Colorado, Part 2 -- Or, How I got schooled by Schoolmarm

It turns out that you can collect some pretty good stories when you go skiing for the first time. To avoid a ridiculously long blog post telling you all of those stories at once, I'm going with installments. See the first post here. Seriously, read it first.

We headed over to the green slope, Schoolmarm, which was just a few yards away from the bunny slope. Surely it would be harmless, right? How could something I wasn't ready for be so close to the bunny slope? K assured me we could stop whenever I wanted.

I took a deep breath as I looked down the slope in front of me. I lifted my goggles and scratched my eyebrow. "It keeps itching," I said. I tightened my glove straps. Adjusted my helmet. Pulled out my camera to take a picture.

Shifted my goggles again to scratch my eyebrow (again). "You know I'm kind of stalling, right?"

"I'd picked up on that," K said patiently.

After a couple more fidgets, I said, "OK ... let's go." I pushed myself forward. I started making broad turns so I'd go slowly down the mountain. It worked, until the slope increased. When I felt like I was going too fast, I made myself fall over. I skidded for a bit, and my ski actually came off. I passed it and continued to skid a bit farther down the mountain.

K, who had been skiing behind me, picked up my ski and headed toward me. "Good job! That's what you should do if you feel like you're going too fast."

I looked at the slope in front of us and saw a cliff. The slope was a lot steeper for several feet below it. It wasn't exactly a dropoff, but it was more than I was ready to tackle on my first day. K assured me I could to it. "You know everything you need to know. You're a skier. Just keep doing your turns and you'll be fine."

Skiers and snowboarders were flying by us. Children were flying by us (a-holes!).

I settled on the tactic of plowing down the steep decline. I brought the front of my skis together and turned my ankles out as far as I could to keep my pace slow. Before long, though, the slope won out and my speed was more than I had wanted. I made myself fall again, and this time, both skis stayed on.

The slopes ahead showed more cliffs. Many more. "This isn't what I thought it would be! This is steep!"

K agreed. "This wouldn't be a green slope in Pennsylvania." That made me feel better. I wasn't a complete wuss after all! "Look, though. The slope isn't as bad as you think it is."

I looked to my left, at the side of the slope. The angle of the slope against the horizon wasn't exactly close to a 45 degree angle, but it was a lot closer to an obvious triangle than I wanted it to be. "That's plenty steep to me!"

But still, I picked myself up and headed down again. I was relying almost entirely on the plowing tactic now. Again and again, I plowed down, picked up speed, and opted to fall.

This was taking forever. It was starting to get dark. I was ready to stop. I wanted a ski lift. Evidently the only one nearby led to a steeper slope, rather than the bottom of the mountain. The only way to get down was on skis. "But you said I could stop whenever I want! I want to stop now!"

"I meant we could take a break whenever you want."

At that, I decided to throw a screaming Tourette's temper tantrum in the middle of the mountain. "THIS IS F*#KING RIDICULOUS! THIS IS NOT A GREEN SLOPE! I'M NOT READY FOR THIS SHIT! I CAN'T EVEN PUT MY OWN F*#KING BOOTS ON YET! THIS IS HORSE SHIT! ..."

K had started losing his patience. My outburst didn't help. He kicked into Army leadership mode. "I have never seen you quit before!" He gave me a look of disappointment. I wasn't phased (or motivated).

I suddenly remembered why our instructor had told us not to try the green slope that day: He didn't want us to end our first day of skiing on a bad note. I made the mistake of telling that to K.

"Thanks," he said. "That makes me feel great." He had already apologized several times along the mountain. Like me, he hadn't expected the slopes to be so steep. He felt like it was all his fault.

"Will you stop apologizing?! You didn't make me go on this slope. I chose to. Besides, this isn't about you right now. It's about me and the fact this should NOT be labeled a green slope. I think it's more of a teal." (Blue is the color that represents intermediate slopes. Since teal is blue-green, I felt it would be a more appropriate label, even though there's no such thing as a "teal" slope.)

I was still sitting on the ground the way I'd made myself fall. K was getting antsy. "Do you want me to call Ski Patrol?"

"No." But I wasn't going to ski down that cliff either. Somewhere in his Army leadership mode, K had (probably jokingly) asked if I was going to slide down the mountain on my ass. That seemed to be the best option, so I went with it.

K grabbed my skis, which I'd taken off so I could slide easier, and flew down the mountain to burn off steam. He stopped at the base of the giant cliff, where the slope leveled out a bit. I had slid at least 50 yards when two snowboarders came by and slowed beside me. "You missing something?" one of them asked, looking around for my skis. It was slightly embarrassing to explain to them where they were. The guys both gave me weird, "I don't want to get into this" looks and continued down the mountain.

A minute or two later, I was by K again. I mounted my skis, and we continued down the mountain. More speed, another fall. The lights had come on at the edges of the slopes. It would be dark soon.

We were about halfway down the mountain*. The road and shops at the base still looked so, so far away. It had taken us a long time (not sure exactly, but it felt like a f*#cking lifetime) to come this far. I didn't know how we'd make it to the bottom. The cliff just before us looked even worse than the ones that had given us trouble before.

"Do you want me to call Ski Patrol?"

"No. ...

"I don't know ..."

Wanna know how we made it down the mountain? Or even IF we made it down the mountain? Find out here!

*I just googled "Schoolm@rm Key$tone" to get specific info on the slope, and I just discovered that it's the longest freaking slope in the entire freaking resort. Fan-freaking-tastic.