The Skies and the Trees

It was a crisp Wednesday morning at the Katima-house. The sun had yet to rise but everyone was up. The mood was maybe a bit moody but it was only seven in the morning. Nevertheless by seven thirty all eleven of us had piled into our Katima-van to make the hour long trek to the Murray Ridge Ski hill.

Now my skiing experience has been extremely limited seeing that in London we only have an excuse of a mountain known as the Bolar Bump. Therefore upon arriving and getting our proper equipment at the ski hill we all decided to start off on the bunny hill. I thought that I would have been terrible seeing that I have not “legitimately” skied before but I felt extremely comfortable skiing down the gentle slope of the bunny hill so therefore I decided, with Andréanne, to go to the very top of the mountain. It only seemed logical that if I could ski the on the bunny hill that I would be able to tackle the whole mountain. Our first obstacle unfortunately came right at the bottom of the hill. Murray Ridge does not have a ski lift, but rather a contraption known as a T-Bar. It took more than ten minutes of uncomfortable balancing and nervous screaming to reach the top of the mountain and what we experienced was only the easy part of our day.

The view was extremely beautiful but also very high. I was quite unprepared to the fact that I was going to half to ski for a full five six minutes just to reach the bottom. We picked the ‘easiest’ trail to try and accomplish but it was still way to difficult for my level of skiing. It only took me only 500 meters to experience my first fall and it was pretty harsh. I had forgotten the importance of turning so I went straight off the trail into a small tree. I hit pretty hard and it was enough to open a cut on my head. I was fairly displeased with myself but then realized that scrapes and bruises are all part of the sport and I got right back up and slowly went down the hill with Andréanne falling every few hundred meters until I reached the bottom of the mountain twenty minutes later.

I am a very determined person so I continued to go to the top and struggle through the ski runs. Other falls include one where my bindings got twisted forcing me to walk half of the mountain (worst experience ever) and doing multiple face plants in the snow. Overall it was a great day. And my final run of the day I reached the bottom of the mountain without one fall. It was a perfect day to ski and I got some amazing pictures. My body might now be sore all over but it was definitely worth every wipe out.