Your most embarrassing ski moment

[newboots]

I looked at the name of this thread and thought, “how would I ever choose just one?”

Reading all these responses is both reassuring and terrifying. Part of me is relieved (“thank goodness that didn’t happen to me!”) and the rest of me feels jinxed. It will probably happen tomorrow.

 

[lisamamot]

I am sure it is not my most embarrassing - there has got to be others, but the freshest in my mind is from Aspen during Diva West. @MissySki and I were on a flat heading down the the village at the end of a full ski day; we were discussing something and as I turned my head around to talk to her I fell...on a flat.....I haven't a clue what happened, but all of a sudden I was down. I found it incredibly hilarious - I laughed until I cried...caught my breath....and then laughed until I cried some more.

 

[SkiBam]

A couple: Once at le Massif I was cruising along gazing out at a ship on the river below (if you've ever skied there you'll know the views are fantastic) when I tripped over my own feet. Another was getting on a chair with my granddaughter some years ago and we fell off right at the start into a large pile of snow, out of which we had to be pulled. (I was an instructor at that time - would have been much worse if I'd been wearing my jacket!) Oh yeah, and not paying attention and trying to be the fifth person on a quad. Oh dear, I can probably come up with lots more...

 

[ski diva]

A couple: Once at le Massif I was cruising along gazing out at a ship on the river below (if you've ever skied there you'll know the views are fantastic)... .

I could easily see this happening there. One of the most magnificent places I've ever skied.

 

[JessIsTryingToSki]

Did you know that if you're short, there are some lifts that you have to JUMP off of because your feet never actually touch the ground?

Also - if you're short enough - your skis will sail right over the emergency brake as you swing around and head back down the lift?

That definitely did not happen to me at Powder Mountain.

Did I mention I'm 5' tall?

 

[canannie]

First day of lessons I had never been on a magic carpet, and a very beginner skier. I had my bindings adjusted by a "Friend".
I rolled right off that magic carpet with no skis they kept going. Someone managed to toss them off to me and I had to take them in to be adjusted. Did I mention this was in front of the instructor and 5 new classmates and a whole ton of other people. I eventually caught up with the class 1/2 an hour late and totally embarrassed.

 

[diymom]

Fifth person on a quad? Nope, never happened to me. Certainly didn’t happen my first day out this season near the end of the day when I decided to take it easy and do a few green runs to finish up and absentmindedly moved forward because the person next to me did. He was a noobie on rentals though, so not really the person I should be following. Whoops. Technically I guess that makes me the sixth person on the quad. Extra whoops.

 

[Tvan]

...that time I got on the ski lift on the Sunbowl side at Stratton and didn’t realize that I had left one of my skis on the ground when I got onto the chairlift...until I was more than halfway up the hill!

My ski arrived with a nice young man several chairs behind me, to my complete mortification.

 

[racetiger]

Oh yes I feel you on the short person thing having to jump off the lift last year at Lutsen.

The ever elusive snow snake gets me from time to time. Always on flat ground too.

A couple weekends ago the light was so terrible and flat that I completely missed the lip on a small jump. Im headed towards the jump and was crouched waiting to pop up and that never happened. I noticed the lip pass by on my side about a foot away. Oops. I tried to play it off by taking a hard left towards the lift hoping no one saw.

 

[Littlesonique]

You know ski lifts are hard for taller girls too! Especially with all this snow. Deep squats are required.

 

[MilkyWookiee]

I have 3. The first 2 are solid cases of being unapologetically human and in hindsight I'm not embarrassed.

