The monkey made me do it

The Art of Crashing

Snow and I have issues. When I was in high school, I was determined to learn how to ski and went on a total of three trips to local mountains, all ending in disaster. I never had the patience (or money) for lessons, so I relied on my friends for advice as to the finer points of ski manuevering. Bad idea. The first trip I spent about five minutes on the bunny slope before deciding that I was ready for the chair lift and the glamour of the big mountain run. The only problem was that I had yet to learn how to do two things:
1. Turn
2. Stop
Oh, sorry, three things:
3. Get off the chair lift
Once they had stopped the chair lift for me and given me a hand off the seat at the second stop (the one that was supposed to only be for people taking lessons - coincidence? yes. shut up.), I shot down that mountain like my skis had mini-jet-rockets strapped to the backs, and was in speed-induced bliss until about 2/3 of the way down, when I realized that the bottom was coming up very quickly and I didn't really know what to do about that. I remembered seeing people snowplowing, and made an attempt to copy the awkward, knock-kneed motion but only succeeded in tangling my skis together and embarking on Big Scary Crash #1 of the day's approximately 20 bazillion. Crash numbers 2-15 followed in rapid succession as I kept going down the mountain, stopping each time to get advice from my friends about ways to halt or turn my trajectory without again watching the world go arse over teakettle. Their advice? Turn sideways in that swishy s-pattern that has a very complicated possibly Swiss name that I cannot pronounce and won't even try to spell (schussing? shuss? schlemiezel? I lied about the trying part). That resulted in me shooting off to the side of the run (you know, where the trees and sharp dropoffs are) as a result of my Xtreme speed. They also said to jump up a bit and turn your skis uphill, landing on your heels for that lovely wall-of-snow stop that you see in the movies. Again, Xtream speed (a.k.a. speed so intense that it defies all traditional attempts at spelling its description) (and also a.k.a. Speed That Inspires Extraneous Capitalization) caused me to temporarily defy gravity when trying this technique and instead of stopping, whoosh again, UPHILL, towards the edge of the run and the trees and cliffs of snow.

I also have forgotten (intentionally?) to mention the unfortunate roles of the other skiers on the hill during this experience. Lots of dodging, some yelling, many children endangered. It's not important.

Anyways, crashing-crashing-crashing, snow in places where snow had never been before, and two visits to the mountain later I still hadn't learned a single thing. So my "friend" Tiffany (never trust a Tiffany) decided that I was ready for my first black diamond run. She didn't tell me this was the plan, and I went obliviously to the new chair lift that she indicated and hopped right on (by now I had figured out chair lifts. Nothing else, though, and my hopping-off skills always elicited chuckles from the staff). When we reached the top of the mountain I was still pretty cheerful, executing my uncoordinated hop and watching with confusion as all of a sudden Tiffany disappeared off the cliff suddenly under our feet and took off down the mountain. In my memory there was maniacal giggling wafting back up to me but I can't be sure. It was steeper than anything I'd ever done before, and getting started was a bit of a challenge. Once I was headed down the mountain in my typical beam-straight line, my spirits picked back up a little bit. Then all of a sudden I was airborne, and realized that the sun behind me was hiding all of the gigantic jumps and moguls that made up the majority of this run. AND I couldn't stop, and turning was really more of a matter of faith in leaning. I landed with a bit of a flail, and the rest of the weaving, falling, rocketing course is a mush to me. All I know is that I didn't talk to Tiffany for two weeks and had bruises for a very long time. And I think that was the trip where I had snow so far up my nose that I sneezed for fifteen minutes straight and strained a nose muscle (don't think it's possible? I dare you to sneeze for fifteen minutes and find out.)

Even after all of this, a couple years ago I decided that with my expertise in skiing, mastering the snowboard was my next course of action. I'll save that for another day, but will mention that the day involved me inventing a crash-and-roll technique that ended up being more fun than the actual boarding to me, and resulted in my crashing intentionally about every five feet down the hill, then sliding for a while with my butt on the board and laughing at my brother, who by then had gone down the hill, up the lift, and down the hill again while I had progressed exactly 20 feet.
Snow bunny I am not.

posted by LadyJay @ 8:05 AM