A day spent outside: Injury on the higher ground
In the heart of the mountains, there is pleasure, excitement, fear, danger, happiness, calmness, and other interesting states that man can find. These physiological states that we can experience in the mountains can develop our awareness, mostly for ourselves.
Early in the morning, when the villages in the mountains were still covered by shadow and cold, we went to climb a mountain. The village from where our journey started was deep in a valley surrounded by steep ridges that formed mountain peaks in the distance. The light of the sun, a burning gold, was already on the top of the mountains, marking the start of the day. Not many people but a few dogs were around us as we prepared our equipment and started walking on the dry trails, the same trails that some days ago were covered by snow. Here, in Macedonia, the snow is a very variable reality. Not so many days after the last snowfall, the lower part of the mountains is already dry as in summer. Our objective for that day was to climb and ski the summit of Kobilica.
After we summited, we saw mountain peaks all around us that stayed here long before us. We looked in the distance and wondered how magnificent is this mountain range. It was a sunny day with almost no wind at the top. We took some pictures, ate some food, and started to get ready for our well-deserved skiing down. I did the last pull-down on my gloves and grabbed the sticks, turned my left ski forward and my right next to the left. Every time I start skiing, I make these first moves. To be sure that everything is set up correctly, I always make my next turn not long after I start skiing. “All good”, I say to myself since I was already some meters down and I could not see my partner.
Injuries are a hard reality when one travels through the mountains. Every step in nature carries a risk of injury. The mountains contain different types of terrain, from rocky parts to wet ground, dry and hard trails to fields covered by snow, vertical paths and woods with bushes and roots. All of these terrains are attractive to humans, but they are not natural for us. We travel through them for fun, for a particular need, for fitness, for adventure, or even for something metaphysical. No matter what, we are species from the valleys.
The first 300 hundred meters down from the summit were technically challenging for skiing. We faced very hard, frozen snow on steep terrain, and turns with the skies were something challenging. A few more meters below, I stopped, saw the open space again, calculated my next few turns and checked my partner's location. Now, when I finally came to the somewhat better and powdery snow, I started to get some speed.
Skiing fast on variable snow and far away from anything that can help you in case of injury is very risky. I did exactly that. I was skiing quite fast until, in my next turn, I hit a rock. With the left ski, I managed to manoeuvre, but I hit the rock with my right ski and broke my calf muscle. At that very moment, I was not aware of the injury, although I felt extreme pain. After some minutes, I finally realised, and my struggle began.
The next three and a half hours was the lesson I took. Struggling with so much pain that I get tears from my eyes. Not having a painkiller pill, not having a caloric snack, not having a bandage, not having water with me, and not having an idea of what can go wrong. With one functional leg, I started to walk down to the base of the mountain, with every next step collapsing deep in the snow. After 3 hours, I found myself on a horse with a local farmer who helped me to get down to the village. My calf muscle was hard as concrete, and the swelling was real. That day, I slept in a hospital, reading “Enduring Patagonia” and was not able to move my right leg at all.
The real danger that comes with backcountry skiing is the fact that if you get injured, you are on your own. You are already quite remote and far away from the first village, resort or rescue team.
People have faced much harder injuries in the mountains than this one. In the period of my recovery, I met stories of friends of mine and other people with really bad injuries for which I was not aware. My point with this story was to tell my future self to start learning how to read the environment more precisely and increase situational awareness. We, as mountaineers, have an obligation to be situationally aware human beings, especially in the outdoors. From climbing to skiing, running or hiking, there are certain things that we always need to think of in order to be safe.
The adventures we chose show us who we want to become. How we travel in the mountains shows us who we are. What we use in the mountains echoes in the centuries. How we learn in the mountains keeps us safe.
I write a free newsletter that will inspire you to see the beauty of writing. Once you start writing your stories, everything changes.
