A friendly recovery...

Talk about a quick recovery! It's very weird to think that getting your appendix removed used to be a big ordeal, considering a week later I feel almost normal and hardly have a visible scar. I think having my friends around helped me recover a lot faster, and made the whole experience a lot more positive.

This picture made me laugh really hard.

Marcus, Ross and Kristina were here until Wednesday, and I think its safe to say we all had a pretty good time. Skiing, great food, sight seeing...all the things you can hope for on a vacation. Taking a week off of work wasn't bad either. Here are some pictures from the week:












Saturday I gave skiing a shot. It worked out well because Marcus and Kristina wanted to ski the bunny slopes, which gave me a chance to start slow. Ironically, it was actually easier for me to ski than to walk! Here is my "oops I accidentally skied way too soon after my surgery" picture haha:


On the last day of skiing, we saw a moose in the trees near Apres Vous, and almost skied into him! This was the first time this year that I saw a moose on the slopes while skiing, so it was cool that Ross was here to see it too.



Now that my friends have left, its back to work for Laura and I. My doctor didn't want me to bump chairs for my first week back, so I have been working on the Granite Ridge tow rope.

Things get pretty exciting over here on Granite aka Gangster Ridge.
(not)

I actually thought working the tow rope was going to suck, but I am really enjoying it. I don't have to get up as early, I'm allowed to read/text/talk whenever I want, and I get to go home at 2pm instead of 5pm. It's so laid back, that it doesn't really even feel like I'm working!

On a side note, I want to thank everyone for reading my blog, as it recently surpassed 2,000 hits! Thanks for the support, knowing that people are consistently reading it really helps me keep up with it and keep writing. Hopefully I am offering you all some sort of entertainment, and in return you are motivating me to record my adventures so that I can remember this whole experience for the rest of my life. (Without feeling like I'm writing in a journal :P)

That's it for now. The weekend is almost here...hopefully I can get myself into something worth blogging about!

Who really needs an appendix anyways...

Well, I think its pretty easy to say that this weekend took an unlikely turn. One day we were showing Laura's cousin Kelly and her fiance Nick around Jackson, and the next thing I know I'm starving in a hospital bed waiting for surgery to get my appendix out!



I woke up Monday morning with really bad stomach pain, almost like I was REALLY hungry or had a really bad running cramp. I told Laura and our guests that I would probably meet them out the mountain in a couple hours and tried to sleep it off. Every time I woke up the pain was worse, I couldn't find a way to lay without being in excruciating pain. I tried to eat a couple of times and ended up throwing it right back up. I told Laura I wouldn't be making it out to ski and just kept on going back to sleep every time I woke up. I woke up around 5pm when Laura got home and noticed that instead of my entire stomach hurting, it now only hurt on the right side and the pain was a lot sharper. Thinking that this could be something with my appendix I quickly looked up my symptoms on webmd.com and told everyone that I thought I might need to go to the ER. They agreed and next thing I knew we were on our way.

Upon arriving at the ER, I explained my situation, had a CAT Scan and quickly found out that my self-diagnosis was correct. They told me that I should stay the night and have surgery first thing in the morning, and began pumping me full of drugs.

Hanging out waiting for my CT results.

After a long and painful night, I found out that my surgery had been bumped from 7am to 1 pm, which is great news when your appendix feels like its about to pop out of your stomach like an overdue baby. A lot of drugs and pain later, I was heading to the operating room. The operation was quick and successful, and luckily they were able to perform it laparoscopically...which basically meant less damage/pain/recovery time for me (its much less invasive than how they used to do it). If anyone is interested you can learn more about all this here.

After the surgery, I was still in a lot of pain but was feeling a lot better. I could finally have water for the first time in over 24 hours, and sadly, eating crushed ice was an extraordinary experience. A couple hours later I was having Jello and ice cream, and by night I was back to eating normals foods.

You know its sad when crushed ice is as satisfying as filet mignon.

Livin' the Ice Cream Dream!

I have never been so proud of my [newly rediscovered] ability to pee.

Not sure, but I think this is the 'after' shot.

I had a fever after surgery, so they didn't want me to go home yet. Last night I got woken up every hour or so to get my vitals and temperature read, and to blow in some stupid tube! After about 3am my fever went away, and they finally let me get some sleep. This morning my swelling had gone done and the doctor told me things were looking good and they said I could go home.

Currently, I am still walking like a 90 year old man, but I feel a little better as time goes on. Hopefully I will be back to normal in a day or two.

Although this entire ordeal messed the plans up for the weekend a bit, Laura and I were still able to take Nick and Kelly to the mountain a couple of days and out to see some of the wildlife. We got to give them a little backcountry tour too, which they seemed to thoroughly enjoy!

I like this one because the moose is looking directly at me... "What you doin' Chris?"

Laura shredding the pow pow.

Laura, Kelly and Nick coming down Rock Springs in the JH backcountry.

