Ouch

Today, my 10 year old daughter hit a tree while skiing.  Fortunately, she was not badly injured and the xray shows nothing broken.  She will be very sore and bruised for a while though.

She is a firecracker of a kid.  4'4"; graceful like the dancer/artist she is and athletic like the soccer/lacrosse player she is.  Been on skis for more than half her life and an excellent carefree downhiller.  Also an aspiring snowboarder.

This year, her instructer, is a very athletic free-skier who does everything on the mountain.  I once saw him skiing backwards down a double black diamond - on purpose.  He has started to take the group into the more advanced glades of trees and into the toughest terrain on the mountain.  The kids are fearless and are learning a ton which is great.  She has really loved skiing with him this year and loves the trees. 

However, I sit here and wonder if she will be the same, loose skier that she was.  The bruises will heal, but will her confidence and relaxed attitude go away?    Running into a tree at full speed has got to be worse than just wiping out on the mountain and breaking a bone.  We fall all the time on piste, but it takes a special psyche to love the trees and that psyche can be fragile.  Kids are very resilient but she will need to get back up on the 'horse that throwed her' as soon as possible.  Getting 12-18 inches of new snow over the next day or so, so there will be plenty of opportunity to get out there next weekend.  I wonder how ready she will be to go?