Here’s the problem with skiing. They give you a map of the trails before you go up the lift…but the map is 2D. Sure the trails are color coded…black diamonds are the most difficult and clearly marked. But alas, the map is still utterly flat.
After a sufficient warm up at Huff Hills, where Derek and I skied over the weekend we began hitting the harder trails. Now, as you can imagine, I’m not a pro. I’m even a bit on the clumsy side {go figure}, yet all that taken into account, I’m a decent skier. After going down the hills marked with circles and squares I got more adventurous and went down one of the black diamonds.
It went great. Fast, fun…I didn’t even hit anyone.
Now, back to this 2D map. Skiing is a sport about three dimensions. Especially the vertical dimension. As in steep drops. We did really well on the hills we went down and made it a goal to hit all of the trails offered. Fine. Just fine. Until…
We found ourselves going down a trail called the Cougar. I then found myself faced with another problem of skiing: Once you start down a hill, you are committed. The flat trail map didn’t clue me in to a drop that seemed to fall off the end of the Earth. It didn’t tell me that the hell, excuse me, hill was a death trap.
The slope started off fine. An exhilarating drop much like the other diamonds we’d gone down. Then the trail leveled out for a moment. So level I was able to come to a stop to look at the view. After taking in the scenery I noticed that the slope seemed to have disappeared. I was now standing on the edge of a cliff {at least that’s how it felt…my story, I’ll exaggerate at will}. And here is where the second problem of skiing came into play. Once you go down, you can’t turn around and pick another trail.
It’s not like at the amusement park, where a kid stands in line for the scary roller-coaster, only to chicken out at the last second. That’s an easy fix. Skip the ride, go out the exit.
When you are on skis, you have one choice. Go down.
After freaking out for a moment, I gathered my nerves and pushed off. Swoosh…one drop down. A small level out, then another big drop. Knees bent, stay cool. Then, the world became a big jumble. It was like I was inside the plastic case of a game of Boggle. Everything was totally shaken as I tumbled {sans grace} down the hill. You know that scene from The Princess Bride when Wesley falls down the hill toward the Fire Swamp yelling “As…you…wisshhh”? {Watch it here.} Yeah, I’m pretty sure it looked like that. Or at least that’s how it felt.
The skis were off, my hat was off, I was a big snowy mess. Luckily there I was now at the bottom of the hill, just a slight easy slope back to the ski lift. I laid for a few moments, then put myself back together and met Derek at the bottom. He hadn’t fallen, but he did say, “Yep…wasn’t expecting that.” Needless to say, I was a bit gun shy for the rest of the afternoon. Overall I was okay, too. Nothing broken, just one bruise across my back. I’ll take it.
The warm weather was only a special weekend treat, though. Today we are back to a high of -9. Seriously? I hear things start to thaw out around April.
On a totally different note, thanks to all of you who were so kind and supportive yesterday when I opened up about my new ministry project. I’m totally jazzed to tell you more about it. I just love you all so much.
And speaking of things we love…remember Lydia? Her full session will be featured on the blog Thursday. So be sure to come back. And tomorrow I’ve got a killer wreath tutorial ready for your enjoyment. See you then!
Amy
