How to Look Like a Moron When Skiing

There I was, tall proud and full of faith. "Eh, I can do this...PIECE - OF - CAKE." I thought to myself while starring down the tall sleek mountain side.

I had always thought about skiing, but never got around to it until one dreadful winter's day in '99. My friend Chelsea had invited me to go with her family and friends up to the mountain for a week of skiing. When she asked I responded with a prompt "SURE!" Why wouldn't I say sure? What wasn't there to be excited about? Skiing sounded fun! Flying down a hill at the speed of light safe and sound when you reach the bottom. What didn't sound fun about that? Not only would I reach the bottom in one piece with an insane adrenalline rush. But when I got there and wanted to return to the top, I wouldn't have to hike my lazy ass back up the steep annoying hill as I would in sledding thanks to the beautiful art of ski lifts!

Being as athletic as I was I assumed I'd catch on in no time. Sports came naturally to me, plain and simple. Why would skiing be any different? I was all for it and welcomed it with a smile.

Yes I know what your thinking, I sound a little too cocky right? Talking about how I'm a star athlete and can tackle the task of any sport and what not. But let me assure you this was CONFIDENCE, not cockiness. Alright I know I was cocky. Give me a break though, I was 14 and on top of the world! If it makes you feel any better I now think differently about myself. Five years and three skiing trips later I can officially say that I suck. Never again will I refer to myself as an "athlete". The true athletes are those who can successfully fly down a icy hill at a 90 degree slope, going 100mph while soaring over giant mounds of snow the size of small mansions.

Anyway, two weeks passed and it was time to depart for good ole Mt. Hood. Psh "Mt. Hood," What a stupid name. A stupid name for a stupid mountain. As you can see I'm not at all bitter.

About two hours later we were there, suited up and ready to go.

Ah yes, so there I was starring at the first slope of my oh so short skiing career. This was the learners slope. Where all the wanna be's hung out until they felt confident enough in their skiing game to move on to bigger and better things. I'd say the slope laid at a sad pathetic 55 degree angle. A 55 degrees I was scared @#$less of.

I looked down at myself. My eyes traveled from my puffy jacket, to my puffy gloves, to the sticks extending from each puffy fist, to my puffy pants, and down to the stickish platforms attached to each puffy foot. Then it hit me, I looked like a big puffy stickish thing! "Ah ha!" I thought to myself. "I look horrible!!!"

I was thinking that this might help ease my worry of feeling as if everyone was starring directly at me. Cause as far as I knew I was the beginner girl who hadn't budged from the top of the mountain for a good 20 minutes. I figured at least half the people there had noticed or gotten the word by now. Maybe no one had, but being 14 and a little self conscious I was pretty sure the entire skiing community had their eyes on me.

My hopes for my bad attire to disguise my cowardliness were quickly lost though once I looked up and saw at least one hundred other puffy stickish looking people squirming around me. I then realized that I was no exception. Everyone was wearing what I was. We all looked equally horrible. I was out of luck and had to do this, people looking at me or not. I gathered my pride and guts, which at this point were all over the ice cold snow. Tucked them deep in my puffy pockets, stood up straight, took a deep breathe and... didn't budge an inch.

"Damnit!" I thought to myself, hitting my forehead to my fist. "This skiing thing is going to be harder then I thought it'd was."

My second attempt, although still very sad, went slightly better then the first.

I have always been really hard on myself when it comes to competition. So seeing these little 7 year old boys and girls fly by me on there two foot long skis wasn't exactly sitting well with me. I had to do something and quick. I decided to give myself and ultimatum. Hmmm what shall it be? Then it came to me, "Breona, if you don't go down this hill by the count of three then Dee-Dee will die." Dee-Dee is our family dog. I know it's harsh but bare with me, It's what came to mind. Plus it worked!

I took what I said very seriously. I started to think of what or who all would be affected by our dogs death. "Well, my mom, my dad, my three sisters..."

