I wrote this shit and revised it once but I need to revise it more for my class. I can barely handle the english language as is so can anyone who has more writing experience point out my mistakes? I know its kinda fucked that I go ski park on a powder day but I needed 4 pages so park it is.
White; everything is white. The ground blanketed in untouched white snow beneath me
as I ride up chairlift five at Sundown Mountain in Dubuque, Iowa, looks like a piece of
paper, just waiting to be shredded. I look around. The evergreen trees surrounding the
narrow stretch of skiable terrain droop from the weight of the December snow tugging at
their branches. A mellow but brisk breeze slowly pushes my chair back and forth and
sends goosebumps down my spine. I see my own two eyes staring back at me in the
reflection of my goggles, and I look back at them. The chairlift moves slowly toward the
top of Andrews, bouncing rhythmically to my skis swinging back and forth beneath me.
The soft hum of the lifts engine nearly lulls me to sleep, but the end of the lift quickly
approaches so I am wide awake.
On an average day, the top of lift number five overflows with skiers and
snowboarders of all different skill levels. However on this particular day, I ride alone. A
snowfall of nearly four inches took place the night before, the schools are closed,
meaning today is powder day. Beating everyone to the mountain was top priority that
morning, and it was worth it, the place is empty. I get off the lift and slowly slide toward
the edge of the run. With no one to bother me, I take in the feeling of being in my happy
place. Alone with skis on my feet and nothing to do all day remains one of the best
feelings in the world. This is what I will be nostalgic about in my old age. No tracks from
other skiers or snowboarders litter the pristine snow laid out before me; perfect. I reach
into the front breast pocket of my coat and take out my phone and headphones. Both of
them nearly frozen at this point, I take the jack of the headphones and click them into
my phone. I click my phone on and drag my finger across the cold screen, scrolling
through my music. The first song played determines the vibe of the day. Some mellow
hip hop beats will do for today, so I turn on March Madness by Future. I take the still
frozen buds from my headphones and cram them into my ears. I cringe at the hard, cold
earbuds thawing inside of my skull. I hear Future say, “dress it up and make it real for
me,” and it's on.
I slide my phone back into the pocket of my coat and zip it back up. Music filling my
head and the perfect sight in front of me, it's hard to believe life can be this great. I
unclip my helmet from it's resting spot on my belt loop and place it on my head. It pushes
my goggles down and I pull my blue bandana up from my neck over the rest of my nose,
covering my face completely. I clip the strap under my neck and feel the slight scratching
of my helmet against my forehead. Standing there on the top of the run looking down
always feels wonderful. It doesn’t matter if you failed that test or if anything in life isn’t
rights wrong, because everything is perfect for the next three hours. I skate a little to
gain speed and start down the hill. The perfect snow kicks up into my knees as I turn
back and forth across the hill. Every turn ripping through the untouched coating of snow
on the ground builds anticipation in me to get to the terrain park. As I glide gracefully
through the deep powder, I can’t help but think about what the terrain park looks like.
The word on the street is Sundown’s Park Crew has been sculpting a couple new jumps
and putting in some new rails. The timing could not have been better.
As much as I enjoy getting my turns in during the wee hours of the December
morning, being the first one to conquer the new terrain parks and prove you have what it
takes to hit the new jumps remains the most important goal. I stop messing around and
ruining the aesthetics of the mountain with my switchback turns, and begin beelining
toward the drop in for the park. I pick up speed going straight downhill. Snow kicks up
over my skis and hitting me in the chest and face, and it feels great. The freezing cold
clinging feeling of my bandana freezing to my face hits me like a ton of bricks. Having a
bandana freeze to your face is equivalent to having brainfreeze on the outside of your
body. I tuck down and try to keep my face out of the frozen wind whipping across my
face while still picking up speed to get to the terrain park quickly. The beat of my
music thumping in my head keeps me going. My earbuds seem to burrow themselves
into my head like moles, almost to the point where I cannot hear myself think. I finally
make it to the drop in for the terrain park, or rather a small raised lump of snow that
provides you with barely enough speed to hit the first feature without dying. I stop once
again to fix my music, I skip to the next song, Diamond Rings 2007 by Deer Tick. Being a
member of the bluegrass/country genre, it's a complete one-eighty from my last
song. I forgot my phone was set to shuffle, so it looks like my music would be
schizophrenic today. I slide my phone back into my pocket and peer out at the new
features that lay before me.
The second I look up from my frozen phone, my eyes land on my old arch
nemesis;, the bumblebee tube. It earned it's name by being striped black and gold from
end to endthe entire way around. The bumblebee tube sits about three feet off of the
snow on it's metal legs and there is a small jump made from snow in front of it to aid me
in getting up onto it. It had been nearly a month since I last saw the tube, when I slipped
out while sliding it and landed flat on my back. I stared the tube down for a few seconds
and it just sat there, like an inanimate object. I decided not to let this chunk of metal ruin
my morning, so I push off of the edges of my skis and begin my approach to the tube. I
feel my legs start to tense up as a near the tube. I lean forward and bring the back of my
skis up, over, and onto the bumblebee tube. Suspended in mid-air, just like that I stay
for a split second, before coming crashing down with only the back half of my skis near
the tube. Due to physics, this sends me face first into the powdery snow waiting like a
nice, plush pillow below to catch me. The beauty of powder day is in this. Having a soft
surface to catch all two hundred pounds of falling me really just drives the confidence
levels up. I get up and begin to recuperate from the fall.
Snow covers me from head to toe. There is a powdery coating on my shoulders, on top
of my helmet, and somehow inside of my goggles. I shake all of the snow off of my body,
but the snow inside my goggles has already begun to melt. The water mixes with the
light fluffy snow and turns it into a wet slush held against my face. As I shake the wet
snow off of my face, I smile. This is my happy place. It doesn't matter what happens at
your happy place, as long as you're at that place everything is perfect, nothing can
bring me down when I’m skiing. Sundowns perfect conditions create my perfect happy
place on a December morning and helps me reflect on life.