Ellis strikes again

Clear blue skies, good snow, wide open slopes -- the conditions were perfect for a fantastic ski day at Crystal. But then we added the wild card: Ellis. An injury was bound to happen. This time it was Chris.

We were barrelling down Sunnyside for our last run before lunch. Chris was on his park monkey skis, which are shorter and narrower than his tankers. He caught a rut and went flying head over heels into the hard-packed slope. He scraped up his chin, cheek and lip and pulled his groin, but he seemed to be OK otherwise. We skied the rest of the day, stopped at the Snorting Elk for an hour or so, then headed home. By the time we got to Enumclaw, his wrist had thawed out and was hurting so badly that we had to stop at a store to get some Tylenol. The pain was getting worse and his fingers were going numb, so we went to the ER to get it checked out.

It turns out that he sprained his wrist and may have fractured his scaphoid. Apparently, scaphoid fractures often don't show up in the x-rays until a week or more after the injury, so it's being treated like a fracture until he gets it x-rayed again in a week. So now he's in a splint and sling for at least the next week.

The good news is that he hurt his left wrist and he's right-handed, so this won't slow him down too much. Also, the doctor said that he should be able to get back on the slopes after a week or so if it's only a sprain.

You may be wondering what Ellis has to do with all of this. We're not sure, but his presence seems to be the common thread in most of the ski injuries that have happened this season. So we've decided that he's responsible in some way.

By the way, other than Chris' injury (of which we did not realize the extent until the drive home) I had the best ski day I've had in years. It was glorious.