That was enough motivation right there. I began counting. "One....two...THREE!" With out thinking about it, I thrusted my hips forward just enough to slowly start creeping down the mountain. Once I realized I was moving I immediately pointed my skis inward, toes toward one another, to help slow me down.(Chelsea's mom had told me to do this on the car ride up). By doing so I was brought to a complete stop. Sadly my top speed was probably only a steady mile per hour.

Filled with frustration I frowned and let out a sigh. I pitied myself. Why was I such a loser? Five and six year old children could cascade by me with ease, yet I couldn't move a foot with out pissing Myself.

"That's it!"I said."Your going to get down this mountain and your going to do it right now!" I squinted my eyes and with complete concentration focused in on the my destination; the bottom. With out hesitation I once again thrusted my hips forward and slowly began to move. It took me a while to notice but I soon realized I was doing it! I was actually skiing! I mean ya, I had my toes pointed inward practically over lapping one another, was dragging my ski poles behind me applying full body weight, and was going horizontally side to side, but still I was definitely skiing.

Once my nerves calmed down I decided to pick up the pace. I lifted my ski poles up from behind me, straightened my side to side motion out and pushed off. Before I knew it I was cruising with ease. Going up and down little dips and bumps; catching air. I was all over the place and looking good.

"See Bre this is easy, you're already a pro and you have only just begun. It's just like you thought it would be, piece-of-cake." As I was thinking this I reached the bottom and spotted Chelsea. She looked thoroughly impressed. I twisted my body side-ways and dug my skis into the ice sending a flying blanket of of snow all over her.

The Pros do this all the time, It makes them feel good about themselves. You know, making the on-lookers at the bottom feel worthless. Okay, maybe not. But doing it sure made me feel good, so I continued with no apologies.

I had done it. I had conquered all 55 degrees of "Ski Bowl" (the name of the slope). Even though it was only my first run I had an enormous amount of confidence in my skiing ability. I almost didn't even want to attempt the "wanna be's" slope a second time. I was better then that, I was a somebody, I was a skier! Buuuut...just to be safe I decided to give it another shot.

I successfully made my way down about five more times until I became extremely bored. I needed more of a challenge. This learner's slope was not cutting it. I alerted Chelsea that it was time for bigger and better things. She hesitated ... a lot, until she finally gave in to my persistent nagging. For some reason she kept trying to convince me that I wasn't ready for anything other then the slope we were already on. The "wimp slope". She suggested building little mini jumps that we should practice on before joining the "hotshots" on the steeper slopes. I said "NON SENSE!" and wouldn't take no for an answer. She finally agreed and we were on our way.

"Woooow" I mumbled as my eyes feasted upon the massive hill. This slope was huge! The slope had to of been at a 80 degree angle. I'm not over exaggerating either. It was easily the steepest natural landmark I had ever seen in all my 14 years. The slope alone was intimidating, but then there were these gigantic mounds of snow! These so called "jumps" (which would be what I was referring to earlier as small mansions) marked with big blue lines just to warn people how freaking huge these things really were. The slope was no joke, and at first sight I knew I didn't belong there. I couldn't back out now though, not after all the complaining I did to go to a more challenging slope. I had to do it.

I looked around me, there was a lot of people. More snow boarders then skiers but that didn't make a difference. They were still going to witness my traumatic fall and they were still going to laugh their asses off when they did.

As you can see I had already come to terms with the fact that I was going fall, It was inevitable. My eyes met up with Chelsea's. She looked pretty scared herself.

"You sure you want to do this Bre? I've never even done something like this." She said in a unsure voice.

She knew I didn't. But still I said, " Ya I'm sure, and so are you! You can't back out on me now."

"I know don't worry, I won't. You know we're probably going to die though right?" She said as we both starred blankly down the mountain.

"Yup," I said casually.

