It was the middle of April, and my sister, mom, and I flew to Boise to drive to Tamarack for a skiing event. I went mostly for moguls, but I figured, we’re going to be here for an extra day so why not do slopestyle?

We drove up the following morning, and I was the only person on PCFREE doing slopestyle. I was training in the park after a bagel and juice breakfast, when I tried a feature that would cause me a great deal of pain.

I was landing every trick. On my final practice run, I landed a huge 900. I was so hyped up, I didn’t think to scrape some speed going into the corrugated sewer pipe. I went in full speed, went for 180 tail tap but caught an edge on the top of it. My momentum flung me sideways and way too forward. I flailed helplessly and tried to turn myself back to where I was. It was no use. I ended up elevator dropping straight to my face and side. I lay there for a minute gathering my thoughts and listening to the other people that witnessed what had just happened.

I heard three familiar voices that belonged to Carson, Andy, and Colby. They were on the lift saying, “Owwwww! Oh wait that’s Garrett! I hope he’s O.K.” That made me feel a little better that they were stressing for me, but it also embarrassed me a little.

Once everyone knew my name, people that I knew like Charles and Trevor started to recognize me. I got up, sort of leaned forward on my poles and lifted up my goggles to let my face air out a bit. I realized that I had the most massive headache I had ever had. I licked my severely chapped lips and tasted the blood, and felt the shredded skin from the ice burn on my lip and cheek. I felt so miserable, I decided to go to the lodge and scratch on my slopestyle run.

I was in the lodge for about and hour when my headache didn’t go away and I felt nauseous. My mom was typing in scores for slopestyle so I couldn’t go to the hotel, so I went to ski patrol. The doctor said I had severe ice burn and a minor concussion. I was told to take the next day off from skiing, but I love the sport too much to think of skipping a competition. The doctor was worried, so he told me to take it easy.

That night was a party. I went swimming with Trevor, had dinner with Trevor and Charles, and we played tag and hide-and-seek. The only thing I had to worry about was loud music and applying Neosporin™. My friend Tanner was arriving that night, and his mom told me he was really worried. That surprised me because mister Tanner Keim is not serious at all.

The next day was moguls, and it was fun in the sun. I took my first training run, and when I talked to my coach Pepe who was with me when I crashed, he said, “What’s this “concussion” story? That was awesome.” Though I was taking it easy only doing straight airs because I didn’t want to risk falling on a 360, I still managed to place second in my age group. I was a happy camper. An injured camper, but a happy camper.