Wrong Turn by Genevieve

Wrong Turn

By: Genevieve

October 10,2017

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! I quickly sat up in bed and turned off my alarm clock. For a minute I wondered where I was. Why were there two beds in this room? I don’t have a TV in my room! I don’t have a view of a skiing mountain outside of - oh, right. I was at Steamboat ski resort. Ugh, I like Sunlight way better than this. Why did we have to go here instead of our usual ski resort? Bam! I fell back onto the bed. I didn’t feel like getting up anymore. My dad came and stood over me. He was already dressed in his bright red ski jacket with his neon orange backpack to hold snacks and extra jackets. “Hup hup! Let’s get going! We have to be the first people on the mountain!” he said, hovering over me.

I reluctantly rolled out of my bed. As I put my long underwear on I looked at the mountain. It was so intimidating! My dad had told us we would like it better, it had harder runs. We had only gone on like 3 blacks so far! We didn’t need harder runs! I just wanted to get these three days over with.

We went down to ski valet as soon as I was dressed. We had a very small not-real breakfast so that we would be able to get on the mountain before everyone else. My dad helped me put my skis on, and helped my brother Connor put on his snowboard. He was the only person in my family that snowboarded, and quite frankly, he spent more time sliding down the mountain than actually snowboarding, that’s why he was so much faster than us. He was just sliding down like he was a penguin. We got in line for the chairlift and slowly started rolling upwards.

We quickly got up to the top, and when I got outside inch-high goosebumps rose on my arms. “Brrrrrr” I said shivering.

I squinted. “Why did Dad take us all here?” I wondered, “I can barely see 20 feet in front of me!” I was just able to find my family in the fog.

I heard my brother mumble through his balaclava that he wanted to just stay in the hotel.

“Okay,” my dad said, “Connor, buckle into your board while I help Gigi put on another layer.” My dad came over to me and helped me put on a new jacket. He then told us, “We’ll start off on an easy blue called Sundown.” We all reluctantly followed him, even my mom seemed a bit uneasy about this fog. We finally got to a cross in the ski trails as we slowly skied towards the run. My dad seemed to study the crossways a while. There were signs, one was to a run called Rainbow and the other to Sundown. We couldn’t see well through the fog though, so we couldn’t tell which way the signs pointed.

My dad hesitantly pointed to the left, where he thought sundown was. We didn’t know what would become of our family next.

We started to ski down the mountain. We were a little rusty because we hadn’t skied all summer. “I’m scared,” I thought to myself, “really scared. Does dad even know what he is doing?” I continued to race down the hill. Turning slowly and carefully down.

“Do you think he actually knew which way to go?” my mom asked me, coming up beside me.

“IDK. Maybe,” I replied, “but sometimes he thinks he knows more than he does.”  I looked around. I thought that the trail would be wider, or maybe I just couldn’t see because of the fog.

I was glad I didn’t have poles yet, because then while I ski, I can hug myself to keep warm. It was really cold. I bet I would’ve lost my dad if it weren’t for his neon orange and red attire that day.

I tried to forget the cold, it worked for a while and I just enjoyed skiing, well, for about 30 seconds. Then my dad said, “Ummmm,” long pause, “is this really a blue?” He had stopped at a fire road, staring at what was beneath us. We all caught up to him and stopped at the fire road. I felt my goosebumps rise higher. If someone touched my skin it would have felt like a shag rug.

Beneath us was a half rocky and bumpy, half vertical and bushy path.

I bit my lip. “Okay we have two options,” my dad said, “we can try this out or take our skis off and walk the fire road.

I thought for a while, “well, I don’t want to be that person that chickens out. My brother would lord that over me forever. I know no one else will chicken because they don’t want to be the chicken.” I was still unsure though. There were sharp rocks all over the place. I didn’t feel like getting impaled today. On the other hand though, my brother would tell everyone, and I don’t want my reputation ruined. Hmm.

“I’ll try it,” I said bravely, trying to keep my voice from breaking. I didn’t really know what was coming out of my mouth, but no turning back now. My reputation was at stake!

“Same,” said my brother and my dad. They both sounded pretty confident that they’d make it through easy, but I guess their thought process could be the same as mine.

