Lonely as a single ski, sliding its way gracefully down the mountain, deftly avoiding people, until it reaches the bottom, then silently disappearing into the roped-off brush area.

JamesT laps me at Ski Beech, pretty consistently. We will take the lift up together, but then I have to sit and gather my resolve before I’m ready to make it down the hill. So, he heads down the hill solo, takes the lift back up, and by the time he’s coming down again, I’m down and we’ll join up for another lift ride together.

It is one of these times, as he has caught up to me on the way down, when he tells me the story of watching a single ski make it’s way down the other run from where we are. From his vantage point on the lift, he watched it travel all the way to the bottom, without getting closer than six feet to any people, then instead of turning left or right, take a little snow-drift jump into the roped-off brush area by the loading for the ski lift. Said the whole thing was fascinating to watch, graceful, quiet, and he never spotted a person down or obviously without one ski for as far up the slope as he could see. It had to have traveled a long way, without giving anyone else an opportunity to spot it or stop it.

We had paused on the slope, and were discussing what we might do if in that situation, left with only one ski on the side of a mountain, and had just decided that not being too skilled, we would probably remove the other ski and try to walk down. That’s when we saw her… the girl coming down the mountain on one ski.

It wasn’t easy to tell if she was in control or just ended up on the same lucky course as her lost ski had taken. She almost looked as if she were surfing, with both feet on one ski. In the end, we decided she wasn’t in control at all, when her path also ended up jumping the little drift and, poles flying, she landed well off the slope in the roped-off brush area. At least she’ll be able to get her ski, if she can still walk.

As for me, I’m torn on snowboarding. The last two runs I managed to make it down without falling and not take so long that JT lapped me, but it is tiring stuff. This time I went goofy, and even though that worked much better for me surviving to get off the ski-lift with better balance, I found that it’s awkward and downright painful to have your right foot strapped in the board and your left foot free when trying to walk. You have to have a foot strapped into the board to get on the lift, and making my way through the queue there completely wore me out. It was much worse than last time’s regular, left foot strapped to the board.

After this trip, though, we’ve decided we’re just going to do it. We’re committing to the weeklong trip with Marc & Jennie next year. Sometime between now and then we’ll need to get our own boards and bindings, but that shouldn’t be a problem. I just wonder if we will manage to work in another trip ourselves this season. Weekends are expensive, but really the only times we could go.