My friend Marcus returns to visit us in Jackson Hole tonight and will be here for the next week. My friends Ross and Kristina are arriving on Friday as well, so we will definitely be trying to make the best of their time here aside from my recent health issues. Oh, and here's the really good news... I was thinking this surgery was going to put me out for the rest of the ski season, because I thought it had a 6 week recovery period...however...the doc says I can try taking it easy on some groomers as early as Monday if I'm feeling up for it, never expected that one!!

Don't worry I'm not planning on pushing it to hard, or hurting myself again...but you know I just have got to ski once the time is right :D

It's bbbaaacckk...

The backcountry is back!! Laura and I, as well as most people in Jackson, have been avoiding the backcountry due to the dangerous conditions that have plagued the Tetons all season long. In this instance, backcountry is the word we use to describe the area in the mountains that people ski when they aren't inside the bounds of a ski resort. The JH backcountry avalanche risk recently dropped to be consistently low/moderate, so last Tuesday my friend Kevin and I decided it was time to venture out. Beautiful.

Me at the bottom of Rock Springs.

View from inside one of the first bowls of Rock Springs.

Perfect, untouched snow. :D

Kevin, his friends and I navigate our way into the Green River area, above the cliff band you can see Cody peak looming in the distance.

I don't know what it is about the BC, but it sure does have a dreamy/magical feel you will never find in a ski resort.

Now I remember why I chose Jackson Hole over every other ski resort in the nation. JH's backcountry is immaculate and unrivaled, and to me is the perfect skiing experience. It's normal to be skiing the backcountry and only see 2-3 other people, sometimes you wont even see anyone. The conditions are usually better, the terrrain is more extreme, and you get the feeling that you are truely surrounded by nature. Next time I will be sure to take my DSLR and take some more pictures!

I cannot wait to get back out there again on my days off. Laura's cousin and her fiance are arriving here tonight, and I think Laura wants to take them out to the BC too. They will be here for the next week, and after that my friends Marcus, Ross and Kristina will be coming to visit. It sure is going to be crazy around here for the rest of February...and I can't wait!

A Great Weekend...

This "weekend" has been great. I say "weekend" because our weekend is actually from Sunday to Tuesday, because we work Wednesday to Saturday every week. Kind of weird that we have a fake weekend, but at least its three days long! We haven't gotten any fresh snow, but the weather and groomers have been excellent.

Some fresh groomer at the top of Casper lift.

Anyways, this weekend I got to do some things I have been wanting to do for a long time. First off, I finally got to do NASTAR for the first time ever, after kind of wanting to do it for almost 5 years now. NASTAR is basically a slalom race course like you would see in the Olympics where you have to ski in and out of the gates. This particular NASTAR set up (which is under my lift) is pretty chill and usually just for people to do time trials. It was really fun to finally try, and lets just say Laura wasn't as fast as me! (I won't give actual times so she won't get her feelings hurt :P)

Me racing through some NASTAR gates.

That same day, I unexpectedly got to do something that I planned to try later this season. The conditions were perfect, and we came upon a steep run that had just been perfectly groomed...I went straight down it without slowing down at all, and...I BEAT MY SPEED RECORD! Before I beat it, my record speed on skis was 58.2 miles per hour, which I have been trying to beat for over a year. To find my speed I use my Garmin GPS which clocks the max speed of the unit with about 7 different satellites... in case you were wondering. I have checked this method of speed measurement for accuracy by comparing it to a car speedometer, and found it is very accurate! My new record is 60.8 miles per hour, which is awesome because I have been trying to break 60 since I started clocking myself.

My proof that I actually went that fast. (Click image for larger view)

Finally, I got to do something I have been putting off all season, work on my snowboarding. I have snowboarded a couple times on the east coast, usually by myself for halfdays, and have never had someone to really teach me. Today Laura and I went out and hit the groomers at opening, and I did really well! This morning I was struggling to get down greens without falling, and three hours later I was doing double blues off the gondola no problem. I'm really excited to keep working on my skills, and Laura was a great teacher... so hopefully she will give me more pointers without trying to make me pay!

Learning to snowboard can be very tiring, and my dad always says I can fall asleep anywhere!

To finish off my weekend I figured I would try to go take some good pictures of the sunset from south of town, but it turned out to be kind of disappointing. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the sunset ended up being less than spectacular. I ended up getting some decent pics, the great ones will have to come another time I guess.

Not a very dramatic sky, but the snow looked pretty cool with the warm glow of the sun on it.

After the sun set and shadows filled the valley, the sky finally got some color.

Me on our walk to try to get some pictures.

My attempt at an artsy winter picture, with added sepia of course. ;)

This weekend I am hoping to get to do more things I haven't done yet...I mean that's the point of living out here right? Laura and I are planning on going to the local Jackson Hole Moose Hockey game, and hopefully (conditions permitting) get out to hike and ski the Glory Bowl, a backcountry natural bowl in the teton pass. The teton pass backcountry is world renowned, and we havent really gotten to explore it yet since we skied the Tele Bowl in November...so we are really getting antsy to do so. Time for bed now though... I have to get up early tomorrow to ski...err...I mean work! :D