“Okay,” my mom said uneasily. Then, we were off. I went on the bumpier, rockier side. I thought that it would be easier if it was less steep and the rocks wouldn’t be a problem unless I fell, right? Well, easier said than done. It didn’t look that steep, but it was steep, very steep. I started to get a groove going after a while, and I thought that it wasn’t so bad after all, but it was, it really was.

I was going faster and faster, I started to lose control. In an effort to get myself back in control I tried to turn, but the centrifugal force wouldn’t let me. I hit a rock. Everything was a blur.  I hit my face on the ground. My head touched my skis and I rolled over. I hit another rock. OWWWW! It scratched my side. I could feel blood pouring out of it. I didn’t know whether to cry in terror or scream in pain. My heart was a jackhammer in my chest. BAM! BAM! BAM! It pounded and made my body shake. I rolled over another rock and hit hard on the ground. The pain was crippling. Not just on my body, but on my spirit. I tried to stick my hand out to stop myself, but I was petrified in terror and pain. All that could go through my head was, “I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die.” I saw a tree ahead of me, I had no control over myself. I was scared, more scared than ever. I tried to scream for help, but all that happened was a mouthful of snow. It was so cold in my mouth that it burned. I started to cry. Not just cry, loudly sob uncontrollably. I thought that I would never stop crying. All the moisture in my body was being pushed out by my tears. I couldn’t even catch my breath I was crying so hard.  

I finally stopped tumbling and sat upright. I looked to my left and I was face to face with a large pine needle sticking out of a tree. One of my skis had fallen off and was halfway up the mountain. I was pure white with glimmering snow. My ski that was still attached was all scratched up. I layed in the snow for a while until I saw my dad looming over me. I sucked in all of my tears. My dad was carrying my other ski. I tried to stay calm and pretend that my heart wasn’t about to leap out of my chest but I burst into tears.

I hugged him for a long time. “What happened? Are you okay? What hurts?” My dad asked frantically. There was fear in his eyes. My heart pounded. I could barely see. It could just be the fog though. I sat for a long time.

“I hit a rock,” I started, “I think I’m fine, though my heart is pounding. Nothing hurts, it was just scary.” I answered, trying to look like the side of my body wasn’t squirting out bright red liquid. “Where are we?” was my final question. He looked at me for a long time. Looking like he was about to say something, but didn’t. He probably didn’t want to admit we were basically lost. I hugged him for a long time. My tears very slowly dried.

“I honestly,” long pause, “uh, um, don’t know.” my dad admitted. My mom joined us while my brother was waiting impatiently at the bottom, telling us to hurry up. He was on a snowboard, so it was easier for him.

“We can see the map when we get to the lift to see where we are. I guess we went on the wrong run,” my mom told us. They helped me up and I slowly got going again. I was more careful this time. I didn’t get going really fast but I got going enough to have fun again. I stopped shaking and my heart slowed down again. The fog still wasn’t clearing up. I hoped that it would have by now. Sunlight was fun, but this was a much more memorable trip. I actually (besides the falling down part) enjoyed this run and thought it was sort of awesome that I went on this super hard run. I can’t wait to tell all my friends about the hard run that I went on! I also have a cut to prove it! I was still bleeding in that spot, but my dad had an emergency first aid kit and he fixed me up. I can’t really explain why that became my favorite run of all time, maybe because it gave me a sense of accomplishment. I don’t know. All I know is that I want to go on it again! So I can tell everyone I didn’t fall on it. I think that run may look even more ominous now that blood has stained the snow! That could not have been a blue run, it just couldn’t have! We got to the bottom of the run and started towards a lodge. We looked at a map.

“Ohhhhh,” said my dad, “Rainbow is a blue run, that’s what we went on, but rainbow leads to a black called lights out. We were supposed to gather speed to take the fire road that would lead us onto another blue that got us to the same place!” We all laughed about it.

“That was much more fun anyways though,” I said.

“What about your fall?” my dad asked, seeming confused, “You were pretty scared, weren’t you?”

“All the better story to tell,” I replied, and we all laughed about it They all knew that I loved a good story. Though I made it through and got to the end, I still think I should have chickened. After all, it is better to be the “chicken then to hurt yourself trying to not be the “chicken”. We got some lunch and then continued on to go to the rest of the mountain. I’m pretty sure steamboat is our new place to ski. Sunlight would be way too easy after that! It’s kind of funny how the scariest experiences lead to a new discovery about yourself, even more than happy experiences!