There is an alpine slide not too far from where I used to work in Golden. The team had talked about going there for a group event, but we never got around to it. Maybe not enough people were interested. Maybe not enough people knew how fun they can be. I never fully understood what they were. I just got that they went on a hill and you slid down them somehow, but it’s not a water slide (which bummed me out, honestly.)
A week ago, we were at Breckenridge, hanging out at the Fun Park on Peak 8 (behind One Ski Hill Place). A wonderful friend helped us get a great deal on a couple day passes. Even though we were only there for a couple hours and had the baby with us, we decided to make the most of it. We started with a round of mini golf, because we had never played that together. My wife, who has only ever played maybe a couple times, trounced me 54 to 66. It was a par 44 course. Anyway, I had the highest score. (Winner.)
After that, Kia kept the boy while I took a ski lift up to ride the alpine slide. It was my first time ever on a ski lift. I didn’t mention that until after the ride. Fortunately, I’ve overcome most of my fear of heights, or I would have been utterly terrified. The slide itself was interesting. It was constructed like a water slide, only embedded in the earth (instead of raised up on a structure), and there was no water. That and the fact that it’s white were really the only discernible differences. Oh, and since the alpine slide isn’t lubricated by water, it understandably has a much rougher texture to it.
At the top, they point you to the sleds and ask if it’s your first time riding. If it isn’t, they tell you to have fun. If it is, they give you a few minimal pointers. Basically:
- Push the lever forward to go faster
- Pull the lever back to slow down
- Don’t follow anyone closer than 25 ft
- Have fun
Now I’m here to tell you that’s not NEARLY enough advice. But with my apprehensive caution clutched tightly, I hopped on and took off. When you push the lever forward, you’re essentially forcing wheels down beneath you, so you roll and accelerate fairly rapidly. Letting go, the wheels ascend and you mostly slide. Pulling back, you force something down with a slightly higher coefficient of friction and slow down a bit more rapidly. That’s it.
I asked if I should lean in to the turns. The guy quickly and resolutely said “No.” I wondered why they hadn’t volunteered that advice without me asking. It sounded important. So I stayed mostly upright, held on, and had an absolute blast. Keeping cars in mind, I went faster when the track was straight and slower to turn. Keeping the Olympic luge in mind, I slowed down PLENTY for the turns. I did not want to go flying off the track. Around half way down, a girl was off the side of the track with her father and brother. Her father appeared to be attending to her wounds, though I couldn’t be entirely sure, as I went by VERY quickly. Foreshadowing? Naah!
I slowed to a stop when I reached the bottom, handed off the sled, and rejoined my family to tell them how thrillingly awesome it was. I implored my wife to try it. She politely refused and urged me toward the trampoline. They had one of those big bungee/trampoline contraptions where you can jump super high, attached to cables to keep you safe. AWESOME. We have seem them at various festivals, but they’re always pretty pricey. With the day pass, though, it didn’t cost any extra. She had a BLAST on it. I took a ton of pictures with her awesome camera.
Having had pretty much enough adventure, and with a strong desire to see the beautiful nature up there, we took another lift up higher than the alpine slide lift went and hiked back down. Again with the barrage of pictures, and there are even several videos. We had a lovely, scenic time winding down switchbacks that crossed a lovely stream and ran through gobs of wild flowers.
Most of the way down, we encountered the alpine slide, so I split off for one last run before the park closed down. Since it was the end of the day, the guys let me go. Yay! Again I asked for any particular advice on making the most of it and not wiping out. The only advice I was given was “Try and catch some air.” Apparently, the track I had chosen had a fun drop on it.
It would’ve been boring to go the same speed as my first run, so I upped the ante a bit and had a real blast with it, tearing through corners and launching down the straights. When I saw the drop coming, more than half way down the track, I mashed the wheels down and leaned forward to balance myself on them for maximum speed. I caught brilliant air, but didn’t let it go to my head. The next curve was coming up quick, so after the two drops, I slowed down.
Of course I got through the curve safely. I hadn’t even had a close call of any sort. The track was open&em;no one else was on it, so I was wheels down into the next curve. The sled launched up the side wall of the curve, fighting its momentum. The strong walls converted that momentum into some brilliant g-forces. The exhilaration of it all had my adrenaline flowing freely.
That was fortunate. The adrenaline and endorphins made the next moment a blur. I’m sure the sled came out from under me, because I remember sliding across fiberglass after that moment had passed. My raw, bleeding hands and elbows bore testament to the fact that something had definitely gone wrong. And I don’t think it was a close call. It went a bit beyond that. The worst part was probably being snapped back to reality before I had come to a complete halt and thinking “BLOODY HELL, WILL YOU STOP SLIDING ALREADY?!?”
It felt like a very long time later, I eventually did come to a full stop. No point lingering on the track. I pushed the sled off me and hooked a heel on it to keep it from escaping. Once I had climbed on, I put a hand on the lever to get moving again. That hurt a lot, so I tried the other hand.
As I slowly made my way to the base of the slide, I had time to do a quick inventory. My glasses were still on and intact. I didn’t think I’d hit my head (but have been in shock enough times to not trust such assessments). I was definitely bleeding from both hands, wrists, and elbows. My jeans had a hole in the side of the left knee, so I was probably bleeding there, too. My shoes (beloved Puma Drift Cats in java brown) showed some wear but were not really damaged, thank goodness. The tee I was wearing was the one I was married in (with a jacket over it! I’m not a barbarian!), and I was very concerned about the shoulder. I couldn’t really assess what was going on with that, but it turned out to be mostly ok. I STILL haven’t done a thorough check. I think I’m afraid to.
