Jackson Hole, WY

On my way out of Utah, I decided to ski one day at Solitude since I hadn’t stopped by there earlier. It was just as advertised: empty on a Friday.

At around 3pm, I started my drive to Jackson Hole. It would be about a 7 hour drive, and I was planning on getting there around 10pm. The drive was beautiful, with lots of snow everywhere and large open landscapes:

 

The highway to Jackson hole straddled the boarder between Utah and Wyoming, so every hour Google Maps would say “Welcome to Wyoming” then “Welcome To Utah”.

I got there, and I was pretty impressed with the hotel I got for the next 2 nights:

Not bad for 100/night.

The next morning, I got up, did some skiing. At first I wasn’t a big fan of Jackson hole, because the lifts were pretty slow. But as the day went on, the snow turned to corn, and I love corn snowboarding. I had some of my best runs through corn snow in the trees. I would say my first day in Jackson hole I did some of the best runs of the seasons.

The views from the top arn’t too bad either:

On the second day, I decided to get my board waxed(thanks Shelby for the suggestion!), and it definitely makes a world of a difference. It definitely floats over flat sections much easier.

Around this time, I found out that Ultra music festival had been cancelled in Miami due to Coronavirus. I spent at least a hour or so on the phone with the hotel I booked in Miami trying to get a refund. Luckily it went through. This is one of the few things I have booked in advance for my trip(that, and tomorrowland), and it worked out really well in my favor. Now that Coronavirus is basically fucking over all travel plans, I’m really glad I didn’t book things too far in advance.

At the end of the second day of skiing at Jackson Hole, I had gotten into a rhythm of riding the gondola up, and then skiing the 3k feet down to the bottom, rinse and repeating. Not many people were still skiing at 3pm on a Thursday, so I got the gondola to myself:

The accident

One of my runs down from the gondala, I was going down a blue groomer. I had done it a couple of times before. I was maybe going 5-10 mph, and I went off the lip of a small jump that was on the side of the groomer, and got maybe 1-2 feet of air. I landed a bit too forward, and I think the front of my board hit before the back, causing me to spin forward and slam into the ground. I landed either with my hand outstretched, or onto my shoulder directly. I don’t remember what exactly.

For what it’s worth, I had taken tons of harder falls all season. Falls going 30 mph, falls off half pipes, hard falls that knocked the wind out of me. But this fall is the one that fucked me over.

I heard a audible “CRACK”, and I could feel something was wrong. I felt my shoulder and it had quite a prominent bump on it. It  wasn’t excruciating pain, but it did hurt.

I just sat on the slope for about a minute looking up at people skiing by hoping someone would help me. Then I realized nobody would stop and I should go find some help.

I snowboarded down to the nearest lift, just heal breaking the whole way. I had a convo with the lift operator; he asked me if I wanted to to call ski patrol.

Fuck. That.

Ski patrol is super slow, and they gotta wrap you up, and ask you a bunch of questions. It’d be much quicker if I just skii’d down under my own power. Which is what I did.

After getting to the bottom and getting a little lost trying to find the clinic, I finally checked myself in.

The people are the clinic where nice enough. They gave me a warm blanket(it was like they toasted it):

They took some xrays; I remember when they taking them, I felt pretty nauseated. “I feel like throwing up” I told the technician. Luckily, it passed.

After talking to the doctors, they told me I had an acromioclavicular joint separation(ac seperation). The seperations go from grade 1 to grade 5. I have a grade 3, which means I severed all 3 ligaments connecting the clavicle to the scapula.

According to thesteadmanclinic.com,

 In this injury the clavicle (collar bone) separates from the scapula (shoulder blade). It is commonly caused by a fall directly on the “point” of the shoulder or a direct blow received in a contact sport.

But at the moment, all I knew was that it was probably grade 3, and that I might need surgery. So the people at the clinic told me to see an orthopedist so they could better tell the severity and recommend treatment options.’

The worst day

So breaking a shoulder sucks, but the day really never got better. I asked the clinic if they could give me a ride to my car, since I was all fucked up. They nicely obligated. When we got to my car, I realize I had dropped my key somewhere. So we have to drive all the way back to the clinic, and I had to retrace my steps. Broken arm, in a sling, in the cold(because I still hadn’t figured out how to put on a jacket with one arm fucked), I searched for my keys for 30 minutes. Eventually I found it, and we went back to my car. Okay, one step down.

The next step was to go to the pharmacy and fill my prescription for narcotics that they gave me at the clinic and to get some ibuprofen. When I tried to fill the prescription, it was missing a signature. So they weren’t able to fill it. Cool, I’ll just be in pain all night, no big deal. I purchaser the ibuprofen and leave the store…

Except I was missing my phone. I retrace my steps multiple times, and my phone is nowhere to be found. I asked the lost and found at the store, and they don’t have it either. After searching for about 15 minutes on the ground, in the carts, on the aisles, in the pharmacy, I just grab my laptop and use the “find my phone” application. Turns out it fell out of the basket when I put it away, and it was under the rows of baskets that are at the front of the store.

Cool. Another 30 minutes wasted, fun.

At this point, I had had the accident at 4, and it was already 7. My plan for the trip(pre-accident) was to visit my sister. She lived in Greeley, CO which was about a 10 hour drive from where I was. I had previously decided to split it into an evening and morning drive. That meant I had 5 hours of driving to Casper, Wyoming I had to do that evening before I could relax.

So I go ahead with the driving, and it’s rather uneventful. I get to about 10 minutes from my destination when I see flashing police lights behind my car.

Fuck.

“I pulled you over because you were doing 70 in a 40. The speed limit went from 75, to 55 over at the top of the hill, to 45 once you got into town, but you were still going 70”, the officer said.

I had just been on the highway where the limit was 70, but as we approached town, I guess the speed limit dropped down to 45. I hadn’t noticed this. Being that it was almost 1 am, there were no other cars and I couldn’t see any speed signs, so I was kind of going whatever what comfortable for driving.

I can’t begrudge him too much, considering what happened 5 days later with the NEXT ticket I got…

so I take my $175 ticket and I’m on my way.

I finally check into my hotel, and get situtated. But my day is still not over. I need to call insurance to pre-authorize a visit to the orthopedist that I’m hoping to get tomorrow. So after another 10 minutes of being on the phone(my insurance people were super friendly and accommodating), I get everything sorted out.

Note that I’m all alone, nobody’s with me to help, and I’m in the middle of god-forsaken nowhere. I want to cry, but I keep it together for the most part.

I finally get my clothes off and get into bed(with much struggle).

It’s 2 am.

And I would definitely say that was in the top 5 shittiest day’s I’ve ever had. But thankfully it gets better.

Part 2 to follow soon…