I've been a skier for most of my life but recently I've heard alarming news that I won't be young forever and there are some life experiences you just need to tackle when you can. I chose Freeride Ski Competition. Why that? Well skiing is fun for many people as recreation but to truly excel I have to find a skier better than me and then dog them mercilessly. It's not stalking if you stop where the snow ends. With the Freeride World Qualifiers I'll have a captive quarry to learn all there tricks. If only it were so easy. Well some things are better learned the hard way.
I get all the gear I need in addition to what I typically consider necessary for skiing. Back protector, avalanche beacon, probe, shovel, something to hold all this stuff. Then a fancy helmet so the concussions are more memorable. Oh sweet mercy the gear is expensive. But then I remembered that I was trying to live so I decided it was worth it. The cadillac of freeride gear is a backpack that has a a ripcord that inflates a raft so the avalanche basically becomes a whitewater rapid. How cool! Shame Santa never shops at REI. I guess I'll just have to go with the not triggering an avalanche plan.
Now you truck all the gear and your eager self to the venue. If you are a skier like me this venue will be on the challenging side of runs you consider to be fun. Ok, skiing is fun right? Wrong. You wait there to drop in. Anxiety builds, then this happens.
Yes that woman is calling a ninja to rescue a skier that willing hurled himself off of the equivalent of the 5th floor rooftop parking area at Ramada Inn in Whitehall. Except there are no ambulances on the mountain. You get a ninja! As cool as that sounds I was due to drop in right after that guy and watching his pile of expensive gear just explode into a bombhole he made in the snowpack did not put me at ease. Wait, what the fuck am I doing this for?
The next 5 minutes may have been the longest I ever had since being forced to sit in "time out" in first grade. I had a good idea of what I was going to try to do but without any real idea of what was on the other side of the cliff face I probably should have just wished for angel wings. Here goes nothing.
Dropping! How apt! I think the results speak for themselves. That was so much fun I just might have another.
It's not easy to convince my lizard brain that after 30+ years of sensible rules about things we do near cliffs that now we are going to try and reverse all that. But I am a crazy human ape creature and I can and will tell gravity to fuck the hell right off! Hope I don't die. Thanks for reading!