From: jss@kepler.unh.edu (Spectre)
Newsgroups: rec.skiing
Subject: Re: My Favorite Wipeout
Date: 19 Nov 1992 00:09:19 GMT
Organization: University of No Holidays - UNH - East somewhere
NNTP-Posting-Host: kepler.unh.edu

My best wipeout that I can recall, actually not even a wipeout, but close
enough, was one day 2 seasons ago at good ol' Killington VT.  I was going
down Devil's Fiddle, which is the untalked about advisary to their heavily
publicised Outer Limits.  It's kinda like K2 to Mount Everest.  I may not
be more popular then Outer Limits, but, In my opinion, it's alot harder.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm a fairly good mogul skiier, I can pick a nice
line, bash down through them, and pull off some nice airs and all that....
But I have one weakness, I have alittle problem stopping without the ever
popular hip check.  Now I was flying down Devil's Fiddle, skiing amazingly
well, when I remembered one thing about Devil's Fiddle, it has a couple of
small cliffs.  This was in the spring, so the snow was thin, and there was
bare spots everywhere, including the bare spot showing all the rocks on top
of one of the cliffs.  I paniced, I thought I was going to fly right through
the rocks and over the cliff.  I tried to stop, which unfourtunately, I do
by leaning back in fear.  I guess I figured that the farther back I got myy
head, the more distance between my eyes and the rocks, therefor more time to
stop before them.  In all the confusion of figuring out my brakes, I forgot
about the moguls....just as I arrive at the one that I was planning my twister
spread.  Leaning back, hitting a mogul head-on.....everyone should know
what that causes.   Next thing I know, I'm looking back up the hill, the sky
was the ground and the ground was the sky.  The only thing that ran through my
head was..."That's it...it's been real, I'm gonna land on those rocks right on
my head".  Somehow the sky started to sink away, and come down from the top
instead of being at the bottom.  I landed on the backs of my skiis, went right
to my patented hip check stop, and slid to a stop with one ski about 6 inches
into the rocks.  Everyone was clapping..........I thought I was dead, and they
were all clapping!  After about 15 minutes of running through my checklist 
(fingers...check. toes....check.  Feet....check), We all know the checklist
that I'm talking about :), I got up...skiied nice and slow to the parking lot.
Grabbed my friends keys, took off my skis, and RAN to the car, and dove in
the cooler.  While my friend Jason and I sat in the parking lot, listening to
music and drinking a few beers, with me stopping every 3-5 minutes to say...
"I did a f**king back flip!!??", People were coming up to me and saying....

"Wow....That was the coolest jump I've ever seen....Too bad you didn't land it
better....how did you get the balls to try a backflip on Devil's Fiddle?!"

Out of the last 40 times I've been to Killington since then, I have yet to
go on Devil's Fiddle....I think it is the only trail in existance that I'm
scared to ski.....aside from the Left Gully, in Tuckerman's Ravine on MT.
Washington....Which is a whole other wipe-out story in it's self!!!!

					-Jeff
				Strong follower of the Ski to Die Cult
-- 
        'Sex is not the answer, sex is the question. Yes is the answer'
* Jeff Schreiber ***********   __     While people are dreaming of flying,  ***
* aka - "Spectre"  *********  / /__   Birds are dreaming of Rollerblading!  ***
* jss@kepler.unh.edu ******* /____/ They can only take my Rollerblades when ***
* j_schreiber@unhh.unh.edu * 00000  they pry them off my cold, dead feet!!! ***
*******************************************************************************
*              My opinions are mine and only mine. I don't care               *
*              if they are wrong and you can't have them anyway!              *