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December, 2006
Carnage: Tales of Adventure Gone Wrong
From Jim Kaiser, Livermore
Unplanned Nasal Enema
A couple of winters ago Harold Herschlag calls me and says that there was a telemark festival going on at Sunday River and was wondering if I wanted to take a clinic with him. Harold patrols at the River and as some of you know is also a pretty solid white water citizen. When he said he'd like to take a class with me because he figured we were at about the same ability level, I was kinda flattered and said, sure sounds like a great way to spend a day. I was thinking that I hadn't had a tele class in a while could probably use an expert eye to clean up a few things. At the very least I dig Harold's sense of humor and I was guaranteed a few laughs. I'm a sucker for a good time.
I meet Harold at the tele fest. We catch a run or two to kill some time and warm up. We meet the class at the appointed time. About 10 other guys had signed up for our clinic. On the lift. At the top we have our meeting. Couple of issues, first, the instructor isn't very excited about teaching today.
That kinda bugged me and Harold, but we let it slide. Second issue, this is our instructor’s first run at Sunday River ever. So Harold is our trail map. No biggie.
We do a couple runs. Stop and go one at a time so the instructor can make some adjustments on our form. Then he decides we should bail into the woods. Ok. We do a couple glade runs. Not much instruction but Harold and I have fun. Then our aloof leader stops on the edge of a trail and is peering into the woods. He looks at Harold, "Can we ski in there?"
"The mountain is open boundary to boundary."
Now I'm looking in there. In there?! You're shitting me. Calling it "woods" was about 20 years premature. This piece of real estate was jammed with new generation maple and beech. It looked like Don King’s hair.
Our boy jumps in. The rest of us look at each other for a second and then like a spooked heard of African warthogs blast down into the arboreal ka-ka hole. I get too much speed falling off the trail and by the time I drop into my first turn I have to stack my skis on top of each other so as not to let a tree slip between the tips. The last thing I need is to take a shot in the twins while I'm running with my warthog brothers. I finally see Harold's jacket, (in that cover you really couldn't see the whole skier). "Hey, Harold." I kinda jumped him as he didn't believe anyone could be that close to him. I can make out half the group through the trees. The instructor is right next to us and says, "Alright lets go." and sails down the glade. Harold and I follow. I leave enough space in case he Wiley Coyote's on a tree. We're moving pretty fast in this stuff. It's not like going supersonic on piste, but in all this undergrowth I feel like I'm skiing through a piece of wicker furniture. I'm a ninja. Wax on wax off, I'm painting the fence, I look like Keanu in the Matrix - then just like Neo I take a bullet.
Only my bullet is a red maple whip. In and out and the damage is done: I never even knew it was there. The stick shot through my defense like a rapier - straight up my nose, plunging into my sinus cavity. I swear it moved my left eye so far I could actually see the trail on my left.
I knew this was going to be graphic. I grabbed my nose instantly and slid up next to Harold, the instructor, and the remaining few of the lost battalion.
"Harold, I have a nose bleed."
"Really, you sure?"
I leaned forward let go of my nose and, unlike Neo, blood gushed out of my face like an extra on Scarface.
This is not stopping: pressure, snow, pressure points (Harold is ski patrol and I was an EMT, we can't even slow this down.)
Harold informs the instructor that we have a situation.
The instructor looks at me and is a bit shocked by the amount of blood on my face.
He looks at Harold and in a half disgusted voice says "Does this happen often?"
When he looks back at me with the steady flow of blood rolling out of my nose I shoot him a look that lets him know if he opens his mouth one more time I was going to activate his dental plan.
He bites his tongue and says "It looks like you might have this under control and I've got to get the class back to the base."
Harold and I continue to work on my dam breach long after the class has gone. Harold fortunately had a napkin in his pocket. After a bit I say "this isn't slowing let’s hit the clinic." The woods looked like a mob hit less one gumba. So we light it up and tuck down to the nearest patrol clinic. We were skiing as fast as the terrain would allow and despite the napkin jam you could easily track us to the Barker Lodge.
At the clinic Harold packed my nose enough so we could finish the day. It didn't really stop and I needed to unload the thing about every 20 minutes. That was disgusting.
A week and a half later Harold called me.
"Hey, your nose stop bleeding?
"Funny you should call, today is the first clear day."
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