The Lake Chutes Strike Back

Today was the Breckenridge employee party. From 9-noon the mountain was open to employees to ski. It was a beautiful warm day with great spring conditions. Not only was the Colorado chair running as I was expecting, but the T-Bar and all of the hikes on Peak 8 were open as well. On my second run of the day I was skiing with a friend down Springmeier []. We were the only two on the run and making big fast carving turns. Both of us were focused on making nice turns and we didn't pay attention to where the other person was. At one point I was turning right and he was turning left and we collided with one another, hip to hip, and both fell down. It was crazy. The first time I have ever run into someone. I should have taken this as an omen of bad things to come. I skied a few runs off the T-Bar and around 11:30 began hiking up to the Lake Chutes for one final run at Breckenridge this year. I wanted to ski The Elevator which I believe is the steepest part of the Lake Chutes (60 degrees). I had traversed across the really steep part before, but I hadn't really skied it by making turns down it. I got up there and began to ski the route. The snow was pretty tough as it hadn't yet softened up and there was this weird texture to the snow created by the wind. If it had been smooth it would have been much easier. After a few turns, I was pointed left and about to make a turn to the right which would have been the last turn on the section with the tough snow (at the red arrow in the picture). I jumped and turned and got most of the way around when the tip of my downhill ski stuck into the snow and the binding released. For those of you who ski, you know the downhill ski is typically the ski you have 90% of your weight on and use to stop. Without a downhill ski and on a 60 degree pitch I began sliding down the hill. Normally not much of a problem, but this time there were rocks below me. Unable to stop on the snow I slid out onto the rocks where I finally came to a halt (yellow arrow). Thankfully I was okay with no real injuries other than a few scrapes and bruises. The rock area I slid across was more like skree and dirt than jagged rocks which I think helped. I took my other ski off and climbed back up to near where I fell to get my ski that was stuck in the snow. I then had to traverse over to a less steep area (blue arrow) so I could put my skis back on. It is tough walking across a 60 degrees slope in ski boots while carrying two skis. Everything seemed to be intact so I clicked in and skied out and back down to the base of Peak 8 for the employee BBQ. It was quite a final run for my season at Breckenridge. With my nose surgery scheduled for Wednesday, this was probably my last run of the season anywhere. This fall was the scariest fall I have ever had in my life. It had the greatest potential for serious injury. I'd skied so many runs this year with exposure like this, but this was the first time anything had gone wrong. Yesterday I skied the chute in the left of the picture without incident. I'll probably think twice in the future about skiing stuff with rocks below.