On Friday, I had a opportunity to go to Massanuttan with the youth group to go tubing. Though it had been 60 degrees earlier in the day, the machines there had produced a good enough snow pack to have fun on. It was our families first time there, and before we began, I told myself I was too chicken to go down it. I was afraid of getting hurt.
It's hard to believe that I am scared of heights, and Massanuttan is nothing compared to Park City, Utah or Eaglecrest, in Alaska. Everyone knows by now that I learned to ski when I was in eighth grade through our school in Juneau. It was part of our gym class. First I learned how to cross country ski, which was terrifying because the ski's are longer and thinner. If I ever tried to turn, I would just fall over. It was also quite a work out. Our school even took us out into the wilderness to go on these cross country trails. It was so much fun. After this, we leaned about downhill skiing. Which was a tad bit harder.
I can't remember all that had happened to me, but if you ever saw Goofy in a Disney cartoon about skiing, that was me! I got the complete outfit, and I tried really hard to never fall down. (It seems, if you fall down once, it happens over and over) I remember I was one out of a few teens that had to get the beginning lesson and I thought the bunny hill was frightening. I couldn't stay on the pole that took me to the top, and I would snowplow all the way to the bottom and past that. I had some friends who wanted me to go up with them, (to the tamest hill they said) on the second day of lessons. So I did. I can not count how many times, I had a accident.
The chair lift was scary, no seat belts! I learned to hang on to my poles, or else they fell down below. I learned not to click my ski's together, or else they would fall too. I learned not to ride the lift if it was blowing snow, because it would shake so badly, and I thought I was going to die.
I also learned the hard way, to be ready to get off the chair, because it was not going to stop! I learned through trial and error, it's amazing I did not get killed. That first trip, my friends rode right off the chair and left me. Though the run was wide, I still managed to find trees. I tried to do a zig zag down, and at some point, I ended up bombing it, and so I did what I saw over people do and held my knees together. I lived. I lived even though the time I slid down the hill with one ski on my back. I tried and tried and I got better. But then, I got cocky. And that was a mistake!
Don't we all do that in real life? We go to face a obstacle, it's hard at first, and then we end up able to manage it but if we sit there, and say, it's not so bad, it bites us in the butt? Well I did that. After a few times on the highest lift, a few years later, I let a boy talk me into going on this expert hill, that had mobiles and because he had been ex-ski patrol, I wanted to show off my skiing abilty too. It was a quiet afternoon, no one on the hill, and I when we got off, we had a corner we had to go around, he took off like a light! I wanted to catch up, and I tried, but before I knew it, I hit those little bumps in the run, and I did a flip! I remember sitting up and my legs were criss-crossed, my poles were lost, and someone came down to help me. To make a long story short, it was embarrassing, my gym teacher's dad was the ski patrol leader and he took me down in a sled to the medics office. I dislocated my knee again, and had to wear a neck brace for a few weeks. It's another lesson I learned the hard way, and since then I had only skied once, a year later. I was really careful, and I did not fall on the hill but I did, in the parking lot. The other night, before it was time to go, I faced my fear and went down on a tube. It was not bad, in fact it was awesome!
