Bluebird skies today over mammoth after a little storm but only a dusting of snow last night. Rode with 5 other instructors also going for their level three this morning while our training manager ran lower level, level 2 training for morning session. Then afternoon session was level three training. It was a good training session. But unfortunately about 2:15pm, we we working towards the super pipe and rolled through the small/medium park features. Hit a three pack of good size kicker type jumps which I’ve successfully cleared over many times over the last two seasons. Coming down the second jump landing, just at the edge of the landing there was a big frozen snowdrift that basically formed two big spines sticking up, that definitely should not have been there. Hit the first spine, went from down the mountain to across the mountain in a split second and as a result my face and my chest slammed into the second spine really hard. Had a little bloody nose, which was minor and fine, but my chest has a fair amount of pain right in the center. Thinking I bruised my sternum…… ugh…. We were just a few minutes from the base area so I checked in with patrol. He didn’t think based on what I was describing to him that it was a serious injury. He gave me a bag of ice so I sat for about 25 minutes in the lodge and put ice on my chest, while they rest of the guys took another pipe run with our training manager. Got back out on the snow and managed to ride surprisingly pretty decently from about 2:50-4. Took it mild though. Mad that I missed out on the half pipe runs cuz I was really looking forward to riding through mammoth’s absolutely legendary half pipe. Ego is hurt more than my chest lol. Taking it easy tonight with an ice pack and some ibuprofen, so hopefully tomorrow I’ll be good to get back on snow and starting jamming. Can’t complain though because my last bad crash here in 2015 was WAY worse so I guess I’ll count my blessings….
