oh, that winter wonderland
When I was in high school, I went on these annual Outward Bound camping expeditions that the school sponsored in the hopes of turning scrawny boys into something approaching men. These outings were mandatory, and that meant for the first two years, I hung out with math and lit geeks on the kayaking expeditions that represented the low effort route of these annual trials. Not that I mean to demean those who really enjoy ocean kayaking. It's just that when you're forced to choose between various aerobically demanding poisons like mountain climbing, cross country skiing or whitewater canoeing -- spending a week in a boat, floating from point to point doesn't sound bad.
With that said, I don't particularly remember why I chose to go mountaineering in my junior year. It might've been around the time that I had a falling out with some of the kayaking regulars. Or maybe I was just choosing it just for the sake of being arbitrary. I did a lot of that when I was a kid.
Regardless, it wasn't until the first day that I realized how out of my depth that I was. My fellow campers were all on crew, and it was common knowledge that the rowers were the most insanely fit students in the school. What was supposed to be an easy first day's hike felt like a forced march, and I can vividly remember collapsing about fifty metres away from our evening campsite, and having the instructor hustle back to me, rip open my backpack and forcefeed a candy bar into my mouth just so that I'd have enough calories to drag myself into camp.
"You know," he said as he hustled me to camp, "if you can't do this, you should really turn around now."
That memory came briefly to mind a couple of weeks ago, when I was in New Hampshire, trying to learn how to ski cross country with silentq and failing. And falling. Often. It was after my fifth fall in just as many minutes that she turned back to me and said, "we can stop, if you aren't having fun."
I know it wasn't her intention, but that sort of statement was just the sort of thing that would make me try harder. We had just gone downhill skiing the day before, and I was still new at that sport too. My body was sore due to a dozen falls from a dozen angles at a dozen different speeds that were somewhere between "fast" and "omigod-omigod-too-steep-snowplow-snowplow-not-working-tree!-turn!-child!-turn!-skiing-backwards!-shit!"
But, you know in the end of that day of downhill skiing, I was able to make it down a half run without panic, and I almost believed that I knew what I was doing. So I figured that I could learn cross-country even if it meant bruising all of the parts of me that weren't bruised by downhill skiing. And in the end of that little adventure, I learned to stay balanced, climb hills, and go for more than ten minutes without falling on my ass. Turning is still a bit of a mystery, but small steps -- very small steps.
Fast forward to last weekend -- I was up at Loon with jasonlizard, doing a couple of runs before getting lunch with heatray, tegin, Debbie and rishikanta; and jasonlizard asked if I wanted to do a blue, intermediate run. I've only gone skiing three times, but I figured I wasn't going to learn if I always just took it easy. So flinging myself down insanely fast slopes, I go. By this time, falling took on the same feeling as dying in a videogame crowded with 1-ups. "Would you like to continue?" Hell, yeah, I haven't felt this invincible since I was a rugby player getting my shoulder dislocated on a weekly basis.
Of course, that wasn't going to last.
Most of my memories of the first run after lunchtime was of silentq's ski jacket as she went off ahead of me down one trail. It's vague and ephemeral, the way dreams are in those first seconds after waking, fading from your subconsciousness like smoke in the ambient air. That's because it wasn't long before silentq heard a collision behind her, and saw me gripping my head while a kid nearby kept on saying, "I'm sorry." Needless to say, I don't remember this.
Apparently, though, I got up and skied the rest of the way down and seemed ok, until silentq started asking me questions that I couldn't answer. Questions like where I was and or what year it might be. So, I was walked over to first aid, packed into an ambulance, and sent into emergency care.
... memory starts up with me in a jostling gurney. There was a kid next to me, who looked like he was in traction. memory fades out ...
... memory starts up. I asked the EMT where I was. She said I was in ambulance. I asked her if I asked the question before. She said, "six times." I make some joke about needing a Polaroid a la Memento memory fades out ...
... memory starts up with me looking in a cyclopean camera eye. my brain is getting scanned for damage. I know I'm scared. memory fades out ...
"Your friends are here."
I don't know if it was the timing or if the arrival of silentq and jasonlizard were the first instances of contiguous familiarity that gave my brain the anchor that it needed. However, everything that I've remembered from the incident to now starts with seeing them coming in to see me, relief writ large on their faces. I was apparently suffering from a mild concussion, one that was going to leave me with mild nausea and headaches for the next couple of days while my brain repaired itself. The scans have come up clean, which is a relief, and with the exception of a bright red bruise in the back of my head, the consequences of the weekend have largely faded.
I spent most of that drive back from Loon trying to test my memory to see how much of my recall was coming back. I was trying to remember what I saw five minutes ago, or what jasonlizard said in conversation ten minutes before. Nevermind that my ability to recall mundane detail has never been particularly sharp; nothing makes you want to test your memory more than the fear of losing it.
I realize, of course, that by skiing without a helmet I was courting a certain amount of risk, but I was also suffering from the newbie's aversion to upfront investment. No sense in buying gear if it was all going to languish in three or four years, when the interest has faded and novelty has picked a new target. Regardless, I realize that this scenario could've turned out to be much, much worse. When I do go skiing again, it will be with all of the proper protection that is needed.
And I do say 'when' and not 'if'. I stuck with my group on that first mountaineering trip in my junior year, despite the travails of that first traumatic day. Later on, as we traversed a small ledge that crossed over a narrow river gorge, one of the other climbers lost his footing and started to slide down. Fortunately, we had roped up and I managed to stay stable so he could regain his grip and start climbing up. At the end of that trip, the instructor told me that he was expecting me to be a total washout, and was impressed to have seen me hauling my own weight, as it were. I opted back into mountaineering in my senior year, and have believed that challenges exist to make you a better person. There's no sense in exposing yourself to risk needlessly, but at the same time, there's no sense in letting a little fear and fatigue get in the way of a whole world of nifty experiences.
