So Much Fun and So Much Drama. The Snow Trip That Nearly Took Mattys Life!

Me Matty and Sammy decided we would go on a quick trip to where ever it was snowing hard on the other side of the world. We found ourselves drawn back to whistler, our old home. Gosh it was great to be back in that gorgeous little village and boy was the snow on! We had a fantastic week of catching up with friends and Riding some awesome freshies but it had its fair share of drama and weirdness too.

On the very first day on the very first run I felt a bit weird and had to stop when I started seeing little gold stars. I called out to matty to let him know I was feeling weird and before you knew it I had passed out cold for no apparent reason! Very very weird. I haven’t passed out since I was about 12 years old! I took mit easy for the rest of the day and didn’t ride to hard. I couldn’t stop riding cause the freshies were far to good. The rest of that day was epic. Loads of good snow and we were just having a blast. It was great to sooth the muscles in the hot tub that arvo as well. God hot tubs in the snow are good!

My body was so stiff and sore I could hardly move the next day so I just had 3 more hot tubs and lovely cups of tea and naps. Ohhhh I love days like that. The boys went up and had a good day

A day later we all went up together again and had another fantastic day of riding. We spent lots of time in the tree’s and got loads more fresh snow. Its was a really really fun day and a really full day. As me and jimmi and suz set off to go home at the end of the day matty and sam decided to go and do rabbit tracks – a very hard, very out of bounds run and they had no certainty about the condition of the run at all. The track out of there was of particular concern to them as if it hadn’t been tracked out by someone else it sure would be a hard slog out of there. Anyway of course in the name of adventure they set off on this run just as the mountain was closing and I went back to the hotel for a nice long tub. Well I hot tubbed, I bathed, I prepared a meal, I read a book – the clock kept ticking and no sign of the boys. Hours past and the sun started to go down….ok now I was starting to worry. I called them and found out they were still way up the mountain trekking through waist high powder. The trail had never been ridden before that year and had loads of heavy snow for them to get through and now it was dark. At the pace they were going they were still going to take many hours to get down they said, and they were already very tired from a long day of riding so they wanted us to call a rescue - otherwise they were pretty sure they’d have to sleep out there the night. We called the rescue place but they said it would be a couple of thousand bucks and not only that but also they said they wouldn’t be able to get up there right away – that it’d take an hour or two. The boys weren’t happy with the news and decided to just push on and try to trudge their way out of there. Poor buggers. Anyway to cut va long story short they ended up walking all the way down and got home at about 8.30pm completely exhausted and we threw them in the hot tub and fed them loads of food. The collapsed in a heap pretty quickly after that.

Another relaxing day off and then we were all up the mountain again and loads of snow about and we had already had a great day of riding when we started down the run that I passed out on that first day. It was great snow and matty was particularly playful that day, riding lots of mini waterfalls and launching of things and getting into mischief as he does. Falling over lots and giggling lots. I was riding just behind him when he fell off the top of a big rock into a river bed ditch sort of thing. He fell kind of weirdly as his feet were up in the air but his head was down in the ditch and as he fell he got completely buried in snow over most of his body including his face. Only his feet were sticking out. Because he was right down in a ditch he was very hard to see but I saw him shaking his feet and went to check if he was ok. When I saw he was buried I launched into action somehow keeping pretty calm. It was hard to get to him because he was in a ditch and the closer I got the more snow fell on him so I had to lay flat on my belly and kind of slide to him and quickly dig him a breathing hole to his mouth. By the time I got to his mouth a he got some air he had already been under a few minutes and was coughing because he’d breathed in some snow. What a relief that he was ok in there!! Next we pulled his head out and I just held him there for a while till he calmed down. By then suzi was with us and was taking his board off so we could get him out. It ended up taking us 15 or 20 minutes to get him out of there. It was one of the scariest things that has ever happened to me. The thought that I could’ve lost him if I hadn’t seen him fall in there send shivers down my spine. Of course we all kept riding but quite a bit more carefully.

I had nightmares that night of losing matty of me drowning in snow and didn’t sleep well for the next 2 nights. I was quite shaken. We take so many risks on the snow and often we ride alone. Even though this experience was frightening it gave me so much more respect for the mountain and made me a safer rider as I will be much stricter about safety now and never ride alone.

We spent the last day shopping for new snowgear wich was really fun and really really cold (minus 15). Matty had been riding with gloves that had 19 layers of duct tape holding them together so we had to sort that out!! He he he. It was a crazy wild adventure! this trip but we all managed to get home in one peice.