The struggle to survive
Monday, February 16, 2009
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It was a typical Sunday at the slopes. The sun was out, and the weekend crowd was in full force. Conditions were prime for what was my first time snowboarding; everything I did resulted in a fall, and luckily the mountain-goers were cognizant enough to give me a wide path. But I’d get up and keep going, as any willing person would do, and got the hang of stopping without catching the edge and going face first onto the crust of the hardpan.
But at least on packed snow you’re able to pick yourself up.
My brother and I headed out on the top of ridge run. Shaky, I glided as long as I could before the board vibrated like an old car, when I would force myself to skid to a slower speed and avoid a more painful dismount.
Glide… and skid. Glide… and skid.
Keeping focused on not smashing my face on the ice, one would think I’d be glad to land in a pile of soft, fresh power near the edge of the trail. I laughed. I dabbled in it for a moment, then I put my hands down to push myself up. They went straight through the snow, which offered as little resistance as water. I tried to roll on to my back, but my entire body sunk about a foot into the snow.
Hm. ‘This is odd,’ I thought.
Coiling my back, I prepared to flip my weight onto the board and glide out. But the board just sunk further into the powder. Irritated, I looked at a nearby tree, whose branches came right down to the snow, and thought to pull myself up like a ladder. I got a few branches up, but when I really starting pulling, the branches snapped like firewood. With my board closer to the tree than my body, I forced myself to shimmy my way close enough to actually grab the trunk, but I quickly realized it was too big and my gloves were not grippy enough to get any leverage. Unfortunately, the board was now caught in the lower branches at an odd angle.
I jerked. I twisted. I was whipping like a snake, but it did nothing to loosen me. I was still close to the trail, but it was dusk, and it wasn’t lit. I was seeing less and less people skate by. ‘Well,’ thought I, ‘maybe to release the bindings would have been a smart move.’ But at this point, I was so far sunk in the snow and my board caught at such an odd pitch that I couldn’t reach them.
I was trapped.
Should I panic? I thought of how it would look to yell for help, and from someone to find me caught in a tree, three feet into a powder drift. I thought about how embarrassing it would be to explain.
Then I thought about freezing to death out of pride.
Realizing I could free my board if I dropped my body lower, I intentionally went further down, yanked the board free, and was able to push off and up from the trunk and roll myself back to near-surface level. I was out of breath, partly from the effort and partly from fear. And I was cold; through all the wriggling, the seals between my skin and the elements had come loose, and I had ice in my helmet and a good pants full of snow. But I was able to release my bindings, and I jerked my feet out.
*tink
I had forgotten to unclip the emergency leash holding my boot to the board, and it snapped. But I didn’t care. Plunging three feet with every step, I made my way downhill a ways after attempting to crawl back up to the trail. I hiked for a few minutes. Each step took all of my energy. Lifting my foot high enough to clear the powder, my other foot sunk a few more inches in, forcing me to step even higher. I felt like the worlds least-efficient human being, as every meter felt like I had traveled a mile.
But finally I saw tracks, and I collapsed on the ground which held firmer than the fluff, but still had more give than the trail I had started on. That means not as many people had been riding it. Not thinking about anything but getting the fuck out of there, I strapped in and made off, my legs severely weakened by the struggle to survive the quick-snow. I floated down a hundred or so feet to another tree line, following the tracks, and I saw the edge of a hill and two red flags. “Caution” they read with all the passion of a shirt label. I figured it was to direct you around one of those above-ground streams that you can skate around if you’re careful, so I tentatively skidded up.
* * * * *
What met me was a cliff. A sheer cliff, 80 or 90 feet nearly straight down.
‘Oh, HELL no!’ I shouted, and backed away as if sickened. I sat down again and undid the right foot, and tried to go the other direction. But more powder! I hadn’t noticed it while on the board, but it was another foot and a half of pure power. I tried to use the board as a wedge against the ground, but I didn’t get it in at a steep enough angle, and the flat side slipped a few feet toward the cliff.
“NO!” I looked over my shoulder and saw that, if I were to fall, I would die. Maybe, if I were still strapped in, I would have a prayer in skirting the face and sliding down the edge. But with one foot out, I would stupidly fall to my death. I could see the headlines: “Idiot man-child perishes after snowboarding off cliff – Only had one foot strapped to his board.”
