Slip-Sliding Away

What happens when you start sliding down a steep hill? On your back? Yikes!

I rode the top half of one hill, the half that is less steep, and planned to follow a cutoff catwalk over to an adjacent trail that would lead me to a lift closer to the parking lot. (I was working my way back to the lodge.)

As I approached the cat, I could see that it was rather chopped up, much unlike the packed surfaces I had been riding on all day. So I (unwisely) came to a stop. That is, I stopped a few feet below the cat, and I was in no mood to climb uphill.

So, I thought, time to confront the steep final pitch of the hill. It’s not my favorite terrain: I can manage it fairly well, but only if I take turns so wide that I am nearly out of speed when I got to the bottom. Since the closest lift was closed that day, I would have to walk a while.

Oh well. I had to do what I had to do. So time to head downhill. But I was at the edge of the trail. I set off, but things did not go so well. Instead of starting a traverse to set up my first turn, I started going straight downhill–oops! not what I wanted! — and fell down.

Next thing you know, I’m sliding down a steep pitch (or what passes for one around here, anyway) on my back. Usually I don’t fight slides. I picked that habit up while skiing, where you can seriously torque one knee if the ski attached to that leg “takes” and the other one does not.

But I wished that I could think of something else to do. I was sliding. And sliding again. And then some more. Worse, I was slowly rotating clockwise; I could feel the tip of the board wanting to slide uphill. If that trend continued, I would soon be sliding down the run, head-first.

Yikes!

I’m not sure what I did, other than not over-react. I still listed a bit, but I did come to a stop, about 50 feet from the bottom of the run.

Ah well, at least it was a low-census day at the ski area, and seldom did anyone go on that run, so getting in someone’s way was not a problem.