Face plant and avy conditions: Good or bad? You decide.

Once ever while your reminded of how easy it is to really fuck yourself over. Thursday brought one of these reminders for me. Decided to do a quick lap out to the low angle (since I was solo) shoulder of Twin Cairns. As I was skiing down, I knew the snowpack was shallow in that spot, but rather than stop the run and traverse out skiers left, I held my line in the interest of testing my helmet cam. I hopped over a few rocks but managed to hang up a ski on a shallow section that I couldn't clear. My ski was grabbed and I pitched forward superman style and came down hard on a rock right to the face. The rock put a hole right through my bottom lip. It also compressed my jaw back into the joint a bit. I could have sworn that I broke my jaw at the time, and it was bleeding like mad. Even had the pleasure of seeing a couple peices of skin fall onto the snow. Not having a mirror on me I pretty much thought it was worse at the time. Got out of dodge and went back to the resort to visit ski patrol. They put a few stiches in on the spot, and that's that. Went for a lap with one of them after ward in Delerium Dive, which was skiing quite nice. Had to recoup for 2 days after that incident.

Got pretty lucky on that one as far as not getting knocked out, or a broken or dislocated jaw, or having a tooth knocked loose as it would have only needed another cm higher to do so.

Monday:
On the plus side, avy conditions are good, on the other hand they are also quite touchy in the right (wrong) areas. All the good skiing right now is on the N / NE aspects. The ridge tops on this aspect are also quite touchy at the moment. Released another slab avy remotely on a NE slope off of ridge top today. No suprises though as I was fully expecting it and traveling some what close to the edge (in safe areas duh) to see if I could get one to pull out. Had lots of whoomfing and settlements on the ridge again. Had a great run back down into the trees and out. It's been quite warm out lately. Feels more like spring than winter. Where the snow is sheltered from sun and wind there is still some really nice snow to be had.