Diary Of A Mad Skier - Part One

Both of my shoulders are still sore. I think it was those last two runs down Bonanza. Of course, the collision didn't help any. But, I'm starting at the end. I should start at the beginning.

I don't watch "reality shows". Why should I? I would rather live reality. For example, before my injury, I rafted down the Grand Canyon. I have rafted the Ocoee River in Tennessee three times, twice before my injury and once after. I bareboat chartered in the Virgin Islands, four times as skipper. I have also sailed in the Grenadines, the Greek Islands, and the Florida Keys. Since my accident I have soloed in a Piper Warrior. Long time readers know that I also SCUBA dive. Now that I've retired, I plan on keeping busy and having fun.

This is the third year that I have gone skiing at Breckenridge. This program is setup by Shepherd Center in Atlanta, which is where I did my rehab 16 years ago and John Patterson's company Ski More Tours. John is fantastic!

My sister, Sherry and her husband, Ryan, went with me last year and decided to go with me this year. They drove down from Columbia, South Carolina Saturday afternoon.

It was up early on Sunday morning to drive to the airport. The Atlanta airport is a real mess. Every time I travel now I cuss out the Islamic bastards who have fucked up air travel. It was a real zoo getting our luggage out of the car and into the airport. My sister loves to travel with me because cripples get to cut the security lines. She also wants me to get good at skiing so the ski school will take me up to the good runs and she can cut the lift lines with me.

The flight was uneventful except for the fact that air travel has now become like bus travel only faster. Fortunately, I can walk on board with my braces so I don't have to use the bloody aisle chair. Sherry and Ryan can come aboard the same time I do. Another reason she likes to travel with me.

At Denver we all had to meet up and wait for the vans to arrive to take us to Breckenridge. Then it was time to load the cripples in the vans. We have two vans. One is a lift van for people who stay in their chairs for the trip and the other is a regular van for people who can get out of their chairs. I ride in this one and since I'm able to I got in the very back seat. Ryan and Sherry joined me.

We seem to have better people this year. Last year we had an annoying dude that I nicknamed Forest Stump. He should not have been allowed to go on the trip alone. He wanted to go this year, but Shepherd told him that he would have to have someone accompany him. Evidently he couldn't so we were spared his annoying presence.

Shepherd also sent a different recreational therapist with us. The person they sent the last two years was worthless. She was a bad Canadian. A bad Canadian is one who hates Americans. They can usually be found in Quebec and speak French. Go figger. Some of them come from Ontario which is where this person came from (I think). Good Canadians, of which there are many (I know some of them) like Americans.

This year we had Teresa who was great! She's also a babe. Unfortunately, she's married. Her husband came along on the trip.

Traveling with my sister does have benefits. She knows how to travel. When we got to the hotel and everyone was getting their luggage out of the U-Haul, getting the people in wheelchairs out of the lift van, putting the wheels on the wheelchairs of the people who rode in my van, and getting us crips out of the van and into chairs, my sister was at the front desk of the hotel checking in and getting our room keys. By the time I got out of the van and into my chair we were ready to go right to our room.

We went up to our room and watched the Falcons lose. Bummer!

Then it was off to the BOEC to get set up on the equipment I would be using. BOEC is the Breckenridge Outdoor Education Center. This is a nonprofit organization that specializes in programs for the disabled. Besides crips like me, they teach blind people. They teach learning impaired people (sometimes I fall in that category). These guys are incredible. They have a file on everyone so they knew what rig I was gonna use, how it should be padded, my outrigger length, and all sorts of other useful info. All I really had to do was get in and make sure everything was OK and my balance was good.

The first night we always have a group dinner at Mi Casa which is a Mexican restaurant across the street from The Village, which is where we stayed. By the way, we were in a two bedroom condo. Last year, we had a condo and Andrew, one of the people on the trip stayed with us. I also roomed with hin the first trip. He decided to get a room by himself this trip so I didn't have to share a bedroom with him. Had he roomed with us, we would have had to change to a different condo, since this one wasn't very wheelchair friendly.

After a good night's sleep (At least for me. Sherry didn't sleep well) we were ready for our first day on the slopes.

Here is where Teresa was different than the slug they sent along the last two years. That person used this trip as a paid vacation and spent most of her time away from the group skiing on her own. Teresa, on the other hand, was there watching and helping us transfer from our wheelchairs into the ski rigs we were gonna use. She also watched how we were loaded onto the chair lifts and how we got off. She also skied along with us taking pictures and watching us ski.

There are two tyoes of rigs that we use. There is a bi-ski and a mono-ski. As the names inply the bi-ski is two skis and the mono-ski is one ski. I use a mono-ski. It is essentially a bucket that sits atop a regular ski like the standup skiers use. We also have two outriggers which are poles with little skis on the end of them. We use these to turn.

The first morning I have Quinton as an instructor. I skied with him last year. The nice thing about skiing with Quinton is that he is a paraplegic and is on a mono-ski himself. He can actually demonstrate stuff I should be doing. I also have Peter who is a volunteer. He does this gratis. Peter gets to help me on and off the lift and help me up when I fall, which I do a lot.

Quinton's big thing is balance and looking down hill on my turns. I'm very rusty. I fall a lot. Quinton also started me off with a lot of brakes on my outriggers. What is nice on this trip is I didn't have equipment problems on my first day.

Quinton only worked with me in the morning. In the afternoon, he worked with some of the first timers who were having all sorts of problems. One if them was so discouraged she was ready to quit. She had a much better afternoon.

Jeff, one of the supervisors, noticed that I wasn't far enough forward in my rig, and over the lunch break they put some padding on the back of the bucket to force my upper body forward. AS I said before, these guys are really great.

After lunch Peter and I continued skiing and I had him back off my brakes on every run. By the end of the day, I was skiing better but I still sucked. It would take Jennifer to radically improve my skiing and I will write about that tomorrow and post a link to a picture of me skiing that day.

Posted by denny at January 30, 2005 06:56 PM