At the bottom, no one was really waiting, so I walked my sled over to where a couple others were and stood it up there. Someone saw me do that and shouted thanks, but made no mention of my damaged state. No one at all said anything, actually. I looked around for my family but didn’t find them. I figured it would’ve taken them much longer to get down, so I had time to go wash up in the bathroom. That was painful and mostly ineffective, as I was still bleeding pretty well. After several minutes of fairly listless wandering (seriously – that’s what really convinced me I was in shock), I opted for the first aid area. I had seen the sign, coincidentally, earlier in the day.
The lady working first aid was super nice, and really tolerant of my vapid clumsiness. That same vapid clumsiness would linger for a couple days after the slide, and I’m still not sure what was going on with my brain. I was running into things, knocking stuff over, and just a general mess. She was helping me get cleaned up when my phone rang. Kia had reached the bottom and was ready to get to the gondola before it closed for the day. (You see, the park closed at 6, roughly when I caught the alpine slide down, and the gondola stopped at 6:30.) As tactfully and reassuringly as I could, I let her know where I was and how to find me.
She showed up a minute later, holding our son and grinning. Well, she wasn’t immediately grinning, but it broke out once she realized just what state I was in. I was definitely a mess, and quite certainly in pain, but I wasn’t really hurt. No broken bones, no profuse bleeding, no damaged organs (not counting my skin). I was fine. Consider also that she’s seriously used to me getting banged up by now.
Once I was bandaged, gauzed, and signed out, we caught the gondola down. She graciously volunteered to hold the boy the whole way. We talked of my adventure. She shook her head a few times. We both enjoyed the evening scenery.
At the base, we had to walk back to our condo. It was several blocks, and I found that less enjoyable than the gondola ride. Once I was sitting miserably on the sofa in the condo, she took our son and ran out for supplies. She returned a short while later with a whole pile of bandages, pads, and gauze. Also, she had a fifth of Bulleitt Bourbon. My friends, that’s the kind of woman I married. May you all do as well for yourselves.
It was a week ago today that happened. A couple of the wounds are nearly healed, but others are still quite large. If I leave my right hand at my side, too much lower than my heart, the blood pressure makes me feel like my hand is going to pop (even though it looks fine), and it throbs with pain. At any level below my heart, it’s painful, but the throbbing is tolerable at lap level, so I can at least type this excessively long post.
The worst part is the fact that I’m limited in how much I can help with our son. For fear of infection, I didn’t change him for the first couple days. Even now, I can’t hold him for too long. He loves hitting and grabbing at the bandages. I’m not sure if it’s intentional or not, but I know that it’s far less enjoyable for me than for him. The other massive bummer of this is that I can’t really go swimming. It would be thoroughly disgusting for me to take my open wounds into that shared water. I’m going to have to wait until I’m almost completely healed before I can get back to swimming.
There are many lessons I’d like for you to take away from this. I’ll leave you a handy bulleit list to make it easy to read:
- Alpine slides are ridiculously fun
- You should ride an alpine slide at some point
- When you do, I recommend only going as fast as you need to so that you can enjoy it
- Whatever you do, use the sled the entire way from top to bottom
- For the love of your skin, stay on the damned sled
- Wounds heal faster when they’re covered; WAY faster
- Scrubbing out wounds feels horrible, but not as horrible as getting an infection
- Accept the help of others
- Accept whiskey
- Skip the ibuprofen and make another cocktail
- Get ready to tell your story again and again – 30% of everyone who sees your bandages will ask
- If you can SEE the person ahead of you on the slide, you’re following WAY TOO CLOSELY
- Thank goodness no one ran into me while I was laying there
One final note I want to make on bandages. Two actually.
Knuckle bandages are completely ridiculous. In fact, pretty much all bandages are completely ridiculous. I mean the things that we commonly refer to as Band-Aids (kind of like how all facial tissues are called Kleenex, even if they’re Puffs) are crap. They fall off, they don’t help much, and they slide around. In a nutshell, they’re ineffective. Many of them are also imported from China. That just seems weird to me.
If you want to cover a wound, you honestly have three options. Only three. Actually, two, but one of those has a sub-option, so let’s call it three.
- For large wounds, cover them with an anti-stick pad (because your scab CAN form around gauze, binding it to your wound in a way that WILL be painful to remove), tape the pads down so they don’t slide around (only use that neat first aid tape, too), and then wrap the whole thing in gauze. Why is gauze needed over the tape? Because the tape will peel back otherwise. Tape AND gauze are awesome. Tape OR gauze are ineffective
- For giant wounds, put one of those big surgical pads over it and tape it the hell down. Gauze around your entire torso might be less practical, and you’re not really going anywhere anyway, after that surgery
- For everything smaller than 2 x 4 inches, get 3M Nexcare bandages. Not only are they made in the US, but there is a variety for pretty much every scenario (some that can even survive hand washing WHILE COVERING A KNUCKLE). These are the only thing I’ve been using and they’re absolutely amazing. Every other bandage is worthless in comparison. Call me an evangelist – they’re a miracle. And I’m currently wearing FIFTEEN of them at a time to cover all my wounds. Seriously