1) I was probably 12 or 13, just under the cutoff for adult lessons, and got my period during a lesson. THANK GOD there were tampons in the machine in the bathroom and I had a female instructor who had quarters! I've had about 50 worse menstrual experiences since then, but this was the first.
2) skiing with my crew in college which consisted entirely of attractive males who were better skiers than me and ended up spending half of our 4 hour session in the bathroom with explosive diarrhea
3) practicing using stem Christie turns to turn in tight spaces while demoing BP98s (had previously only skied 69mm carvers). Couldn't quite get the hang of the wider ski, skied right off the edge of the trail, into the powder along the trees. Fell, lost a ski, and proceeded to spend what felt like the next hour of the lesson (probably not more than 15 minutes) learning all about how to find a lost ski in powder, and how to get skis back on in powder and on steep terrain. So yeah, I busted my face doing a pizza in an advanced clinic...

 

[Skisailor]

. . . . generally involve falling while I'm in my uniform jacket. Sigh. Yes it happens - glad it doesn't happen too often! If you fall in your jacket in front of other instructors you owe everyone a beer!

 

[MilkyWookiee]

. . . . generally involve falling while I'm in my uniform jacket. Sigh. Yes it happens - glad it doesn't happen too often! If you fall in your jacket in front of other instructors you owe everyone a beer!

I love that rule! When I used to ride horses, if you fell in a lesson, you owed your trainer brownies. Though once we turned 21 we were encouraged to bring in a bottle of Glenlivet instead

 

[marzNC]

. . . . generally involve falling while I'm in my uniform jacket. Sigh. Yes it happens - glad it doesn't happen too often! If you fall in your jacket in front of other instructors you owe everyone a beer!

My instructor last week at Taos had a pretty embarrassing fall. She was trying to load an old triple with the two older women in our group. She wanted to talk to the oldest woman and the other woman was that's woman's friend. But they didn't leave her enough room on the side, so she ended up falling off. The lifty slowed the lift but didn't bring it to a half once it was clear she was fine since she got up really quickly. She though she would join the next chair with another pair of her students, but then realized the chair wasn't stopped and she wouldn't make it. Ended up riding up with me, since I was waiting solo after the second pair.

 

[marzNC]

My embarrassing moment at Taos was a couple years ago. That season they were offering a free mountain tour for MCP holders only. My friends and I had been on the frontside lifts with our two guides and were coming up Lift 2, where you get the first view of Kachina Peak. It was a blue sky day. I was gazing up at the peak as we got to the top. Since I wasn't paying attention, after I unloaded I crossed my tips and fell hard on the completely flat groomed surface . . . right in front of the ski patrol hut. I decided to stay down for a few minutes to continue looking at the view. A couple of people immediately came over to see if I was okay. I told them I was okay, and accepted help getting up when I was done.

 

[slyfox4]

Oh I have a few...

1. I was just getting back into skiing and was on some old race skis (way too much for me) skiing at Waterville. I was coming down to the main quad right there...and just couldn't stop. Skied hard directly into one of those big a-frame/tent style chalkboards, in front of a HUGE lift line. That hurt.
2. Just this season I was demoing 160s Black Crows Vertis Birdies. They were a little stiffer and longer than I'm used to, and they were blowing snow so it made for some weird bumpy conditions. I was on the main trail (Seven Brothers) which dumps you right in front of the main lodge, under the Gondola, and hit a weird bump. And fell directly on my bum and tumbled down. Didn't yard sale, and still held onto my poles, but I couldn't see with the snow glare so I hit it wrong. Totally embarrassing under the Gondie. I picked up my pride and left for the day!
3. Back at WV this time, maybe 3-4 years ago...had a few beers at T-Bars. Was with a group of people and wanted to prove that I could ski well, so when someone suggested True Grit I was like "hell yeah!" Tried to follow a snowboarders line, caught an edge...yard saled down. Luckily my friend helped me gather my things...we started skiing down...she caught an edge and yard saled down! The rest of the group was doubled over in laughter watching us each yard sale down the trail. Truly humbling!

 

[Serafina]

Yesterday my brother came to Mount Snow to ski with me for my birthday. The two of us have not skied together at Mount Snow for over 30 years.

Back in the day we had a fun sibling competitiveness, I'm older and learned how to ski first so was always a little better. But in the last 30 years he's expanded his skiing horizons and goes out West and he's really amazing. I, on the other hand, haven't skied much in these years, and am just getting back in the saddle.

