Music when Skiing?

Dave, I am glad you are okay. It sounds as though it was a very close shave :shock:

AllyG wrote:Dave, I am glad you are okay. It sounds as though it was a very close shave :shock:

Agreed, sorry if my previous post didn't acknowledge this.

.

Of course Schnapps, you are quite right. It was downright bad mountaineering. It also involved complacency, involving an easy, but fast, section of a run that I had completed more than twelve thousand times. A mindset of "easy".

I have lost a number of friends to the mountains, and almost all of them were due to error combined with an unforeseen circumstance. In my case, the circumstance should have been foreseen.

This, by the way, is not the only time.

A long time back, I was involved in a 50 mile fell race, when a snow storm came on during the night. At one point I sat down in the snow, and started to fall asleep. I realised what was happening, and got going again. Three guys died.

A few years later, I was kayaking down a mountain river in Australia. A rip took me and the kayak under a tree, and I became entagled under the tree roots. I got out. This was lack of experience.

I got stuck on a mountain in Wales, when mist decended, and it was a one thousand foot drop on high percentage of the surround. Also, on a sheet ice Striding Edge, two ft wide path, and a thousand ft drop each side.

Also had a glider crash in New Zealand, but didn't concern myself too much. I had no control anyway, so could not do anything about it. The pilot was the New Zealand number two. He made a mistake, but he fixed it. The wing was a mess, though! :roll:

I believe that generally, I am a good mountaineer, but will readily admit my mistakes ~ that is the only way to learn. Many times, I have turned back from a mountain walk, when adversity appeared.

In the past two weeks, I have come off the mountain when there was a white-out. I also stopped for a while, when, due to an afternoons heavy chopped snow, a number of people were skiing with an attitude of "just take it straight, and sort it out at the bottom". That is one of the most common causes of accidents.

I have to stop. Now I have started this trip down memory lane, more close shaves are being recalled. I'm gonna burn my ski boots. Where's my slippers.......

Dave Mac wrote:

andymol2 wrote:
I don't think it would be dangerous - perhaps you might not hear someone coming from behind but that's supposed to be their look out. (likewise a piste basher - but they got loud horns)
)

Was once racing my son down in the Schuss, (egg, crouch)position, head down, "he's never going to beat me". It was a cold day, and I did not have my normal woolly hat on, rather a Canadian/Russian style enclosed hat with ear flaps.

So I did not hear the piste basher. Nor, because I was head down, could I see it. When I did look up, the churning blades were 10/15 ft away, and I executed a 50mph left hand turn and stop, just before a fence. My wife, skiing just behind, was already mentally digging out the insurance information, in the "cost of returning the body" section.

No I will not listen to music when skiing.

I was thinking more along the lines of a piste basher coming down the hill!

Dave Mac wrote:

andymol2 wrote:
I don't think it would be dangerous - perhaps you might not hear someone coming from behind but that's supposed to be their look out. (likewise a piste basher - but they got loud horns)
)

Was once racing my son down in the Schuss, (egg, crouch)position, head down, "he's never going to beat me". It was a cold day, and I did not have my normal woolly hat on, rather a Canadian/Russian style enclosed hat with ear flaps.

So I did not hear the piste basher. Nor, because I was head down, could I see it. When I did look up, the churning blades were 10/15 ft away, and I executed a 50mph left hand turn and stop, just before a fence. My wife, skiing just behind, was already mentally digging out the insurance information, in the "cost of returning the body" section.

No I will not listen to music when skiing.

That to me is much more dangerous than not hearing it. Head down and not looking.....more likely to have caused you the problem than anything else.

I always have my ipod or iphone with me and tend to plug in on lifts but have found that skiing with music CAN be off putting and takes away the social side.

When I have skied with music on, its been pretty much upbeat aggressive indie stuff, Kasabian or something.

Never when curve. Sometimes when jump. Some kind of music inject more adrenaline in my blood, than need)).