“I now realize that the small hills you see on ski slopes are formed around the bodies of forty-seven-year-olds who tried to learn snowboarding.”
-Dave Barry
Again, he goes. Up the ski lift: to the top of the mountain. Shivering, he pulls on his facemask to protect his newly chapped skin from the bitter wind that can often be found up in the peaks of the Appalachians. It was winter, and a cold night at that. No bit of protection from the unforgiving temperature will go unused on this ski trip; he doesn’t want to get frostbitten after all. The low temperature warnings that are periodically announced over the loudspeaker don’t seem to faze him.
Example warning:
“Please be advised: the current temperature is negative 15 degrees. A frostbite warning has been issued. Please be careful. Thank you.”
Or perhaps, he was too enchanted by the stars to be fazed. They twinkle: both hypnotically and sporadically, or maybe so sporadically that it’s hypnotic… Or so hypnotic that it seems sporadic? Irrelevance. He reaches the end of the ski lift and gracefully slides down the off ramp. Bracing himself, he looks back up at the dancing night sky.
“When it is darkest, men see the stars.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
The comfort is short lived, however. The evil black of the double-diamonds shocked him back to the brink of nervousness. And nervousness brings injury. He fills his lungs with the frigid air, in preparation for the two-hour-long-ten-minute-trip down the mountain.
“Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.”
-Somers Roche
After what seemed like both five seconds and several eternities, he reached the bottom of the slope – unscathed. He looks up towards the sky, once more. This time, however, not at the stars but instead up at the once-impossible slope. This time, not in fear but instead with a sense of accomplishment.
And that’s when I conquered the mountain.
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