomed patch of snow just as a doctor on his day off boarded by, and stopped to help him up. I watched the EMTs assist Parker onto a snowmobile for a ride to meet me at the top of the lift. Parker was understandably shaken up, but appeared okay otherwise. We opted against an ambulance ride to the hospital in favor of a visit to our own urgent care; in addition to a headache and a sore shoulder, he fractured his clavical.

That makes him really lucky. The last person to fall of that lift in the same location broke both arms and fractured his skull! More generally, despite a recent spate of chair lift falls involving children, it’s typically young men who sustain serious injuries – from major fractures to pulmonary embolisms – but do not die. According to experts, the best way to avoid adding your own experience to these statistics is to position your buttocks ALL THE WAY BACK in the chair.

In case you’re wondering, Parker’s sweet cheeks were nowhere near the back of the chair when he fell; he had positioned himself to disembark early in an effort to beat his friend off the lift, lost his balance, and the rest is now Snow Valley lore.

This picture was taken of Maz learning how to snowboard. It was his second time using a board in almost FOUR years.  He actually didn’t do too bad; we just need to keep him out of the powder.  He’s 6′3″ and I have no idea how he got out of this mess or in it.   I guess I need to rephrase the term “weight on your back foot” because someone didn’t get it!

He’ll get it one day OR he’ll welcome back his long lost friends, the ski. 

Side-note: I don’t think I would be as pleasant as he looks- what a sport!

Today’s snowboarding trip nearly ended early – and potentially expensively – when I lost my car key … in the snow. I didn’t wear the fleece top I usually do, the one with the little iPod pocket where I always stash my key, so I just put it in my jacket pocket, and failed to zip it up completely. None of this would have been a problem, if I hadn’t chosen today to master turns. I must have fallen half a dozen times before I realized the key was gone.

In a moment of almost Buddha-like clarity that almost never obtains in such circumstances, I did not worry. According to the Dala Lama, “if there is a solution to a problem, there is no need to worry. And if there is no solution, there is no need to worry.” Instead,  I quickly assessed the situation and realized that although finding my key in the snow was highly unlikely, the alternative would be finding a phone with reception and calling my loving spouse to bring the spare key to me. I really wasn’t sure if his fury or the time-consuming process of replacing the key would be worse. I decided to, at least, try to find the key.

Of course, this mission would require reinforcements, so I parked myself at the bottom of the slopes where my “big kids” were riding. After locating, and stopping, my eldest son, Quentin, and instructing him to rally his sibs, I headed up the bunny slope where I had been practicing – on foot. The kids had just passed over me on the chairlift up (to ride down, slowly, in search of the missing key), when a woman skied past and asked if I was looking for a key?! She’d just seen one of the instructors pick a key up out of the snow. I headed straight for the ski school.

It took a few minutes to find the right instructor, but he had indeed found my keys, and my Burt’s Bees chapstick.

Considering the key is a symbol of power and wealth that represents openings to knowledge and understanding as well as the much more mundane car door, I’m feeling pretty good.  I not only saved my spouse from an unwelcome trip to the mountains during evening rush hour, but also moved just one step closer to my goal. Which? I’m not sure; however, if snow also holds some meaning, I may have found a key to avoiding trouble and hardship.

This is Tiffany & Co.'stack for achieving economic and social rebirth on a global scale. After all, “What better way to symbolize the opening of doors and new potential than with a key?”

I guess my joy at holding onto my snowboarding edge vis-à-vis my children must have gone to my head. Monday, at the very end of my final run, I came to a perfect stop just before the big, orange “SLOW” sign, paused, and pitched forward right onto my face! Although I wasn’t in pain – the upside of cold weather injuries? – I did feel something dripping off  the end of my nose. I assumed it was melting snow, or maybe a runny nose.

Then I went to the bathroom.  As I entered, a woman gasped. “Huh?” I thought, “Maybe it’s worse than I thought.”

I looked in the mirror and it did appear pretty bad: a gash just above my right eye with blood running down that side of my face – its volume increased substantially by all of the melted snow on my face. Once I’d cleaned up, I could see it was just a tiny cut where my sunglasses had slammed into my forehead on impact. Nothing a quick trip to First Aid and a butterfly band aid couldn’t fix .

