First I'd like to welcome you back to school. Hope you enjoyed your winter break.
Here is my 48th Quick Write.
Monday.
GIRL WIPES-OUT AND HAS A GARAGE SALE ON DOUBLE BLACK DIAMOND RUN AT SNOW SUMMIT IN BIG BEAR!!!
Sophie Lawrence was skiing down Side Chute, a double black diamond run at Snow Summit Ski and Board Resort in Big Bear. She was with her brother and dad. It was about 4:15pm and they wanted to finish the day off on the east side of the mountain. But it was getting icy and disaster was waiting on Side Chute.She had been skiing since she was four, but even though she was quite good, nothing prepared her for the wipe-out about to take place on Side Chute. It was her first day skiing in a while so she wanted to take this double black slowly. She decided to do pizza turns but no pizza turn stops you on ice as Lawrence learned the hard way that early evening. She was turning and she started going down, straight down. Her skis were almost at a 90 degree angle and that was how she was taught to stop but she wasn't stopping. If anything she was picking up speed. Then it got worse. "I was going straight down a double black. How could this get any worse. Well of course it did. My skis turned parallel to each other. I was still pointed directly down the mountain. Oh great I thought to myself." She was now picking up even more speed. She had to find a way to stop. Her next choice was to sit back and stop with her hands. She leaned back and tried to stop herself. But this was worse, much worse. She was sitting down, had almost no control, and couldn't see because of all the snow spraying up in her face. That idea was out of the window. She was running out of options. Her next and last option was to try and turn. "I couldn't stand up, for that was too hard so I had to make do with the position I was in." She turned once. She slowed down a little bit but was still going quite fast. She turned again. She slowed down a little more but still was going moderately fast. She turned again. Slowed down. She tried to turn but she couldn't. She was headed for the trees off the side of the designated skiing area. She was able to turn at the last second. After a few more turns she finally stopped. She looked up the run and saw a ski, a pole, and another pole. She looked to see her dad at the top of the run. "I was standing at the top and all I could her were high pitched screams. 'Ahhh! Daddy! Ahhh!' I was expecting her to break down and start crying, not to see her throw her hand up in the air and yell, 'Woo-hoo!'" Well, she did. She looked up to her dad and did exactly that. Standing next to her dad was a ski patrol man who helped Lawrence get up and put her skis back on. "He asked 'How was the ride?' I replied 'It was awesome! It was fun and scary like a roller-coaster but there was no restraint bar and I had no control of when it would end.'" But it's not a happy ending yet! After all of that sliding and turning and speeding, Lawrence still had to ski down the end of the run. She got up and all of the snow slid down her back. She skied the rest of the way down and in the strip of sunny snow and turned on patches of powder. "After that, it was a day. No-one was going to make me go on another run. I was done with skiing for the day." So according to Sophie, the lesson to be learned is, "If you want to ski on the east side of the mountain, do it in the morning. Always turn on powder. And, oh, when it's your first time skiing in a while, no matter how good you are, limit the number of double black diamonds you do."
