Skiing, part one.

'It smells like Jesus.'

-Alex

I'm a little apprehensive about telling this story, because it seems to me like a good one. It lives in my head, but maybe that's because I lived it.

It happened yesterday.

'So, Mom.' I asked. 'Did you realize that we were forty-five minutes late coming home from skiing?'

'Why were you forty-five minutes late?'

'Three idiots got lost on the mountain.'

'Oh, be fair. You don't know they're idiots.'

'Well, one of them is certainly a pretty big idiot. And I don't care if you rented movies or not, because I've had enough action for one day already.'

Last year, I spent most of my saturdays skiing with two other girls. One currently lives in Germany, and one, named Amanda, currently lives in Montreal. She doesn't live anywhere near me, so I was very pleasantly surprised to find that she is on the same skiing bus as me, as well as in the same class (with the same teacher as last year). She had enlisted about six other people to join skiing with her, notably her best friend Alex, a beginner-intermediate snowboarder (better than I am, not as good as Kelsey). Naturally, these two are fantastic individuals -- intelligent, multi-lingual, friendly, the whole bit -- to the point where I am quickly able to overcome my shy nature and enjoy the day I spent with them.

And it was a beautiful day. The snow wasn't great, but the slopes were relatively ice-free, and everyone seemed to be in a good mood. At one point, we ran into Tim, my instructor from two years ago, who cheerfully confided to his class that I had always been a known troublemaker. Tim was the sort of guy who wore a bandanna beneath his helmet, brought his girlfriend to some of our lessons, and once told us that he had always tried for a 69 average in school. Hey, he makes as good a prophet as I can imagine.

Amanda and Alex an into a couple of girls they knew from school in the afternoon, and we spent some time with them as well. It was close to the end of the time we had there that Amanda decided to trade her skis for the snowboard one of the girls was riding, to try the sport for the first time. I won't lie; I was excited at the prospect of it, and though a little nervous about her desire to take the chair lift, I knew there were plenty of easy trails off the halfway lift.

Of course, after consuming impressive quantities of caffeine and sugar, helping Amanda with her boots, and hiking up from the ski racks, we discovered that we had missed the closing of the halfway lift by five minutes. I shook my head.

'We can't take the lift that goes to the top,' I said. 'The top of the north side is almost entirely black.'

'No, there's one easy one,' Amanda reminded me. 'We took it this morning.'

She was itching to go, afflicted with the rare and potentially dangerous combination of daring and lack of information. We didn't have the heart to say no; what of being perhaps five minutes late? The easy trail wouldn't be too difficult if we helped her down it gradually and patiently

I have nothing but good memories of the optimistic journey up, of advice shouted her way and a pleasant discussion on whether she would fall at the top of the lift. When we arrived, however, I cannot say I noticed whether she did; for there it was, a deep wound in whatever plans we had been foolish enough to make: a bright orange rope stretched across the beginner trail. Closed.

Part two will continue the story, so don't read it if it's not interesting so far -- you can probably extrapolate anyway.

Have you heard? -- the word is love!