The Run

The gondola doors opened and it was time to shred again. It was a really busy day so me and my friends were riding the singles line. I let the man and his son go out first, then I grabbed my skies and waited for the rest of my friends to get off their gondolas.

“Where are we going, the front or back?” I said

“I don’t care, one of my friends shouted” it was really windy and cold at the top.

“Front”

someone yelled, I walked up the little hill and clipped into my skies. As I’m waiting for my friends to put there snowboards on I admired the view. You can see mountains as far as you look with frosty white tips, mountains behind mountains with the sky scattered with nimbus clouds and the sun beating on the snow.

Now my friends are all strapped up and it’s time to ride, were like a pack of wolves running through the woods. I’m in the back, still putting my hands through the loops on my poles just to make sure they don’t fall off. At the first intersection we go right as usual this is where I pull ahead, we fly down weaving in and out of people. This trail is a straight away till the end, I turn back and forth staying on my edges do I don’t looses and speed. There are a few knolls on the trail I get some air off of because I’m flying, there’s no radar gun but it feels like I at least hit 45 or 50. I get toward the bottom and zoom around a right hand turn, feeling like Boddy Miller in the Olympic medal round. There’s a real steep right turn going down toward the first park, I put on my breaks and slide to a stop spraying snow so high I can’t see in front of me. I look back to wait for my friends to catch up. I see two of them fly around the turn, make my way down the steep right and wait at the top of the first mini park. My friends come down one by one, we wait for a few riders to go then one by one drop down I go second.

The first jump is a little one, about a 10 footer, I throw a mute grab and land it smooth. The second jump is almost identical except for the fact you need a little more speed, I come into the second jump and do a blunt, which is where you cross your skies and grab the tail of you ski with the opposite hand. BOOM, I land a little too far down the landing, I can feel the pressure on my knees but I still land it alright. I stop to wait for the rest of my friends, just to make sure were all together and no one fell. I can see the park from here, I start down a small hill to flat and skate to get more speed. I jump off the lip of the hip and tweak a mute grab. I come down and land on the side of the hip perfectly, now I can see the park its right across the trail in front of me. I ride through to the entrance with my friends trailing, we stop at the top just to eye out what we want to do. My friend bob had been talking shit all day telling me how he’s better, even though I ski and he snowboards my competitive nature kicks in.

“let’s have a contest and settle this once and for all  bob” I say

“bring it on Gookin” he replied.

One of my friends Trent was riding with us.,

“Trent you judge who does better” it was on now I had to beat bob.

 I drop into the park, the first feature is a flat rail, I jump up and land perfectly then come out and land it switch. I’m in the zone and I was ahead of bob so I didn’t know how he was doing behind me. The next feature was a down rail, I carve over to the right and hop on, my skies slide in front of me and I slide off early landing switch again. I ski down to this perfect jump, I had been nailing 3’s on it all day, this is where I was going to beat bob. Bob cant 3 this step down, it’s about a 20 foot gap and a straight shot from the top of the knoll were on is perfect speed to hit the jump. I’m up first, my plan is to throw a 360 and tweak it out with a huge mute grab, didn’t happen that way.

I skate off and go into a tuck to get as much speed as possible, my head lifts and I can start to go up the jump, my body twists right and I throw my right shoulder around and the tail of my ski hits the lip of the jump. Now I am in the air, helpless, falling backwards and looking up at the sky.

 “Please don’t land on my head, please don’t get hurt”

 all of the thoughts are racing through my mind then boom I hit. Everything turns North Carolina blue but it’s a shiny shade. I’m sliding down the landing and open my eyes, I can’t see anything but blue, close them again and the same thing happens. After about 8 seconds the picture of the landing and the box to the right slowly fade the blue out. I lay there for a few seconds to take in what just happened then muster up the strength to climb up the landing and get my ski. The rest of the day is tough to remember as I go into the lodge I say

“Trent, I know this is going to sound stupid but what day is it”

“Gookin, its Wednesday this is the third time you have asked me that.”

                The rest of the day was tough to remember. I have that feeling of waking up from a dream, I get the main point, but I only remember certain random details that don’t seem to matter. Once I chilled out for a little bit and could remember what day it was I asked my friends

“Where is Chris?”

“Chris didn’t come to the mountain with us today”

They kept convincing me he was never with us, now I was really worried. I could have sworn we were riding with him all morning, but I believed them. After all I couldn’t even remember what day it was, the next morning Trent said.

“You know we were just kidding, Chris was with us yesterday.”