Vert180 Must-Do Skimo

Planned to go in as a particip-action event as it is a pretty cool event. One loop of the course: skin up, gentle grade run up boot-pack, with transition to descent. Repeat for 180 minutes!

Either it is the skier or the binding or combo, I have issue with getting into my bindings… and staying in them.

Into the 3rd loop, just starting the descent… my left ski felt a little strange when the ski just took off. I took a nice tumble, and had no idea where the ski ended up. I hobbled one-skied looking for it on the sides of the groomed runs, then took my one ski off and walked all the way down to transition as I searched for the runaway ski.

awesome style! ha, ha - photo Malcolm Taylor

Bummed to have to DNF, I hoped my ski would eventually be found. Thanks to Dave Dornian who suggested to chat with the ski patrol who may figure out where the ski went. Meanwhile, I put on my down jacket to stay warm.

Ski patrol guy immediately drove his snowmobile all the way up the climb, and back down when I lost optimism. I watched as he parked and walked down below transition. When I caught a glimpse of him with something in his hand, I started getting my skins ready.

The ski apparently flew down the hill from top Westside past transition to lower Eastside without hitting any skier skinning up, thankfully.

After at least 40 min of uncertainty… and rest… I charged up the next climbs. I was overly cautious with ensuring I was clipped into the binding.

Due to my right unstable knee, I took all the descents pretty un-aggressive even though it was a straight line down with a hard hockey stop to the right.

I had no idea how much time was left. I was just happy to be back in the game!