Yesterday started with the sound of my alarm, the opening beats in The Beastie Boys’ Shadrach, waking me up at 8:00 AM. Unlike a typical workday, I had no desire to hit the snooze button and enjoy a few more moments of warmth in my bed (although the electric blanket presented a compelling case). I leaped out of bed and immediately commenced getting my things together. I checked the ski report and learned that there was no new snow, just fast hard pack and blue skies in the forecast.

After Michael’s last attempt at getting to Timberline, we were a bit nervous. However, there was really nothing to fear. The ride up the mountain in Bridget’s 4Runner was uneventful. Bridget, who was celebrating the one-week anniversary of getting her braces removed, was all smiles. Indeed, we all were. Laura, unfortunately, was fulfilling her solemn duty to the state by being a juror for the day. Laura did not feel a deep fulfilling satisfaction in being a juror knowing that she was missing out on snowboarding. I couldn’t blame her, and offered some advice (a sip of syrup of ipecac) to help her get out of the situation. In the end Laura decided that she’d attend, and so it was Michael, Bridget, and myself.

We arrived at the lodge at around 11:00 AM and found a parking space that was literally spitting distance from the building. It was a stroke of luck. We picked up our passes and with little delay we were sitting on the lift chair, giddy as schoolchildren. I was in particularly good spirits since I was taking a vacation day and otherwise would’ve been at work.

We got a full sampling of the mountain my mid-day, and Bridget’s friends from work arrived, still nursing hangovers from the company’s Christmas party. We proceeded to Stormin’ Norman, a lift that took us to the terrain park and the table tops. Table tops are jumps with a long, sloping ramp punctuated by a lip which propels you skyward, followed by a steep ramp to allow you to smoothly land your jump and maintain your momentum. Between the ramps there is a flat area. The idea is to pick up enough speed to propel yourself over the flat area and land on the descent in a fluid motion, and if you can do an inverted aerial along the way that’s nice too. There are four or five sets of table tops in the terrain park, each having two sides: a regular side, which gives you what I suppose is a ‘normal’ amount of air going off the lip. That’s the right side. The left side is ‘extra spicy’ and has a steeper slope for producing greater vertical lift. Some would call this ‘Xtreme’.

Michael and I were on our third or fourth run through the table tops when we got a little too close for comfort. Michael was downhill from me, so I veered off to the left (’extra spicy’) table top. I speed checked in a meager attempt to compensate for the fact that I was going off the bigger ramp.

I didn’t speed check myself enough. It was moments later that I thrown into the sky, in another one of those frozen-in-time moments. Looking down at all the people below me, I glanced over the horizon and realized I could see California, and a hint of Mexico.

This was followed by something similar to what my childhood stuffed animal must have felt when I put it in the dryer. Tumbling over and over down the hill, it’s surprising how much abuse the human body can absorb without any serious damage. I stood up, cleared most of the snow out of my goggles, and put them back on. A quick check of fingers and toes, arms and legs revealed nothing broken. I stood up and continued down the hill, a bit more cautious but not significantly so.

If I were kidnapped by terrorists and forced to describe yesterday’s trip in a single word it would be: fast. I mentioned to my roomates that I think I set my personal land speed record on a snowboard. It’s frustrating not to have a speedometer to see just exactly how fast I’m going, but for the sake of my loved ones it’s probably best that I don’t. I don’t think they’d appreciate me informing them that I’ve been shooting down a mountain at 60 MPH or whatever my terminal velocity might happen to be. Since I don’t know, I can only inform them that I’ve been going “fast”.