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Blog > Thoughts > Other's Thoughts > Chloe's Thoughts > Out of Bounds

Out of Bounds

Written by Chloe on Monday, March 15, 2010

Another tedious skiing adventure from Chloe? Yeah maybe, but I wouldn’t write about it if I didn’t think I had something new to say:

Yesterday I devoted the skiing to the most remote corner of the resort, where hardly anybody goes. It is accessed via a hike and a rather long traverse. It’s all fairly tough stuff, in the 9.0 to 9.6 degree of difficulty range.

On the last steep pitch before lunch I was paying attention to the fact that I make left turns much faster than I make right turns. I don’t have a choice about it. If I make a steep right turn too fast, the left quadriceps can’t handle it and the downhill leg collapses. I was thinking that I’d actually be able to ski more aggressively if I used outriggers (adaptive ski poles that are forearm crutches with attached small skis).

After I had put my skis and poles in the rack, and was about to head to lunch, ski patrol came in bringing an injured person off the mountain. I wished it was me. I wished I’d just become paraplegic.

On the way to the cafe, something caught my attention through an open door out of the corner of my eye. I stopped dead. It was a row of outriggers hanging on the wall. I looked at the sign on the door: "Adaptive Sports". I kept going towards the cafe, but a decision had been instantly made. I would go talk to them after lunch. Everything had come together. This wasn’t just a matter of presenting as a PWD while skiing. I figured I would actually do better physically with adaptive ski equipment. I had been a little hesitant about outriggers on account of fibromyalgia. But in the last two months it has been better than at any time in the last 24 years. I don’t have a clue why, but I’m not complaining. All I needed was a sign. There it was, literally, on the door.

I had my usual lunch of ice cream and a latte. Those contain all of the essential nutrients required for skiing. I alternate between two flavors of ice cream. Last time it had been strawberry, which meant that yesterday was mint chocolate chip.

As I walked in the door to introduce myself to the folks in the adaptive sports place, I was thankful that my limp didn’t need to be faked. I was also thankful that I didn’t need to make anything up. I explained to them about the minor T10 – T12 injury, the partial paralysis in the left quadriceps, the difficulty in making a fast right turn on steep terrain. They immediately understood all the issues and said I would be very well suited to use outriggers. Cool!

The people working in adaptive sports seemed very nice. I enjoyed talking with them, and they spent plenty of time explaining things to me. They said I should definitely take an adaptive skiing lesson, using outriggers, as the first step. There are lots of new things to learn, like getting on and off chair lifts for example. I was asked "Do you ski the whole mountain?" "Yes", I said. Perhaps I should explain that skiing lingo for non-skiers. It was a question about my expertise. My answer told them that I do not consider any terrain too difficult for me to ski. Since I was an expert they said a one hour lesson should be sufficient.

We chatted about several related issues. They currently don’t rent the outriggers except for lessons, but they are planning on doing so next season. Incidentally, this is one of the two resorts in my state renowned for their adaptive skiing programs. I gave them my e-mail address so that they could send me information about booking a lesson, and a form to fill out regarding my disability. As I was leaving, the woman with whom I had primarily been conversing gave me her card. I had been talking with the assistant director of adaptive sports. I am SO excited about the prospect of having an adaptive skiing lesson.

I headed back out to the remote area, all the way along the very long traverse, including some cliff ledges, to the most remote run of all. It was a 9.6, parallel to the resort boundary. It’s not illegal to cross out of the boundary, and there was no rope up. However, they put up signs noting that there is no avalanche control or ski patrol once you are out of the ski resort property. I was quite happy to stay on the in bounds 9.6; it was plenty steep and difficult enough. It was parallel to the descending mountain ridge on the left, which had the signs declaring the boundary. The terrain sloped steeply off to the right, with cliffs beyond some dense trees. It happened to be perfectly suited for a weak left leg. The steepest longest fastest turns put all the weight on the right leg. I could level out a bit while approaching the ridge on the left, for a much easier right turn.

