Vertigo induced by low visibillity

[BlueB]

I had one really bad occurance last year, while riding very steep difficult terrain in pretty dense fog... Once it kicked in, it lasted to the end of the day, to lesser or greater extent. I wasn't quite shure it was triggered by the lack of visibillity, back then.
I started paying more attention, since then, and I had few more episodes, last one (in lighter form) 2 days ago. It has definitelly to do with the fog. Effects are loss of ballance, slight dissorientation and beggining signs of panic.

Anyone else has/had this problem?

What our online docs think of it?

[BobD]

I have felt slight disorientation occasionally in very flat foggy light as the snow rises and falls under me, seemingly without reason.
It's easy to see how pilots can get spacial disorientation in cloud.

Boris, I wonder if it's like the feeling you get coming ashore from a boat, which can last a very long time. Did you get that when you were sailing ?

BobD

[Dave ESPI]

I get it more from flatlight. Slowing down and also scanning ahead 3 turns helps as does riding near the tree line as the trees cast a color hue into the snow and helps with picking up definition. When the first tracks ran AJAX @ this years SES there was mixed bag of conditions down thru copper canyon run. It was indeed fairly confusing and I think that being unfamiliar with trails helps add to said vertigo. Just my thoughts.

[Snowman]

Arapahoe Basin is the vertigo inducing king. I have been disorientated to the extreme of nausea! The last time I experienced it, I had to lay on the snow with my face to the snow surface to regain my bearings. It was a very strange and scary experience. The Basin has a lot of acreage above treeline with frequent heavy snows, wind and heavy cloud cover, add these three together and its a recipe for puke inducing vertigo.

Think Snow!

[SnowNBeachAddict]

I experienced my first case of vertigo in December while riding during a major dump at Mammoth. I became so disoriented I sat in the snow and cried because I couldn't see more than 2 feet in front of me to get down the hill Fortunately a patroller on a snowmobile saw me and picked me up. We spent the next hour tooling around checking on people. Turned out to be a fun day, but took every ounce not to puke riding around on the mobile. It was a bad case of vertigo and I am more conservative riding certain terrain during low visibility now.

[b0ardski]

They don't call it the Big Fog for nuthin.

I got some fall over "ski by braile" vertigo at Schwietzer this year in wind blown snow thru dense fog conitions while on a cat track entrance to an easy run. I knew exactly where I was but fell over and still could not see the ground.
I've never had it last beyond regaining visual reference however.

[Rob Stevens]

Had a super-funny vertigo episode a few years back...

I was on the Divide at Sunshine (not that day) and you could not tell the ground from the sky.
In a traverse, I found myself feeling a sensation I never before had on snow. I can't even describe it, but I did feel like spewing for a sec.
I looked down at the snow and could only make out the grooming grooves a few inches out from my board.
I was going backwards when I assumed I was going forward.

Took a moment or two to shake that off.

[Chubz]

Is that the same sensation one gets when you step off an eliptical machine or treadmill? I have about 60 seconds of orientating muself when I step off those machines.

Heck I even felt a slight case of it walking out of the theatre after seeing Avatar. Took a bout 30 seconds for me to get my bearing.

Being subject to such odd conditions leads to it and the human sensory machine simply hasnt evolved becasue tis not subject to those condtiions. Its one of the things I teach when doing Defensive Driver Training. The human sensory system has not evolved to accomodate the speeds that cars travel at, so those higher speed have an increased factor in affecting the brains perception and decision making processes.

Good luck with it whatever the case may be.

[bobdea]

Had a super-funny vertigo episode a few years back...

I was on the Divide at Sunshine (not that day) and you could not tell the ground from the sky.
In a traverse, I found myself feeling a sensation I never before had on snow. I can't even describe it, but I did feel like spewing for a sec.
I looked down at the snow and could only make out the grooming grooves a few inches out from my board.
I was going backwards when I assumed I was going forward.

Took a moment or two to shake that off.

boy, been there. I stopped and I was worried I had hit my head and could not remember it. my solution was to stop lay down and close my eyes. was fine after a minute or two.

[bumpyride]

Son and I were standing at the top of Grand Targhee. I'm regular and he's goofy, and we were facing each other and couldn't see the ground. All of a sudden I felt movement and realized we were both going down the hill side by side. We stopped and sat next to each other. We had the visual orientation of each other, and that helped.

In times of extremely low/flat/or no light, I will sit down, hold my head in my hands and concentrate on my knees and that orientation will help.

[Ohob]

Thanksgiving day in 96 (I think) at Big Mountain MT. Visibility was anywhere from 2ft to 10ft. I had to stop every 2 turns and sit down to keep from falling over. Half the time I didn't know If I was moving or not.

On a side note, I was riding a Gnu Vertigo!

[Allee]

I get this a lot. The last time I had it bad was riding the Burfield lift from the hostel side of Sun Peaks. We were totally whited out at the top, and when I clipped in and stood up, I had that instant sick feeling in my stomach, and when I tried to ride off my internal compass was completely screwed and I kept sliding sideways. Any time I'm badly whited out I always get nauseous - I've always thought it was a balance thing because I get motion sick too, but Boris, you're a sailor, so I assume you don't have the same problem?

The worst experience I've ever had of whiteout was at the Remarkables in New Zealand. We went from good visibility to nothing in literally five minutes, so bad we had to sit down and see which way we started to slide, just to tell which way was down. We ended up taking our gear off and hiking down the trail, holding hands with a string of about thirty other people, just to get down off the mountain. It was very scary, and yes, both myself and my friend felt sick for hours afterwards.

[BlueB]

Ok, at least I know I'm not alone...
I guess a lot of our sense of ballance comes from our eyes, especially sight of the horizon, not only from the funky little contraption behind our ears...

Allee, funny enough, for an ocean sailor, I can get sea sick mildly, from time to time, especially if I'm down in the cabin trying to read or write.

Bob, I know the feeling you described. It can last from few minutes to a full day, upon landing. I guess our senses compensate for the motion of the boat, to create balance. Then, when ashore, the senses are still trying to compensate for the motion that is not there any more... In my 2nd year of carving, when I started pulling some more serious Gs, I would get some "falling" sensation at rest, later in the bed. Similar to the sailor on dry land feeling.

[lowrider]

Had it once at Lake Louise droping from a flat to steep. Upon return the. next day skiing the same run we almost dropped into the same steep save for the avalanche sign. "Ski by braile" I like that one.

[crucible]

Your eyes are instrumental in aligning your balance to the levels present in your inner ear- if the sight alignment picture is off by even the faintest of seconds - headaches, dizziness, and nausea can result.

I have been caught in whiteouts while backcountry skiing and snowboarding that were so severe that you could topple over while just standing still, because of the loss of reference on the horizon.

It's all too common here in the dense and foggy conditions of the Wet Coast- I figure that some of the erratic lines shown in yesterday's Olympic PGS mens final might have been from vertigo's side effects.