I saw a small stump that looked to have rotten and tugged it. It seemed solid. I pulled and put down my right foot and lifted the board with the left, setting it at more than a 90-degree angle. I pushed, and I went up. The stump held. I did it again, and began crawling my way back up, foot by foot, until I was back to where the few tracks had led me.
I was soaked in snow and sweat. My legs felt as though they had been hit repeatedly with a hammer, shocked with a car battery, and then crushed by a bus. I flopped over and reached to release my binding, my stomach muscles so weak that I was shaking.
Carrying the board, I began to walk back the other way, noticing that the ridge I had faced seemed to flatten out a few hundred feet the other way. Every step was agony. I stopped every other stride to catch my breath before noticing the tracks of some other poor soul who had obviously done the same thing I had but days earlier, the tracks little more than shallow divots on the surface. But beneath the new powder, they were firmer and easier to walk on, and I made my way up until I saw a trail.
The sun had set; the lights from the other runs shone brightly. The trail looked beautiful, like a desert’s glass of water, and I let myself fall to the snow. I strapped in again. I stood up, but my knees didn’t hold and I fell over face-first. I pushed off and was able to teeter on the brink of balance, thinking it was going to happen again, before I gained my feet.
I was free. I could ride!
So I swiveled the board to face the trail and leaned. Nothing. I was on a bubble about 30 feet from where the trail began to descend, a wall on one side and another, smaller cliff on the other. I hopped once, and immediately fell down. I was too tired. Not wanting to undo the bindings yet again (I could barely reach them now anyway), I weighed my options. There was a slight opening down the shallow cliff that I could slide. It looked okay.
Just then, a man, woman and their two young children came from behind. Seeing me on the ground, the man offered a hand.
“You stuck?”
“Yeah,” I said, wanting to explain what I was doing but too tried to find anything to say beside, “this is my first time out.”
“Ah!” he said, his children smiling at the guy with the strands of hair coming from his snow-ridden helmet at all angles. “Well here, lemme give you a pull.”
I got up and he started forward, then reached his pole back for me to grab onto. I did, and I started going before I thought too much about the cliff on the other side, and, trying to stop, fell on my ass. Embarrassed, I quickly spied the opening that I had thought about sliding down, and in a moment was wriggling toward it.
“It’s cool,” I said. “I’ll just slide down.”
The older child, a boy of about 10, beamed and said, “I gotta see this!”
I positioned myself at the edge, looking at the wider, comforting trail below that pitched down at a same angle. But the cliff itself, while navigable, looked a lot steeper at its edge than it did from a few feet out. Despite that, my feet were over the side, dangling like undercooked pasta noodles.
There was no turning back.
Thinking back to my childhood, I began to slide on my rear, which would have been fine had I not forgotten about the board, whose edge caught a piece of the cliff and lifted me up, threatening to dump me face first 30 feet down the hill. In an instant, I used all my strength to throw my weight back, and I landed against the edge with a thud. Or was that my heart?
The little boy laughed, his parents looking on not without a hint of concern. I waved them off, and began cautiously making my way down little by little, testing to see how I could get the board to work with me instead of against me. I finally made it all the way down and landed in a goofy-footed stance, which I had yet to master. This trail was much wider, but there was yet another cliff about 20 feet out, which I was headed right toward. Throwing my hands up in defeat, I leaned back, landed in the snow and lay there, trying to breath while ignoring the creeping feeling that, if I stayed too long, I wouldn’t be able to pick myself back up.
* * * * *
I rolled – away from the cliff – to where I was facing down, and got to my knees. Looking at the snow, packed and so unlike what had gotten me into this mess in the first place, I smiled. Maybe there is something to be said for high-traffic areas after all. I got to my feet and started down, feeling the wind and trying to shake the snow from my gloves, but being mindful of my speed, not wanting to go too fast. I wondered if my brother was worrying where I was as the lights made twinkling shadows between the trees.
Glide… and skid. Glide… and skid.
Comment
I liked the Glide… and skid connection. Great article.
— Max · Feb 18, 11:19 AM · #
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