A little ski accident and Europe's scariest ski slope

All of the expats here have stories of their ski accidents, some have broken legs, some have torn ACLs, some have gotten some cuts and bruises..... it seems some sort of ski accident in the alps is a right of passage in the expat world, so something was bound to happen.  Well folks, Ryan had his first ski accident. He collided with one of his friends on a ski slope and superman-ed out of his bindings and landed face/arms first into the hard packed slope. THANKFULLY he had just bought a helmet the week before so nothing serious happened (i.e., no concussions or worse), but he did end up with some cuts and bruises. Rest assured, he is doing fine now, but is still feeling the after affects of a really sore body. This was pretty much the extent of the physical damage, so all in all he's pretty lucky that such a major fall resulted in only a few cuts and bruises!

The accident happened on Saturday and we originally had plans to go skiing with our friends in Verbier (the Swiss alps as opposed to the French alps that we have been skiing mostly in recently) on Sunday. After the accident happened, Ryan the trooper didn't want to miss out on a fun ski day with friends, so he decided he wanted to push through the pain and still go skiing. He decided that as long as he could just "take it easy" and go slow and not fall, then he wouldn't be in pain. So off we went to Verbier. And then this happened....

We neglected to see this sign before we went down what we found out afterwards was one of Europe's most dangerous ski trails, the Tortin.  In our defense, we don't just blindly go down trails, our friend did warn us that it was difficult. Let me tell you, this trail was the steepest, hardest trail I have ever been on. It is not only steep but it is covered in moguls the size of cars. Poor Ryan was wincing the entire way down.  Amazingly, we all made it down without falling, even though it did take us a solid 30 minutes to get down. I have found in general that most trails in the alps are actually rated easier than trails in the US (i.e., a black here is never really a black in the US), with the exception of THIS TRAIL. Word to the wise, if you come skiing here, DO NOT go down this trail unless you are very experienced. I do have to say though that the bright side to this trail is that once you finish with the pain and agony, it has a gorgeous cruising run at the end of it, really one of the best I have ever been on... maybe once I become a more experienced skiier, we will decide to take on the Tortin again...