I seem to be addicted to doing things that scare the piss out of me. There was always the possibility of goofing up a turn and smashing into a tree, or missing the trees and going off the edge of the cliff. No signs of anybody else out in this remote corner to rescue me. I was rewarded with beautiful knee deep powder though. For those who are entertained by such matters, I was glad that on the previous day I had just upgraded to bigger more absorbent incontinence pads.

After a while I stopped to catch my breath, and immediately started crying. I was thinking that like it or not, adaptive ski equipment or not, it is probably the last season I will attempt triple blacks like this. My GP had said to expect increasing atrophy in the left leg and increasing difficulty skiing. I’m pushing runs at the limit of my capability. Why would I be sad about all this, you might reasonably ask. I want to be paralysed, right? Yes indeed, and so this seems an odd admission. But I have to keep things honest with you all. Just because I have BIID doesn’t mean that I won’t experience the grief and sadness that comes with the losses associated with paraplegia. It probably sounds really weird to people who don’t have BIID, but I wouldn’t want BIID to protect me from that grief in any case. I don’t want to be cheated out of that.

After I was done crying, I started skiing again. Then I stopped and cried some more. Then I skied some more.

I was paying close attention to following wherever the terrain seemed to lead, without looking around too much. I found myself going into a very nice very steep chute. After a little while I stopped, suddenly realising that something was wrong. Actually several things were wrong. The first thing I noticed was that I was setting off a series of mini-avalanches. There had clearly been no avalanche control in this chute. I looked to my left for the boundary signs; none in sight. The chute was getting extremely steep and rather narrow, definitely a couple of notches up from the 9.6 I had been doing. There wasn’t supposed to be anything more difficult than a 9.6 in this area of the resort. I looked up to my right to the ridge. Yes, UP, to my RIGHT. I had inadvertently crossed the ridgeline and was skiing down a chute on the other side. SHIT! I was out of bounds! Nobody to save your ass out here. Out of bounds means out of sight, out of earshot, nobody coming to rescue you if you acquire paraplegia, just slowly freezing to death.

I looked back up the chute; too steep to be reasonably able to climb back up to the top. It could be dangerous too. In attempting to climb back up I could create a slide zone that would allow a bigger avalanche than the little ones I had been triggering. I looked over to the ridge on the right. That was where the resort boundary was. But I could tell that it immediately dropped into a cliff. The run I had been planning to do must have veered off to the right at around the same place I had crossed the ridge into the chute. I looked all around. The best option was to keep skiing down the steep and narrow chute.

I was triggering mini-avalanches all the time. I slid down the biggest of them on my butt for a while before it stopped; nothing dangerous. Some of the chute was too steep and narrow to do anything but side slip. Eventually it widened out a bit, and the skiing was great!

I took a little time to reflect on the metaphor. Sometimes I feel like I’ve been living a lot of my life out of bounds without really knowing it. Nobody told me when I crossed the boundary line that was invisible to my own eyes. How do you get back once you start down that out of bounds chute. BIID is out of bounds, isn’t it? Do I want to get back? No, I don’t think so. Out of bounds is where the real adventure of life is to be found.

Well, I did eventually get back into the ski resort. I have a good sense of direction, a good eye for terrain, plenty of skiing skills, and resourcefulness. It was good to see a chairlift again. It took three chairlift rides to get back up to where I had started that run.

I skied until the chairlifts closed for the day, headed for the car, ditched the skis, and went to the restroom. It was down a flight of stairs. I laughed at myself for forgetting that pretending to be able bodied is not trivially easy. It was fortunate that the hand rail happened to be right next to me as I put my left foot onto the step below. Oops!

As I drove down the canyon, I realised that I should be able to get a view of the out of bounds chute that I had skied down. The road had been visible from the chute, far below. There it was; looking completely impossible. But there were my unmistakable signature ski tracks in the snow. It just goes to show. One may believe certain things in life to be impossibly beyond one’s reach. But one can end up doing the impossible anyway; and all the better for being out of bounds.

Tags: Adaptive Skiing, Avalanche, BIID, Grief, Ice Cream, Incontinence Pads, Outriggers, Paralysis, Paraplegia

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