Ski Binding Story

Melanie's friend Kelly is visiting from North Carolina this weekend and since I am such an awesome boyfriend I agreed to drive Kelly up to the mountain on Thursday and ski for a bit. We had a great time in the sun and spring conditions. Then, this really interesting thing happened. Something I have never seen or heard of. If Kelly were not there to witness this event nobody would believe me.

The Story:
I was just skiing along, making beautiful tele turns, when this guy comes flying past me. He was totally out of control, in that half tuck position, sort of making turns. Anyway, you get the picture. I didn't see him crash, although I wish I had. It would have been entertaining and it would make this story even better. I stop and he is slightly up-hill from me lying face down in the snow. He slowly gets up, slightly dazed and I realize that one of his skis is nowhere to be seen. I turn to Kelly and ask her if she sees this guy's other ski. We don't see it and we can see for quite a ways. I notice that the guy is ski/hop/flailing toward us on his one remaining ski, when he asks, "Hey man, can I get some help?" I tentatively give a positive reply expecting to be engaged in a search for the missing ski until all the snow melts. He then busts out with, "You gotta get this binding out of my ass!" Whoa, that was out of left field. Sure enough, when he turns around, he has a ski binding dangling from the seat of his ski pants. I extracted it. When this guy fell he completely ripped his binding off his ski and the brake punctured his ski pants and two layers of underwear then re-traced it's path in complete fish-hook fashion. I really wish I had a picture. It was amazing!