So that was that. We were going to do this thing, like it or not. I knew the longer we waited the harder it would be so I said, "Okay Chels, let's not think about it and just go on the count of three, deal?"

"Deal."

"Alright, one...two...THREE," and we were off!

It all happened so quick.I don't remember if I even looked at Chelsea or not. I had full faith that she was right there beside me, holding up her end of the deal. Probably experiencing exactly what I was, which was absolute fear. Fear of what? Um, just about everything; mostly death though. I was pretty sure I was going to die. I didn't have time to worry about her. My life was about to end. I could care less if she was there or not.

From the very instant I pushed off with my ski poles, I knew I was moving much too fast. You would think I would slow down or something. Oh no, not me. You see it hit me on my way down that man, it's kinda hard to do that professional ski stop when your flying down a 80 degree slope of frozen ice.

I became so caught up in thinking about how I could stop myself that I completely forgot about paying attention to where I was going or what I was doing. I quickly tuned back in to be welcomed by a combination of horrible things. I first noticed my rapidly gaining speed, which at this point was about 60 mph. Secondly was that my side to side motion I had planned on doing to keep things slow and under control had failed miserably. Instead I was faced forward, looking dead ahead to the worst of all my welcoming presents. A huge, gigantic, blue lined jump. A jump which I had no way of avoiding.

Before I could say "Holy @#$%!" I was in the air, spread eagle, frantically whaling around like a worm on a hook. This was it, this was my destiny. How I was suppose to die since the day I was conceived. Who would of thought it would have been at 14, while skiing for that matter? Out of all possible causes... what a shame.

A millisecond before hitting the ground I flexed every muscle in my body, closed my eyes as tight as possible, and expected the worse.

BAMB! I made contact.

After I hit the snow my first thought was,"okay CHECK, not dead." Right when I thought I was safe and sound I realized I was tumbling and flopping down the mountain like there was no tomorrow. Second thought was, "okay, still might die." I could hear the on lookers from the ski lift and slope make there "Oo's Aw's and Ouches" with every painful thud my rubbery body made.

With every hit I took I tried with all my might to cling onto something; anything that would slow me down. As my stomach hit, face first, I dug my finger tips deep down into the snow and came to a complete stop. This left me dangling on the mountain side. With the slightest move I felt like I would most likely start tumbling downward again so I decided to stay completely still.

"Ouch." I said to myself. My whole body was aching. Before I could recap exactly what just happened I heard a loud laughing from up above. I looked up and whatta ya know, It was Chelsea! She had maybe moved two feet from where she had started and was on her butt rolling around, jolly with laughter.

"I'm gunna pee my pants, I'm gunna pee my pants, I'm gunna pee my pants!" This seemed to be all that she could get out of her loud large giggling mouth at the time. I had no patients for this. I looked up around me and saw that everything I once had on was now off and sporadically spread through out the slope. My skis, broken. My goggles, ripped off. My hat, burried somewhere. The plastic pieces to hold my skis together, who knew. My ski poles, sticking up outta the snow 20 feet away from one another. Lovely, I thought to myself. Now what? How was I going to get back? My skii's were completely broken, it was getting dark, and here I was in the middle of no where with my 14 year old friend that pees her pants. Beautiful!

Someone must have called back to he main office because with in no time these teenagers, not much older then me at the time, came soaring down on there "Save the dumb asses mobile" and asked me kindly if I was alright. "Do I look alright!?!? Clinging on to the side of the mountain for dear life! Does that look alright to you?!?!" This is what I so badly wanted to say. But they were older bigger and stronger and all they were really trying to do was help. So I politely responded with,"Yes I'm fine. A little cold but fine." They gathered my stuff and loaded it, along with me, onto their nifty little snow mobiles. They then hurried me away back to the lodges and there I sat for the rest of the day, humiliated and vowing never to ski again.

I skied a a couple more times a few years later and had a much better experience. But moral of story, Take it easy your first ski trip. PLEASE don't over do it, or you'll end up like me.