Creative Writing Story - Skiing

So here it is.. Just finished this for english class and felt like posting it on here. I don't give a shit if you hate, its probably for the best. Get at it!

The night was bitterly cold. The small town of Jackson, was barely glowing through the fog and the blanketing snow. This was the sixth night in a row where the town had gotten over a foot of snow. It was early, October, and the ski lifts were still not open. To Nate, this was a problem. He hadn’t skied in over 5 months, due to his summer job working at a lumber mill outside of town. He had this week off from work, and started to get cabin fever. He needed the rush that only skiing gave him. He was nothing without it. So, he had a solution. He told several of his best friends, Matt, Jake, and John. These guys were from all different parts of the states. Matt was from California, Jake, from Utah, and John was from Colorado. They all loved to ski. They all arrived the next day at different times. Without truly knowing Nate’s proposition, they had a sit down talk that night beside the fire.
The fire provided the only warmth in the small cabin, and the only noise as well. Nate cleared his throat and informed his friends about the snow at the summit. This came as a surprise to the guys, because the area surrounding Nate’s place had 15 inches at max. He then went on to explain that he wanted to hike to the peak and set up a camp for the rest of the week. This took hours of convincing for Nate to do, but he finally got his friends to give in. They wanted no wasted time. From the moment they agreed to it until four in the morning, they were packing, and bundling up. The thermometer read zero for the whole night, and this was going to be a rising threat. The higher they would get the colder it would get. Nate, John, Jake, and Matt left the cabin thirty minutes later. The ascent was a go.
The once glowing town of Jackson was now nearly pitch black. The moonlight provided the groups only sense of direction. Nate was the group leader. He knew the best way to get to the base of the mountain, in the least amount of time. The group followed the winding highway for less than a mile, and then disappeared into a vast amount of trees.
The sunlight from the east illuminated the mountainous scene. Leaving early was a great idea for the group, because now in this forest, the snow was waist high, and their heavy packs were weighing them down immensely. The ski lodge was now on the horizon, and they were on track to arrive there in the next five minutes.
They made it to the lodge, and the sun still hadn’t made it all the way over the towering peak. The group members had a plan to trek half way up the mountain, and then rest for the night. Things were about to get complicated for them. They began the long trek using a setback technique, walking diagonally up the steeper parts of the hill. This came to be very effective for the first two hours. Then they hit a bowl. Surrounding them was a wide open powder bowl that was too step to use setbacks on.
After a few minutes of discussing, the group brought out the tope and ice picks. They tied themselves together, and began a steep ascent up an icy rock wall. Halfway up this vertical wall, and all that was heard was the rapid cracking of ice, spreading rapidly. The ice was not climbable. However the group thought nothing of the noise, and continued on. John’s pick slipped out of the ice and it shot hundreds of feet down to a powdery poof that it made when it hit the ground.
John was now hanging by the rope that defined his life, and his three best friends supporting it. It didn’t take long for the thin rope to begin to fray. Jake was the second to last person in their climbing order. He reached down for John to grab a hold of his arm, but the sudden movement forced John’s knot to break loose, plummeting him to a fast death, missing all rocks and ice on the way down.
The group watched as John lay motionless and silent. As another group decision, they decided that the best thing would be to move on and accept John’s death. The sun had now reached the horizon, and the group was exhausted. As they reached the top of the ice wall, they decided to call it a day, as the sun had now fully set. Nate was the first to wake up in the morning, and it was way too late for them. The sun was already up, and they knew that this was going to be trouble. They frantically packed up within ten minutes and began the hike. The next battle they faced was a mountain ridge, with a width of a foot and sharp jutting rocks, two hundred feet down on either side. They decided not to tope up for this task, viewing it as a disadvantage to the safety of the whole group. It wasn’t long before the spiny ridge covered in snow had turned to loose gravel, and then to ice. But this didn’t stop the group. They had been walking along the ridge for a total of three hours and their goal lay only two hours ahead.
Jake remained at the back of the line, but not for long. He took a bad step, and immediately slipped off the slick slope. Only two men remained now. Both of them now in tears, but determined to do what they love most in the world, and that was to ski untouched powder. They reached the peak of the mountain about thirty minutes after Jake fell to his death.
They set up camp, and fell asleep before the sun had a chance to set. Nate woke up in his own tent, being that they could sleep two per tent, now only having two people and two tents. He starting cooking what was left of his powdered egg yolk rations. He even made some for Matt to surprise him. When he walked in, Matt appeared to still be in a deep sleep. Nate shook his arm several times, but nothing. He finally screamed his name and rolled him over, only to find out that hypothermia had taken over what was left of Nate’s best friends. Nate was mortified, finding his last friend dead in his own hands. It was his entire fault. He was the groups driving motivation to keep going after John died. He didn’t care. He took little to no time to think the situation over, but then came to realize that he needed to finish what he came here for. To ski the deepest line ever imagined. Nate packed a small backpack of food, enough to get him back to his house. He clicked in to his skis, and took off, leaving everything else behind. He began his run taking an abundance of turns down the south face of the peak, but then traversed over to the north.
He dropped off a cliff into a chute, but something wasn’t right. The ground was shaking; dust and snow were flying everywhere surrounding Nate. He had sparked an avalanche. Thoughts raging, he pictured himself as Indiana Jones being run down by the boulder. He took a sharp right turn out of the couloir, but that wasn’t enough. He was engulfed by a tsunami of snow. He was buried at least ten feet under white, enough to kill him in seconds. And that was the end of the entire group, wanting a ski trip of a lifetime.