The drive up was a snap. We made it in just over four hours and arrived at about 11:30. The room was very nice, literally right next to the main summit lift. And it had a gas-powered fireplace that was very warm and lit up at the flick of a switch. We were exhausted but very pleased and then proceeded to scare the liver out of ourselves by watching part of an episode of "Ghost Hunters." As we were going to sleep, I turned to Scottish Lass and said, "Don't worry. Why would you think anything evil or supernatural would happen in a snowbound hotel in the mountains?"
I'm not a skier. I've probably skied a total of ten times in my life and I don't think I had skied before this weekend since 2002. So I was actually a little nervous as we reached the summit. Thankfully, it worked out fine. I remembered how to cut and turn and after a couple of quick runs on the easy trails, we started on the blue/intermediate runs. Things were going splendidly. The sky was crystal clear and it was in the high 20s on the mountain. There was a little bit of ice, but generally the conditions were good and the slopes were not as crowded as one might expect for a long holiday weekend.
Unfortunately, at about 2:30 that first afternoon, things started to turn for the worse. We were skiing down a trail called Big Dipper which had some significant ice and some bare spots. I had gotten ahead of SL and so I stopped at the next big drop to wait. When I saw her coming, I turned and chatted to a couple that had just stopped near me. It was then that I heard a panicked yelp. SL was down and not moving. I took off my skis and walked back up the mountain to her and she was clearly in pain. Her left ski had caught an edge and the binding had not released, twisting her left ankle violently.
We called the ski patrol and they put her in the stretcher-sled and took her down the mountain. I was very relieved when they showed up because she had started to shiver severely. When we reached the First Aid station at the base and got her boot off, it was clear that she hadn't broken anything. The best guess is she had hyperextended some ligaments or possibly had a small tear. She couldn't walk on the foot, so I gave her a piggyback ride back to the hotel room.
And that's pretty much where we stayed for the next two days. She had been hoping that she would wake up the next day and feel better, but I knew that she was done skiing for the weekend.
Using the hotel wheelchair, I was able to get her out to the car for a very nice drive around the nearby Vermont villages on Sunday, but since we couldn't actually get out and walk around, it was somewhat frustrating. It's truly remarkable how drastically things change when you have an injury like this. Just getting from the bed to the bathroom was a chore for her. I felt awful for her because I am imagine she is feeling very frustrated at her lack of mobility. Last week I had that horrible stomach virus for two days and I was going crazy because I couldn't get out of bed.
We're back in NYC now and she has crutches, so her mobility is increased. She is going to the doctor today for a full exam, but I suspect that this injury is going to take a long time to heal.
Now that we are settled and the initial injury has passed, I have to look back at one moment and laugh. The Scottish Lass is, obviously, British and her reaction to the injury and the pain reminded me of nothing so much as the scene in European Vacation where Eric Idle is mauled on his bike and keeps apologizing and saying that there is nothing wrong at all. She may not be English, but the general reaction was very similar. We were sitting on the side of a cold mountain and she couldn't move her leg and yet she kept saying she was fine and that she was sorry that she had fallen. When I first tried to summon the ski patrol, she tried to stop me and tell me that she would be fine. It was obviously serious at the time, but, looking back, it was such a hilariously British moment. I half expected her to say to the ski patrol, "I'm really sorry that I fell on your mountain."
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