It's just, you know, wise not to act like a damn fool while doing so.
With that said, I don't particularly remember why I chose to go mountaineering in my junior year. It might've been around the time that I had a falling out with some of the kayaking regulars. Or maybe I was just choosing it just for the sake of being arbitrary. I did a lot of that when I was a kid.
Regardless, it wasn't until the first day that I realized how out of my depth that I was. My fellow campers were all on crew, and it was common knowledge that the rowers were the most insanely fit students in the school. What was supposed to be an easy first day's hike felt like a forced march, and I can vividly remember collapsing about fifty metres away from our evening campsite, and having the instructor hustle back to me, rip open my backpack and forcefeed a candy bar into my mouth just so that I'd have enough calories to drag myself into camp.
"You know," he said as he hustled me to camp, "if you can't do this, you should really turn around now."
That memory came briefly to mind a couple of weeks ago, when I was in New Hampshire, trying to learn how to ski cross country with silentq and failing. And falling. Often. It was after my fifth fall in just as many minutes that she turned back to me and said, "we can stop, if you aren't having fun."
I know it wasn't her intention, but that sort of statement was just the sort of thing that would make me try harder. We had just gone downhill skiing the day before, and I was still new at that sport too. My body was sore due to a dozen falls from a dozen angles at a dozen different speeds that were somewhere between "fast" and "omigod-omigod-too-steep-snowplow-snowplow-not-working-tree!-turn!-child!-turn!-skiing-backwards!-shit!"
But, you know in the end of that day of downhill skiing, I was able to make it down a half run without panic, and I almost believed that I knew what I was doing. So I figured that I could learn cross-country even if it meant bruising all of the parts of me that weren't bruised by downhill skiing. And in the end of that little adventure, I learned to stay balanced, climb hills, and go for more than ten minutes without falling on my ass. Turning is still a bit of a mystery, but small steps -- very small steps.
Fast forward to last weekend -- I was up at Loon with jasonlizard, doing a couple of runs before getting lunch with heatray, tegin, Debbie and rishikanta; and jasonlizard asked if I wanted to do a blue, intermediate run. I've only gone skiing three times, but I figured I wasn't going to learn if I always just took it easy. So flinging myself down insanely fast slopes, I go. By this time, falling took on the same feeling as dying in a videogame crowded with 1-ups. "Would you like to continue?" Hell, yeah, I haven't felt this invincible since I was a rugby player getting my shoulder dislocated on a weekly basis.
Of course, that wasn't going to last.
Most of my memories of the first run after lunchtime was of silentq's ski jacket as she went off ahead of me down one trail. It's vague and ephemeral, the way dreams are in those first seconds after waking, fading from your subconsciousness like smoke in the ambient air. That's because it wasn't long before silentq heard a collision behind her, and saw me gripping my head while a kid nearby kept on saying, "I'm sorry." Needless to say, I don't remember this.
Apparently, though, I got up and skied the rest of the way down and seemed ok, until silentq started asking me questions that I couldn't answer. Questions like where I was and or what year it might be. So, I was walked over to first aid, packed into an ambulance, and sent into emergency care.
... memory starts up with me in a jostling gurney. There was a kid next to me, who looked like he was in traction. memory fades out ...
... memory starts up. I asked the EMT where I was. She said I was in ambulance. I asked her if I asked the question before. She said, "six times." I make some joke about needing a Polaroid a la Memento memory fades out ...
... memory starts up with me looking in a cyclopean camera eye. my brain is getting scanned for damage. I know I'm scared. memory fades out ...
"Your friends are here."
I don't know if it was the timing or if the arrival of silentq and jasonlizard were the first instances of contiguous familiarity that gave my brain the anchor that it needed. However, everything that I've remembered from the incident to now starts with seeing them coming in to see me, relief writ large on their faces. I was apparently suffering from a mild concussion, one that was going to leave me with mild nausea and headaches for the next couple of days while my brain repaired itself. The scans have come up clean, which is a relief, and with the exception of a bright red bruise in the back of my head, the consequences of the weekend have largely faded.
I spent most of that drive back from Loon trying to test my memory to see how much of my recall was coming back. I was trying to remember what I saw five minutes ago, or what jasonlizard said in conversation ten minutes before. Nevermind that my ability to recall mundane detail has never been particularly sharp; nothing makes you want to test your memory more than the fear of losing it.
I realize, of course, that by skiing without a helmet I was courting a certain amount of risk, but I was also suffering from the newbie's aversion to upfront investment. No sense in buying gear if it was all going to languish in three or four years, when the interest has faded and novelty has picked a new target. Regardless, I realize that this scenario could've turned out to be much, much worse. When I do go skiing again, it will be with all of the proper protection that is needed.
And I do say 'when' and not 'if'. I stuck with my group on that first mountaineering trip in my junior year, despite the travails of that first traumatic day. Later on, as we traversed a small ledge that crossed over a narrow river gorge, one of the other climbers lost his footing and started to slide down. Fortunately, we had roped up and I managed to stay stable so he could regain his grip and start climbing up. At the end of that trip, the instructor told me that he was expecting me to be a total washout, and was impressed to have seen me hauling my own weight, as it were. I opted back into mountaineering in my senior year, and have believed that challenges exist to make you a better person. There's no sense in exposing yourself to risk needlessly, but at the same time, there's no sense in letting a little fear and fatigue get in the way of a whole world of nifty experiences.
It's just, you know, wise not to act like a damn fool while doing so.