Risk Acceptance Descriptions

Been reading this account on TGR

www.tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=190907

I'm very new to the BC game. I was an Xtreme sport participant in my youth but none where the earth would open up and swallow me.  Trying to fathom the attitude gulf between "I love the challenge of being able to travel safely from point A to B in the winter"  to "Screw you mountain, I'll go where I want".

Current goal is to be able to have steaming hot dogs ready at the summit when the rest are done with their 3rd lap.

So as to not hijack the thread, I definitely want to return home after a trip. If the possible risk outcome is getting hurt, I'm in. I death is a realistically possible outcome, I'll take another route.

Thanks for all the input ... this is great information. I definitely appreciate your collective time and effort, and the responses are very illuminating.

Great thread (esp. the poetic answers) and a subject often revisited on this site. As a life long climber and more recently BC skier I've grappled with this issue for many years. In my youth I used climbing to try and follow a Zen path, which pushed my mental and physical limits, seeking the quiet mind state of simple being/moving. Most climbing has the potential for death if you screw up, so that kind of focus is natural. Training, practice, and judgement keep you back from the edge, while allowing you to tread so close that the uninitiated would think you are crazy. I haven't pushed my skiing to the same limits, but when I've come close it helps me feel one with the mountain.

One of my first climbing mentors had two conflicting sayings he used in conjunction:"When in doubt chicken out" and "Go for it!" The trick is to choose an objective within your limits (close is good), evaluate conditions, and prepare yourself well enough that you eliminate doubt. When that all comes together commit and give it all you've got - those are the days we never forget.

"You cannot stay on the summit forever, you have to come down again . . . so why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. There is an art of finding ones direction in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know." Rene Dumal

I love my family but they never enter my mind when decision making about a run.

I used to feel the same way. Getting hurt in the mountains fundamentally altered the way I make go/no go decisions. I had no idea how much there was to lose until I lost a little. Don't ask yourself if the risk of dying on a run is sufficiently low; getting crippled is worse for your family, your friends, and yourself.

My partner didn't, couldn't, understand the first day we went to ski something steepish after the injury. Conditions were good, instability was low, the snow was great, I knew I could make the turns, but I simply couldn't do it. I didn't know I could make the turns, and therefore couldn't guarantee to everyone I love that I wouldn't tumble down the couloir. If presented with the same decision/conditions today, with more time on my skis and more trust in my ankle, I'd be racing my partner for first tracks, but I'd be absolutely positive that every turn would keep me out of the ER.

Thanks for the thoughts, JimD - they helped out a friend of mine today.