At least there’s that.

The wind has picked up again, and I zip up my open pocket to keep the remainder of my igniters dry. I place the stick of bamboo with two shots taped to it in the snow below me and pull off the rubber nipple at the end of the fuse. Next I place the igniter over the open end. When using explosives to control avalanches, we must follow a precise protocol. These regulations have become routine to me, and my hands perform the duties without much mental input. I just traversed onto this slope and now I must light the fuse and ski to the far side of the path before it goes off. This is tricky business and I am completely focused on the task.

After several weeks of sun and high-pressure the snow has finally returned. Last night’s snowfall has tested the strength of the bonds underneath, and I worry that today might not be a good day to place a large shot by hand. After all, I’m here because I’m expecting to see avalanches. And now I’ve traversed out onto the biggest slidepath on this route. I consider this briefly as my hands pull the string on the igniter.

I pull it off to inspect the fuse. In windy conditions it can be hard to know if the fuse is lit. The igniter itself smokes, but I watch for a second longer, just to be sure. The fuse sputters loudly and more smoke pours out the end.

Ignition

Grabbing my ski poles in the self-arrest position I leave the shot and ski towards the other edge of the bowl, where a shallow cornice separates this slidepath from the next one. Getting caught in an avalanche would be bad enough, but sliding down with a light bomb nearby would be even worse. I’m careful not to disturb the snow too much, willing my body to float across the deep snow to safety.

When I reach the other side, I propel myself over the cornice and back onto the ridge; I look up to see my partner still watching me. We both nod and back ourselves further towards the trees, turning our faces away from the explosive and into the wind. I tuck my chin into the collar of my parka, plug my ears and open my mouth.

The explosive concussion can rupture your eardrums if you’re too close and your mouth is closed. I taped the shot to a stick of bamboo so the explosion happened in the air, not I’m up here today doing avalanche control in order to open this roped-off terrain. We bomb the snow before dropping the gates, hoping to mitigate the avalanche hazard by causing the slides to happen now before the first skier drops in.

My breath echoes in my ears and I wait for the shot to go off. I’m sure it was lit; but it seems longer than the 90-second length of the fuse. I glance at my watch, removing one finger and quickly replace it under my hood. A few more seconds.

A muffled call comes over the radio. Dispatch wants to know when Southback will open. The hard part of my route—the hike up the King—is over, but I’ve only just thrown my first shot. I have eleven more to go.

The shot goes off, pressing a little on my sternum like a thumping finger. I turn toward the slope and slide my skis towards the edge to watch the powder cloud hit the trees below. Impressive results. I shouldn’t let my mind go to there, but it isn’t easy. I had just traversed across that slope, my skis cutting into the snow and weakening the slab.

Today is going to be a busy day. Guests have already started lining up at the chairlift at the bottom of this run, ready to hike out as soon as we drop the ropes. Much of the West has suffered a poor start to the ski season, and guests are ready for fresh snow.

Tightening the straps on my backpack I head towards our next shot and watch my partner ski down to me. We will need to work efficiently along the ridge, dropping shots in all the suspect zones before traversing two more times across the slopes below. Soon, just before the crowds arrive, we will finish our route with a glorious run to the bottom. The snow is sparkling now and patches of blue have opened in the sky. It’s going to be a good day.

If you do sports you are going to have injuries

Every dedicate outdoor enthusiast (skier, surfer, snowboarder, mountainbiker, climber etc…) will face injuries at some point or many points in their active career. Some may even be very serious ones. You won’t be able to avoid it – it’s a fact. Dislocated shoulders, bent knees, “skier’s thumb”, concussions, muscle/ligament tears, frost bites…you name it, they’re out there just waiting for you. The legendary Laird Hamilton, quoted above, is as good an example as any – this guy has suffered dozens of seriously gnarly crashes and miraculously has recovered from all injuries sustained.

I’ve been lucky with sports accidents so far. One broken ankle, a semi-serious neck “whiplash” from an MTB accident, numerous muscle tears,  dodgy right patella (from my mogul skiing days), and many good bruises (again from bike stuff)…a pretty benign list if you were to be making comparisons with a pro athlete.

My injury list may also be somewhat less detailed than others due to my nature: I’ve always considered myself to be relatively risk averse when it comes to action sports, or at least to be calculated or analytical in my approach. All and all I’ve always tried to avoid the  most “extreme” stuff. Instead, I kind of like to focus more on the skill side of the sports. You know, pulling that technical move with your bike on the trails, nailing that grab on your 360, fine tuning your tele turn…For me it has never been about the stuff like “wow, did you hear we skied [insert gnarly route's name here]?” but more about the stoke how some turns feel and how somehow (or myself) stomped that floaty cliff jump with a nice move or something similar. No wonder I like things like Nimbus Independent – stuff that’s more about the flow and feel, not just the “difficult level” or pure craziness of the lines, jumps, moves and so on.

