Man versus Mountain

This winter has been one of the harshest winters in the last 3-4 years and this weekend I will undertake a journey to the cold mountains of the North to renew my old battle with the elements of a frigid winter. The last time I was there 3 winters ago, was the first time I had faced these white slopes of terror armed with nothing but a pair of skis. I was accompanied on that mission by Dee, a hardened veteran of these slopes; Miss LJ, a terrified neophyte; Mister AK, an overconfident garrulous not-so-experienced dude & the invincible AJo, a fellow novice willing to take on the toughest of challenges.

I could feel a chill up my spine as we approached the mountain of doom and my knees started knocking against each other. I realized later that the shivering was caused by Mister AK turning off the heater by mistake. Dee led us to a sled where we were given the equipment we would need to take on this enormous challenge. As we dragged ourselves out to the slopes wearing unwalkable boots and carrying heavy skis, I realized that the slopes were filled with people of all ages, even waist high kids who zoomed by me as if they were born with skis on their feet.

Humbled, I put on my skis and pushed myself across the snow hoping that people would not notice that I was a beginner. Maybe I could be one of those wonder stories, of people who were natural at skiing the first time they tried. So far so good. Horizontal skiing seemed easy enough to learn. Dee kind of assumed that I had done this before and beckoned me to follow him up the slope. All you had to do was to hold on to your rope and get dragged up the slope. Seemed easy enough. As I held the rope, my skis somehow managed to get entangled in each other and before I knew it, I was flat on my back with my feet pointing up to the sky. I fell right beside the rope, so there was a huge line of people waiting for me to get out of the way. It was then that I realized its not so easy getting back on your feet when you have skis on. I felt like an over-turned turtle trying to turn over on a slippery block of melting ice. I also realized that on a relatively warm day, the snow is not really as soft as you think it is and hence the landing not so much fun.

It was finally when I got up and moved elsewhere that I noticed what my friends were up to. AJo the invincible was sitting alone at the extreme right of the slope beside a line of trees and a ditch trying to drag himself inch by inch to the bottom, took him close to an hour. It is a mystery to me how he got there in the first place. Miss LJ kept falling down in spite of not even trying to move. She must have fallen down at least 15 times while covering a total distance of 10 feet the entire duration that we were at the resort. Half the fun was watching her predict that she would fall and then topple over with progressively increasing levels of hilarity. Although I don't believe she found it as funny as we did. Mister AK in turn had the unique ability to fall down at the exact same spot at the top of the slope every time that he went up there. It seemed to us like he had met his Snowloo(read Waterloo).

Dee finally managed to teach me how to ski and took me to the top of the slope. The moment I pushed off from the top, I remembered that he had not taught me how to brake at the end of the slope. Ahh. If I had more friends like him, I wouldn't need any enemies. I went crashing into the net below, designed solely for crazy untrained beginners like me who did not know how to stop. Took me a couple of increasingly decelerated crashes into the net before I finally managed to brake to a halt successfully.

I should have known not to take training from a dude like Dee who had decided to tackle a Diamond slope the first day that he learned skiing. All he managed to do on that slope was to crash into a snow bump and get tonked on his head with his own ski. I wish someone had captured this you-tube moment.

That brought to an end my first skiing experience on the slopes of New England. The mountains had bellowed and shook but although bruised and rattled, we had survived the test. This time around 3 out of 5 will not be around, but the great AK is still there and I hope he entertains us with his unique falling skills yet again. Dee is far away in a land more famous for its shape shifting sand than snow. However his sister might be around and I will make sure that I don't ask her for any skiing tips whatsoever. Miss LJ suffered such terrible emotional trauma from her last skiing experience that there is nothing in this world that could get her near a snow mountain, not even the threat of Dee singing "Kuch toh Log Kahenge" non stop for 3 days into her ears. This time around the mountains shall tremble with the sheer speed and force of our ski blades.

Jai Ho.