Snowbound Trail: A Short Story

When I was 15, that was my 3rd year of snowboarding, my ramp freestyle element went wrong. Just this one jump became the biggest challenge in my life.

After a day or two, my parents had heard that our neighbor’s window had broken. They asked me if I had heard anything about it, but I simply said no. When I got to school, my friends continued to urge me to confess, but I would not budge. Another couple of days passed, and me and my friends were hanging out again. This time our parents were there and seemed angry. They knew where we were when the window broke, and so they knew one of us had broken it, but they didn’t know who. Everyone glanced at me, but I still did not talk. This went

In 2004, the Vermont Association of Snow Travelers (VAST) requested a land use permit in order to open trails on state land. A meeting was held in the Vermont State Treasury building for the community to express opinions on the matter. My father and I attended in the hopes of keeping motorized vehicles off of state land. In protest we put a chainsaw in my school backpack and when it was our turn to speak, turned on the chainsaw, let it run for a minute and then ended by saying “It’s public land! We pay taxes! We should be able to do what we want!”. It was a drastic attempt to be heard after so many failures: speeches about health risks, environmental impacts and constant reminders of how much land has already been set aside for these vehicles. This experience was one of my first introductions to activism and the power of the people.

Ski Patrol rode up with us coincidentally. When we got of i immediately fell, I wasn't used to riding with only one foot in. About 5 more rides later my brother was ready to ride the lift with me and my friend. I never really found out the kids name I just called him dude and stuff like that, Normal stuff 10 year olds call each other. The third day was really fun, my friend didn't come because he got hurt at the end of the second day. My mom wanted to be able to talk to us while we were on the mountain, so she bought walkie-talkies and earbuds that had microphones on it so that we could talk to each other and me and my brother could tell each other if we got separated or lost. This happened one time he went up the wrong lift without me and i had to find him on my way down. We were getting really good for our first time. We started trying the blues and were going pretty slow. At the end of the weekend it was time to go home. At 4:00 the lifts shut down and we changed into comfortable clothes and drove home. The next morning I was really sore and bruised up from all the falls. We later went back to another resort named Cataloochee. This time I took a friend by the name of

I was beginning to prepare for the next residency and I realized that I was not looking forward to hearing presentations from liberal and leftist progressive ideologues who seem unable to keep their opinions to themselves and just teach writing. Then I began watching Cold Mountain, the next PBIC and movie and once again, it's all about depraved ignorant southerners, a coward that runs from war, and slavery. I'm not sure why the faculty keeps returning to slavery and oppression in required books and movies again and again, but it's truly become repulsive for me. There's plenty of other optimistic works that could serve this purpose for learning.

Once my dad arrived, we were on our way. I jumped out into the first park that we came to and the fresh new powder exalted me. We then rode over to our friend's cabin to say hello and have a Pepsi. We asked our friend, Bob to come along for the ride and he was delighted to join us. From there we cut across flat lined Twin Lake and then across the untracked Eggleston Lake. To my unpleasant surprise, we approached the lodge, and sleds were buzzing around like crows on road kill. Ten miles down the road I expected to, at least, see some other people riding, but we had the whole mountain to ourselves. We rode from mountain to mountain, crossing open drainages and gigantic playgrounds of snow one after another.

That day had concluded just as all others had in the days gone by; my mother was driving my brother Cole, my sister Jada, and me home from school during a frigid snowstorm while my father was at home with my second brother Bobby. My dad materialized what time it was and that we were rushing home from school, for this reason, he called and advised us that the road was unacceptable for driving; consequently, forced to stay at a motel in Eagle Butte. At the same time, my grandfather was driving home from Pierre. Cell phone service on South Dakota State Highway 63, the road home from Pierre, is intermittent, at best, so my father could not reach him. My grandfather did not know the road conditions were deteriorating the closer he got to home.

On February 27, 2014 , a bunch of my friends and I got together and went to Snow Ridge for my birthday to ski and snowboard. It was a Friday, so we all went up after school and we ate dinner and then started riding and skiing. As the sun goes down and the lights on the slope begin to warm up, we all start playing follow the leader. That's where the person that leads hits the jumps and boxes and you have to do the same trick they do. Everything was going smooth and we were all having fun and hitting the big air jump and the two 15 foot jumps. I was last in line of follow

During the relaxed summer of 2010 my family and I passed through the entrance of the campgrounds, and the moment night dawned upon us prompted the most scarring experience of my life. In our small car, my irritable older stepbrother, my over excited mom, and my exhausted stepdad finally had arrived to our destination, Lake Tahoe, after and excruciating seven hour driving starting from Southern California. After many times of me annoyingly inquiring, “Are we there yet?” and subjecting myself to the wrath and dismissiveness of my family, my ten-year old self was elated that we finally reached our destination. Once we parked at our campsite, my family hastily got out of our tightly packed, dirty 2004 BMW 3 Series, and all spread out among the site. The crisp, evening air was complemented by the crunching of the gravel and

And while he looked back at that trail, there were so many memories, of the life he left behind, swirling around in his head. He could easily decent down the mountain, run back to his hometown, and reunite himself with the pony that raised him from birth. He couldn’t though. Or could he?

I woke up and was excited to go skiing with Porter and Brigham and Cannon. We were in Utah going to go to Snow Basin. The night before, we skied a lot and did rails. I had a ton of fun and got ready really early so we could ski longer. We drove to the resort and got our stuff out. We went on a run before Logan, Landon and Luke got there. It was very icy and scary to ski, so I took it slow the first run. When we got to the bottom, we caught up with Logan, Landon and Luke. We all rode up in a gondola. We got off and went to the terrain park to practice rails. I was doing good, and knowing me I started tucking the long gaps between the different parks. We had just gone through the last park, and I tucked the groomer to the bottom. One of my Logan’s

On the way there we notice that there were really icy patches and that there was a lot of open water.

I felt the soft snow and brisk air hit my face as I stepped out of the car; perfect weather for a ski meet. I spotted a friend preparing for the race and quickly approached her. We kick waxed our skis while talking about the nerves we both felt throughout the day due to it being our first 5k. After we had finished waxing our skis we went out for a warm-up lap to calm the pre-race jitters. The snow was a perfect mixture that afternoon; powdery yet still hard enough for the wax beneath my skis to grip onto. I was ready for all the difficulties that I thought I would face; jokes on me, I wasn 't.

As the day started out, my mother was driving my brother Cole, my sister Jada, and I home from school during a dark and cold snowstorm, while my father was at home with my second brother Bobby. Realising, we were coming home from school, he called and explained that the roads were too horrendous, so we were forced to stay at a motel in Eagle Butte. Likewise, my grandfather was driving home from Pierre. Considering, cell phone service on highway 63, the road home from Pierre, is very scarce so my father could not reach him. Therefore, my grandfather did not know the roads were horrendous.

We grab our gear out of the trunk of the Jeep and head to the Chairlifts. After clicking in my boots to the Skis, we go stand in line for the Chairlifts. The line moves fairly quickly and before I knew it I was getting scooped by the Chairlift and going up the beautiful mountainside. Everything was covered in snow from the cold hard ground to the stunning white Pine and Aspen trees. After a little we came to the summit of Loveland Ski Area. It was a constant blizzard and wasn’t the most comfortable to be up there. The chilling of the wind alongside the snow made it feel like the snow was piercing my skin with tiny white needles. Nick and I decided to bomb the hill for a little to get used to skiing again. It didn’t take very long to get used to it again but by the time we did, we already went quite aways down the