Oh the modern day rush to achieve things “right here, right now”

Having said all this, I still need to take care of my physical level to achieve all the things that I like to do, and those that I dream of. As life trundles on and annoyingly I seem to be getting older, I’m increasingly aware that I have to stay in the best possible shape that I can to enable me to continue to play in the outdoors. In the last few years I guess I have become kind of a training freak. I’ve been trying to pack it all in – a family with two young children (and lots of lost sleep), building a business, and trying to keep up with my younger/fitter/those with more free time friends. And I still want to do new stuff – this year I’ve really got into surfing and have managed to surf about 15 times this year – two trips abroad and even one trip here in Finland.  Let’s just say that one involved a furious onshore storm, a 6mm wet suit, gloves and boots, and absolutely zero clean rides……not the best!

The physical and mental demands of trying to juggle all of this has probably been a bit too much for my body and mind. Last week I realized that my right arm had become really sore and it seemed that I had some kind of RSI in my right bicep. Eventually the whole arm began to swell, and I started to get seriously concerned about it.

A doctor friend sent me for an ultra sound scan at a local hospital. It turns out I’ve got venous thrombosis near my left clavicle. Damn. I’ve always been terrified of one day really doing myself some damage – tearing a knee, shoulder, ankle, having a head trauma or even a broken back…but something to do with internal diseases? Hell no (not at this age, again….. hell no!)

As it turned out, operating on the thrombosis itself was actually not such a big deal. The whole operation took about an hour – modern medicine really can do wonders. However, I now have to eat so called “blood thinning” pills for about three months, just to make sure that the symptoms doesn’t recur. And most significantly, I can’t do any ‘dangerous’ sports for at least three months. This is because the medicine makes my system more vulnerable to bleeding, bruises, even internal bleeding or serious head trauma.  I think I can go skiing with my daughters, teach them at a slow pace but no jumps, serious off-piste skiing, climbing/bouldering, mountain biking or any other activity where there is a high risk of crashes/bruises.

Noone seems to have any idea why this has happened. The doctors were very tentative to make any speculations before the lab test results. It could be genes, body structure and/or maybe other external factors – well, paddling in very cold water with a thick wet suit probably didn’t really help…but it is not by any means the only explanatory factor. Stress, dehydration and (very) tight/stuck muscles in the shoulder area might also be contributory factors (so  to all of you skiers, climbers, bikers etc. out there – remember to stretch, seriously!) The irony of all of this is that despite possible genetic factors in my blood or structural problems, all other factors were more than fine (blood pressure, hemoglobin, pulse, cholesterol etc.)

The effect of all of this might somehow restrict my future activities (e.g. long flights might need special care) or might not do any harm at all. The biggest effect of all is that it has stopped me in my tracks and made me think. I’ve questioned just exactly what the hell I was rushing around all over the place for. A start-up business, one small kid that doesn’t sleep and this weird burn to e.g. learn how to surf as quickly as possible. Looking back it’s clear that I was all over the shop, putting far too much pressure on myself and I don’t really know why. So easy with the benefit of hindsight to see that I just needed to chill and give myself some time. Ah hindsight – useful but inherently useless as it doesn’t really change anything right now.

Stay positive dude!

I consider myself to be a relatively sensitive guy and I definitely tend to freak out when contemplating issues like “thinning blood” or “an increased risk of internal bleeding”. But I’m not really freaking out too much. And I’ve at least managed to pull out vaccinating myself everyday (with Klexane medine, first help for thrombosis). I also tend to have this (probably quite naive) theory of using the negative energy and turning it into something more positive. For example, you’re hungover and pissed off…clean the house or do something that you’ve been meaning to do for ages and somehow the negative energy goes away.

The same goes with this freak illness/injury – I’m trying to turn the whole situation into a possibility rather than a hindrance. I mean, now I will have more time to spend with the kids and teach them skiing (it’s fine for me to do easy blue run skiing) or go to do mellow cross country skiing for a change. I am also willing to try things I’ve never done: yoga, pilates or other kinds of core training activities. Long walks (on the beach, heh heh heh) might not be so bad either. I might even (gasp!!) try that “nordic walking” thing. It’s time to enjoy family and friends and take life at a calmer pace. By immersing myself in the small and simple things in life I hope to learn some big and significant lessons and am determined to move forward from this in a positive way. Still bloody annoying though……