This is 48 hours and 5 New Skin liquid bandage treatments later.

One of the most difficult parts about being first born is “letting go” of being the tallest, the smartest, the fastest, the most clever, and all the other ways in which we compete with those we love most to be the very best. I’m beginning to think that realizing your children are “better” at some things than you ever will be is even more challenging. Although I expect to outsmart all of my children for a long while, my eldest son, Quentin, has quickly become a much better rock-climber than I am, and my older daughter, Reiley, can already run faster than I think I ever could…but today, I bought myself some lead time with – of all things – my awesome snowboarding skills!

Note: I’m pausing so that those of you who know me can get up off the floor where you’ve been holding your gut to keep it from busting open because what I’ve just said is so funny!

My three older children are “taking snowboarding” for PE this term, and they’re all improving quickly. Yet just for today, I was more graceful than any one of them, managed to remain on my “feet” longer than they did, and spent more time on the more difficult slopes than Quentin – my biggest risk-taker. And it felt really, really good.

Granted I have more experience than even my eldest son does, follow the “easiest way down” signs religiously, and maintain reasonable speeds while carefully carving my way as much back and forth across the mountain as down it. Still…I can’t help gloating just a bit when my 12-year-old daughter tells me, “Mom, you looked really good!”

Yesterday I had a fantastic time snowboarding at Monarch Mountain, CO.  It is  a great mountain to ski or snowboard on, especially since it’s the most ffordable lift ticket in CO.  Some resorts are reaching the $100 mark for one all day lift ticket in CO…I just can’t imagine or justify paying that price for a few hours on the slopes, not to mention the crowds. One of the perks for working at REI this winter is that I get free lift tickets to Monarch Mountain and yesterday was the first day I took advantage of the deal.

Okay, I realized yesterday (thanks to the 21 year old fellow snowboarder) that I am a little dated in the sport.  I didn’t know the key word for a snowboard, boots, and bindings is “deck”. Umm, there is a “lift” I can get to extend my board to accommodate my new boots. I guess the boots have gotten bigger, and since I have an older, “vintage” board, the new boots and older board don’t match.

And this is just the equipment, don’t let me get started on the new lingo…Pow-Pow (powder), shredding the Gnar, and my favorite of the day. “word.” Seriously, every time someone said something/anything, this “kid” would respond with “word.” I guess it’s a gesture of acknowledgement and agreement.  And then there are the infamous “pot shacks.” I had such a blank stare when I first heard that word: “pot shack” To my knowledge, these “riders” find abandoned cabins on the slopes and smoke pot, and they are on almost every mountain.  That doesn’t even cross my mind, I mean it’s all I can do to get off the chair lift in one piece, let alone put any type of substance in my body.

Check this website out http://www.abc-of-snowboarding.com/snowboarddictionary.asp so the next time you grab your deck to shred the gnar you will fit in like a wallflower…word.

Side-note: I did push myself yesterday. I hiked with board in hand for about 20 minutes up a mountain, only to ride down a huge drop…it was close to a 90 degree angle and all powder…it was great!

“Mom, it’s never cold here,” my son told me yesterday evening as we were preparing his bag for today’s snowboarding trip with his Boy Scout troop. I had suggested he take my “snowboarding jacket” and a beanie, but he insisted his own windbreaker would be fine and reminded me he’d be wearing a helmet.

In retrospect, I have to admit he’s right. With the exception of that BLIZZARD Terri and I snowboarded in, I typically wear cold weather “running clothes” – running tights and a base layer Under Armour Base Layer with Gor-Tex snow pants ( a lightweight unisex style from The North Face that feature elastic and tie waste and snaps on outside of legs to ease on/off that , after 16 winters, are still in perfect working condition and look great to boot) and a sweatshirt for snowboarding and other snow play here in California. A beanie and lined wool gloves complete the look and provide sufficient warmth during much of the day.


Under Armour Base

Mid-March and we’re just easing out of a short and unusually warm winter that began sometime in November. Although it’s still cool enough for a cute, rather than warm, jacket over a blouse, tank top, or tee, we’ve already enjoyed a number of shorts-worthy days. Ahhh…Why have it any other way?