Going Over the Edge

I have never been more physically and emotionally drained as I was this weekend in Colorado.

I could write a book about the weekend, but let me just hit the high points in this entry...

The trip started out with me flying on a 9:20pm flight to Colorado Springs Thursday - my first flight on an official ExprєssJet operated ERJ (holy crap, our planes are tiny). A software engineer sitting next to me made conversation/hit on me the entire flight. The whole time I was thinking, "Hey... you should date my cousin." When I told him that I was going to ski at Breckenridge, he actually said, "Oh I don't have anything planned this weekend. Maybe I will come ski with you. Let me get your phone number so we can meet up." Thank god he didn't. Anyways, we finally arrive at Colorado Springs, and I head over to pick up my mid-sized rental car. It turns out that they were out of everything, so I got a free upgrade to a Dodge Caravan. My first thought was, "Great. Now I have to drive a van by myself through the mountains." But, it turned out to be a good thing that I got the van, as all 6 of us plus our ski equipment would not have fit into 2 mid-sized cars.

Blah, blah, blah - beautiful drive, nice resort... let's cut to the skiing. This weekend, I ended up skiing a half day Friday, all Saturday, and a half day Sunday. For someone who is completely uncoordinated, out of shape, and inexperienced, it was definitely a feat. I couldn't help wondering how different I would be if I got to ski earlier in life or lived near the slopes. I can manage to ski without falling at all, but it's just not pretty or fast. What I enjoy most about skiing is speeding through narrow windy trails; therefore, the first day of skiing at Peak 8 of Breckenridge wasn't very exciting - all the runs were just straight down the mountain with only small variations in steepness. Peak 9 was much more my style. I thought that going down a blue section on my last run Saturday was the biggest challenge I would face skiing. Not even close.


Breckenridge - blue

Sunday, we drove over to Keystone to try something different. Max's sister, Brian, and I had planned to ski a couple runs before heading to the airport. On our last run, Brian, who was snowboarding, found it difficult to snowboard across some of the flat parts, so he just decided to go a different path and meet us at the bottom. He was the only one with the trail map, but since trails are usually pretty clearly marked, Max's sister and I figured we would be fine as long as we followed the green signs. We were wrong. Looking back at the trail map, we had apparently been skiing a blue route for almost a mile before we got to what I like to refer to as "the slope of death" (officially called River Run). From a distance, we could see 3 people just standing at the edge of this slope. It didn't seem alarming because there are a lot of places on the mountain where you can't see over the edge. Then we got there... and every curse word ever invented went through my mind. I am not exaggerating... the slope was over a quarter mile straight down. For me, it might as well have been a cliff. It was so steep that walking down or sliding down on your ass wasn't even an option. You would almost certainly tumble down and become a human snowball right before slamming into the trees at the bottom. The lady, one of the 3 people standing there with us said, "Wow. We don't have a choice huh? This is the only way down now." We all nodded sadly in agreement. Then the guy standing next to me turned to me and said, "This really isn't going to be a confidence builder is it...." No kidding.

I can say without hesitation that I have never been so scared in my life. I literally just shrugged my shoulders and said, "Well, now I'm going to die." And I meant it. After acknowledging that fact, I didn't let another thought go through my head. It was time to go. I was making huge cuts across the slope fighting the incline the whole way. My legs burned like crazy, and my knee caps felt like they were going to pop off. About a fifth of the way down, I hear someone screaming "Sorry!" I turn around just in time to see this guy tumbling down the slope in my direction. He hits me, takes my legs out, and keeps sliding. That's how freakin' steep this run was... hitting me didn't even stop him from sliding the rest of the way down the mountain.

So, now I'm just lying there on the side of this incline, which means I have to try and stand up AND THEN ski down another quarter mile. At least my skis didn't get knocked off, and I was able to hold on to my poles. I lay there for a couple minutes wishing that someone would just shoot me. Eventually, only god knows how, I made it down... about 3 miles of skiing and 30 minutes of hell to get down a quarter mile.

Usually, I am on a high from all of the adrenaline pumping through me after these situations, and I feel I can do it over and over again. This time, I was just relieved to be done with it, and the only thing I can say is, "NEVER AGAIN." I should be proud that I made it, but, like the guy at the top said, this wasn't a confidence builder. I feel it was more luck than skill that got me down. I don't want to tempt fate again.

After that, I was physically and emotionally spent, but I still had to drive to Denver. That turned out to be another test of my nerves. A drive that usually takes less than 2 hours ended up taking almost 3 hours. Due to heavy volume on the interstate, we were going about 15 miles per hour for 30 miles. I made up some time by averaging 85 mph the rest of the way. By then, my brother was in grave danger of missing his flight. We were still 10 miles from the airport with only 25 minutes left before his departure time. That's when I was averaging 90 mph - in the Dodge Caravan. With all of that cursing earlier in the day, you would think that I would have run out of things to scream in my head, but you would be wrong. Denver and Denver International Airport may be the worst designed places in the world. First, the airport is in BFE. Second, there are no gas stations for miles around, and no way to get on or off if you miss your exit. I dropped my brother and Max's sister off. Then, I frantically drove around looking for a gas station before driving back to the rental car return area. By that time, there was no chance I would make the last Frontiєr or Continєntal flights to Houston. My only hope was Unitєd, and once again, they came through for me. They may be a competitor, but I have a special place in my heart for those United folks in Colorado.

By the end of that day, I was so frazzled that I probably would have burst into tears if someone even gave me a mean look. Arriving home at 1am with all of my body parts intact was a great relief. Like they say, all's well that ends well. I got to ski for the second time in 5 years, and it only makes me want to go more often... as long as I stay far away from River Run. That is a moment I don't want to relive, but it does give me the right to say that I truly lived every moment of this weekend to the fullest.