So I was a bit nervous going in, but not so nervous I was psyched out.

As we are headed onto the Canyon lift, I look over at him and say "This is so awesome we are doing this. Mommy and Daddy would be so happy" and he responded "Well lets just get through the day in one piece." With a wink, teasing me some at my being out of practice.

I went to wack him with my pole and it got wedged under me somehow just as the lift is coming to us and our two other riders.

I lost my damned balance, tipped sideways into my brother, skis popped off and they stopped the lift with a few hundred onlookers watching me flailing on the ground to get back up.

We get me righted and they leave the lift stationary while my embarrassed ass takes a seat.

My brother said "Is this the way the rest of the day is going?" I'm like "I can't top this, Mark. I sure don't want to"

Thankfully the other two riders laughed and there were no further embarrassing incidents of epic proportions.

So how about you? What's your most embarrassing ski moment??

FWIW, Mt. Snow is my home mountain, and ever since they re-classified Snowdance as a green (I mean, WTF?!?!?!) I'm way used to the Canyon lift stopping because people are wiping out on the on-load or off-load. Used to be, there wasn't any novice terrain at all off that lift, so it reliable didn't stop because someone screwed up getting on or off.

That said, my embarrassing moment was LAST YEAR, on the CANYON. The light was epically flat, and it was snowing like hell, and I was getting first tracks...and because of this combination of things, every bloody time it was my turn to ski off the lift, I was getting hit with pure vertigo. I mean, the first time, I skied off the lift and was standing there clipping my trigger poles on, and suddenly the horizon tilted like an amusement park ride, and I just fell over from a total standstill. And then the next three times up that chair, I fell getting off the damn lift to where they had to stop it for me to get my stuff together and clear the unloading ramp. It was CRAZY. Skiing down the run I had to stick to the tree line like glue, so that was a bit tense, but nothing like riding the lift. Completely absurd!

 

[Serafina]

I was 13 years old and a member of ski club that travelled via bus every Saturday. There was a boy on our bus who had dreams of being ski patrol and so he carried "rescue" equipment with him - rope and I don't remember what else. He would talk about it on the bus. In retrospect, he was probably special; everybody was kind to him and no one made fun of him. One day, I turned to yell something to my friends and skied right into a cluster of bushes on the side of the run. My skis tangled and I had to take them off. Just then, Charlie came skiing down the mountain so I tried to crawl into the bushes so he wouldn't see me. No luck there! He skied up, threw me his rope and pulled me out of the bushes and retrieved my skis, etc. Charlie "rescued" me and regaled us with the story - over and over - all the way home on the bus. Every time the bus quieted down, someone would call out, " Hey Charlie, tell us again how you rescued Pat." In my 13 year old world, that was absolute humiliation!

I get that, but just think how absolutely awesome this was for the kid! You made a difference in someone else's life that day!

 

[Serafina]

I was waiting at a busy liftline. Pulled out a kleenex to blow my nose and out flew something from my pocket. Thought it was my chapstick (while it was mid-air) but realized it was a tampon when it landed on a snowboard of a group of guys infront of me. They all saw it landed and all turned back (imagine slow motion) to look at me I had to ask the guy to hand it back to me...then I heard him ask his friends “what was that?” If I wasn’t stuck in the middle of the line, I’d have

The Joys of Perimenopause. Shake a woman in that stage, and tampons fly out from every pocket and every drawer...

 

[alison wong]

generally involve falling while I'm in my uniform jacket. Sigh. Yes it happens

Yep, I witnessed it happened first hand last year in my group lesson. Our instructor verbally explained this drill, before she demoed it, I asked the question:

Me: Will that make our skis tip cross?
Instructor (answered in a very annoying tone): What? Why would that happen?

She then tried to demo it, her ski tips crossed and fell before initiating the first turn....

I felt bad that I jinxed her but I guess my question was legit after all.