Back when we lived in Idaho, the National Ski Patrol folks called it the “Picabo effect.” In the 1990’s, Picabo Street was a winning downhill ski racer. The story of her name is fun, just not the point of today’s blog. It’s probably enough to say that her brother’s name is Baba Jomo Street. At any rate, Picabo often trained at Sun Valley, the resort that is nearest to her home town. The mountain is called Bald Mountain, and the name is appropriate. There aren’t too many trees. The mountain offers a wide variety of terrain and excellent snow conditions, including plenty of powder most years once you get off of the groomed slopes. It is a destination resort and located near very expensive vacation homes, so the high prices on the hill keep it from getting too crowded. It is a fun hill for a wide variety of ski abilities. But the National Ski Patrol began to notice that skier injuries went up every time Picabo Street was on the hill. People would see her go whizzing by and begin to try to ski beyond their ability. After Picabo has earned national championships and Olympic medals, the ski patrol noted that skiing injuries went up all across the country when the Olympics were taking place. That inspiration that one gets from watching sometimes translates into reckless behavior on the hill.

I was thinking about the Picabo effect this week simply because I have two friends who have had skiing injuries this winter. A couple of injuries per year probably wouldn’t have gotten my notice when I was younger, but these days we are all a bit older and tend to exercise caution. So I noticed when a second friend near my age was injured. Skiing is a safe sport and with today’s equipment a person who maintains fitness can safely ski well into their eighties and beyond.

One of my friends’ accidents was caused by skiing beyond ability. He tacked a longer hill with a few more bumps than he was comfortable skiing and ended up twisting his back in such a way that he is now undergoing physical therapy as he recovers. The other accident was a bit less predictable. The conditions were good with fresh snow on the hill, but the groomers hadn’t been everywhere on the hill. A ski tip got down and so the fall was a twisting one that normally would have been just a cause to get up and brush off the snow. But the binding didn’t release and when it was all over there is a season lost to recovery from a bad compound fracture. Probably the binding should have been inspected before the day, but hindsight is always better than foresight.

In the days when I had a ski pass and skied more regularly, I used to ski with my bindings cranked up quite a bit in the spring. As the hill warmed the snow on the surface would thaw and then refreeze. On groomed slopes the corduroy quickly turned to slick ice. The last thing you want to happen when you are edging to slow on ice is to have a binding release when the skis are parallel and working just right for you. Then you forget about it when summer comes and the next fall, when you are at your rustiest you have your bindings set too stiff for your ability and the conditions.

I took a doozy of a fall on ice on the backside of Bogus Basin one spring. I knew that it would be icy, but it seemed worse than I expected. In those conditions, your uphill ski gets most of your weight and is doing most of the work. It needs to be edged into the hill, so most of both skis are just along for the ride. The uphill edge of the uphill ski is doing all of the work. But there is this moment in the turn when you shift weight from one ski to the other. At that particular moment, instead of leaning uphill, you are leaning down as you come around to lean the opposite way. If the ski that is going from being the downhill ski to the uphill ski can’t find anything to grip with its edge as it carves its way around and starts to slip then everything starts to slip. On this particular day I found myself lying on the hill in an almost perfect condition for one who is falling. I had both skis on. They were parallel and on the downhill side of my body. All you have to do is dig and an stop sliding. But somehow instead of it working the way it should, my uphill ski suddenly slid forward and then I have one ski pointed down the hill and the other sticking out straight where the tail of the ski caught, the binding released and I started to spin as I slid. It wasn’t long before the other ski released and I began to accelerate. In those days none of us wore helmets, but fortunately I was in the middle of a run and there were no trees nearby. I finally got rolled over on my stomach and was able to dig my boot toes into the ice enough to stop myself. I was sure glad my ski buddy was uphill from me. Without him picking up my gear, I’d have had to spend a lot of time hiking back up the hill.

It probably looked pretty funny to my partner. It was a reminder to me how quickly fun can become dangerous. I was lucky. No injuries occurred. I was 25 years younger than i am now. I’m thinking that if I did that to my body these days the ski patrol would be giving me a ride in their sled to the aid station where we would wait for the ambulance.

So be careful out there friends. The Picabo effect applies whenever you’ve been watching too much ski competition on TV. Enjoy the hill, but add an extra dose of caution and try to remember the last time you had your bindings adjusted. If it was before this season, or if you can’t remember at all, stop by the shop and have them checked out. It’s way less expensive than the co-pay on your insurance.

Copyright © 2014 by Ted Huffman. I wrote this. If you want to copy it, please ask for permission. There is a contact me button at the bottom of this page. If you want to share my blog a friend, please direct your friend to my web site.