Moose Facts Warning! Avoid This Fatal Mistake

[arve url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOLF2d09GKE” mode=”lazyload” align=”center” thumbnail=”1425″ description=”Moose Facts- Fast moving and dangerous”/]

Don’t Let Your Guard Down. Stay Alert.

Spending some time reflecting on my life living, working and playing in the mountains brings many life lessons to mind. One such memory from early season skiing at Jackson Hole Ski Resort is worth sharing as a good reminder to all of us.

Reflecting- A Moose Miracle

Back in the day… when still pursuing pro ski racing, we were getting in some serious laps up and down Après Vous. At the time, these slopes benefited from snowmaking, which makes the best surface for carving up hard icy snow like the kind we find on race courses.

Adrenaline was at pre-season high. These were some of the first lift serviced runs of the year and a chance to see how well our off-season training had prepared us. What you find is that nothing really prepares you for the burn that comes from working the ski muscles.

Need For Speed

For a ski racer, the need for speed is as critical as a cushy couch in front of the fireplace for a ski bunny. The whole idea is to create controlled speed in each turn. It takes some fairly serious strength.

After carving up about 1800’ vertical of the perfectly pitched slope, each run ended on a short cat-track that cut back to the base of the lift.

About halfway into the morning session, as I began my straight shot between other meandering skiers on the narrow cat-track, I had a brush with death. If not death, maybe something worse like a career ending injury.

It’s one thing to run into another skier (yes, I confess this has happened, but thank God- no one hurt). My body could absorb even a three hundred pounder. Plus there was some give because they were sliding on the snow along with me.

Moose Facts- They Are Big, Wild, Dangerous Animals

But what happens if you T-bone into a 1000 pound Bull Moose?

I can’t think of anything good. This was my brush with death.

Picture the typical cat-track cutting across a fairly steep pitch. You have on your left, the uphill side, and on your right, the downhill side. Your scooting along at about 30 MPH.

Suddenly from above -out of nowhere- a hulking bull moose jumps down onto the cat-track in front of you!

There was no time to react. It just so happened that Bullwinkle continued straight across and down the other side just in time for me to brush by his backend.

I’m about six foot when standing on skis. This put my eyes right at butt level with this majestic creature and close enough to see him pucker up, mirroring one of my own body’s physical reactions. I can only assume he was freaking out as much as me.

Make Close Calls Wake Up Calls

It’s close calls like this that sort of bring an increased awareness of the risks and dangers the mountains present. My hope is that this post will give us all a pause to reset our respect level for mountain living to the proper level.

In my terms, I like a healthy dose of “the fear of God” at the start of every winter season. Whether it’s an encounter like mine with a moose or like the folks in the video, avalanche danger, driving in winter weather, or even the cold itself, mountains deserve respect. Be as safe as you can be out there.

One motto I live by when playing in the mountains comes from a man who I greatly respect, founder of Snow King Mountain in Jackson, Wyoming, the late Neil Rafferty. It goes like this-

“Have all the fun you possibly can, but consider the other skiers” (or whoever it is that shares the same mountain space you’re playing in). ~Neil Rafferty

With healthy attitudes, alertness and a warning from moose facts (they are big, wild, dangerous animals), we can all be a bit safer this winter.