Thanks for posting, and glad you're ok.
I will sometimes ski aggressive stuff & trees, but I always focus on staying in control. The one time I really let it rip as a strong skier it did not end well (number 2 below). I also always try to remind my kids that no trail skis the same twice, even on the same day.
Two scary incidents come to mind for me: (1) in freshman year of college, I went skiing at Canon (I think) with some HS friends. I never skied before; my only contact was watching the olympics. Two runs in, my buddies decide I am ready for the summit. They took me to a blue at the top, and I power wedged down. I can't remember why (maybe leg fatigue?) but at some point, I got parallel fairly far down the run. I had no idea how to turn parallel!!! So, I did what I saw on TV. Went into a tuck in perfect balance. Realizing that increasing speed was not good if I could not execute any control, I decided to stop. The only way I could think of stopping was basically doing a yard sale. I did that. Landed hard, heard a pop; I couldn't lift my right arm for a few days, and then for months it hurt when I threw a ball. No health insurance then, and very negative net worth, so to this day I don't know what I did. I think I was skiing 2 days later. Even at that point, I knew I loved it.
(2). Fast forward to Spring 2018. By this point I was a pretty good skier, had already skied Rumor by then (admittedly in good conditions), etc. On the last week that Belle was open, I took a day off to ski. I believe I met up with Phil (can't remember his handle here) and Glade (whose posts I thought were pretty mean, but was actually quite nice in person) to give Phil my bonus ticket as a season pass holder. We ski for a bit, and then split up. I am coming down Belleayre run with great conditions. I rarely ever just open up and let it rip. I saw one other skier (one!) to my far left, about 30 yards ahead, and 20 yards to my left, sticking to the left side. I open it up down the middle of the run.
All of a sudden, skier on my left does a hard, 90 degree turn, turns his entire body across the hill (no separation between upper and lower body), and we are on a collision course immediately because I was going very fast and he wasn't looking. Mind you, I still can't blame him to this day, as he was the downhill skier and had the right of way.
Instinct takes over, I cut hard to the right at a very high speed. In what felt like a split second, I choice option c: (a) hit the guy at a really high speed and lots of momentum; (b) keep with my right turn and go into the trees shortly; or (c) try to make a jump from the right side of the run onto the crosscut on skier's right of mid Belleayre run. Unfortunately, it was spring so there wasn't much snow. I don't really jump much, and I certainly don't know how to jump at high speed!
I jump, kind of land, and crash, hard. I lose my wind; in the first few seconds, I thought something could have been broken. The skier comes over, says, 'you look okay, have a nice day, good job avoiding me' (or something like that) and leaves. I can't breathe. Phil or Glade comes by. I get my wind. My right knee doesn't feel right. I take a run from the top because it was my day off, so wanted to make sure there was really a reason just to go (bad decision) Left turns are ok, but I can only turn right on one leg, so I take an asprin and go home.
Turns out I had a bucket handle tear of my meniscus and a partial tare of my ACL. I go to a fancy surgeon on central park west and thankfully had awesome health insurance; he repairs both tears (instead of scooping out the meniscus which is what happens in 90% of those tears). I rehab for 3 months, and my right leg has never been this strong since high school (I wrestled in college and had knee problems). Next season, I am having fun doing side country at Copper. I hit a rock, ski a bit on my left leg while I recover, and end up brining my right leg in totally fine. Not sure if it would have ended that way pre-surgery.
