026|365 Lesson Learned ~ Casts Suck

026|365 Lesson Learned ~ Casts Suck, originally uploaded by comatosed.

Lesson learned... start small.

Day three of skiing at Muju resort got off to an amazing start. After 2 days of non-stop snow we woke up to blue skies and powder. It was a hangover cure in and of itself.

Brandon, Kim and I got up on the slopes and searched for the pow-pow (Kim speak for "powder"). We wanted to hit the run we found on the first day but there were too many ski patrollers about and we thought a warm up might be good.

Kim and I ended up finding a short stretch of run connecting two major runs that no one had been down yet. I'm guessing no one went down it because beyond the 30 or so meters of powder it was pretty much all rocks and branches. We took it nonetheless and were thankful to be riding rental boards.

When we met up at the end of the run with Brandon everyone agreed something was off today. The snow was icier than expected, it was unbelievably busy and there was feeling someone was gonna run into you at any moment. So we decided to hit the snow park. The plan: take a few jumps, snap a few pics, get some sun, drink some beer.

Helmets are mandatory in the park, so I rented one for a couple of bucks and I think I put a little too much confidence into my protective gear. My first two jumps didn't go too well and on my third I stepped it up a notch for the camera and found myself between 2-3 meters in the air already falling backwards onto my ass. I knew before I hit it was gonna hurt.

I came down hard on my tailbone and wrists, smacked my back and head on the snow, knocked the wind out of myself and was seeing yellow spots. Shocked, I managed to take off my board, clear the jump and then lay down in the snow to regain myself.

The rest of the afternoon was spent at an outdoor cafe with friends, beer and food. It took me a good hour before I perked up again, could have been the beer. At 4pm I had say goodbye to Brandon and Kim and catch my bus back to Busan.

During the three and a half hour ride my wrist only got worse. By the time I got to Busan I couldn't even use it to open a zipper (this was a pain because I traveling with a huge backpack and many zippers). The pain was intense to I visited the hospital to get an x-ray and a splint.

Luckily it looks as though there is no major damage unless there are micro-fractures, in which case they wouldn't show up for a few days. I found a cheap love hotel, with the romantic green neon lighting seen here, and rested for the evening.

It was still an awesome, awesome vacation with friends and at-least now I have a theme for the next while: Casts Suck!

A couple vids I made from previous years:
Snowboarding - Muju 2008 - Chill Bill Cut
Snowboarding - Muju Mayhem 2007

--- Strobist ---
Vivitar 285 HV @ 1/16 at about 8 o'clock with DIY Grid-Spot pointed at my hand. Exposure adjusted for sexy green neon light.
- www.comatosed.ca -