The snowy death I almost died.

Today, on this -5 degree winter Wednesday, I could tell you about a lot of things.

I could tell you about my third tire that I have popped within the past month (I allegedly live next-door to a nail factory).

I could tell you about seeing the most disturbing two movies I have ever seen in my life this week (Revolutionary Road and The Wrestler).

I could tell you about how I recently learned to purl, and thus my knitting possibilities have wildly opened up to the great knitting world of wonder (hats and ribbed scarves here I come!).

But what I really want to tell you about is how I almost died 21 days ago.

My roommate has a friend. This friend has a bunch of college buddies. These buddies were all going on a ski trip to the Lutsen Mountains, located on Lake Superior’s North Shore. They thought it would be nice to have a couple girls along on the trip. I told them I’m not much of a skier, but when they promised me all the equipment needed and they made the arrangements for driving and lodging, I couldn’t resist. As a perpetual trip planner, the prospect of being able to simply tag along with someone else’s perfectly-planned trip sounded to me like a breath of fresh, frosty air.

In a van and a car we drove five of the happiest hours of my life north to our destination. We sang, we ate, we mused, we knitted, we told stories. Was I slightly carsick? Yes, of course I was – I’m me. But a slight tum ache was hardly a match for the giddiness I felt about our trip. It just felt so good to…get out there. Anticipation grew all around me since we had only one night’s sleep standing in our way of hitting the slopes first thing in the morning, and I was only slightly concerned that I was the only one who technically didn’t know how to make my way down a mountain on skis.

Morning arrived. The boys leapt from their beds, raced to the window, and wiggled and jumped around, elated that the night had dropped 15 inches of snow on us, on top of the many inches of snow that had already piled up the previous day. We dressed, loaded on our gear, ensured that rarely a speck of skin was exposed to the -40 below wind chill, and crowded into the cars to head toward the hills.

Two of my friends strapped on my boots and fitted my skis while I stood like a toddler, dutifully placing my feet in the positions in which they instructed me. I breathed a sigh of relief when one of the boys suggested we hit up “Big Bunny”, one of the beginner hills right by the lodge. I clumsily ambled over to the chairlift, and boarded my chair successfully. As the lift neared its exit, I scooted toward the edge of my chair, arranged my poles to the side, and then proceeded to fall flat off the ski lift on my face.

But don’t worry – I got the hang of it. I wiggled out of the way, stood up, and briefly figured out how to ski, with the help of the expert skiers I gone on the trip with. Not to brag, but I pretty much kicked Big Bunny’s ass. If nothing else, I definitely made her my B. Here’s the thing though. We only did Big Bunny once before the boys were ready to move on to bigger and better hills.

A couple green circles, some blue squares, and I was still doing ok. I learned how to turn, and I would fall back on the reliable pizza stance if I ever needed to slow down. Yes, I still have weird knee issues from putting such awkward strain on my knees that weekend, but c’mon. A girl has got to slow down if she needs to. But sometimes, even pizza is no match for the velocity one can find herself in whilst going down certain hills…

Big Bunny was part of a stretch of mountains that is very beginner-friendly. That, of course, is the kind of mountain that I should definitely stay on, but my friends found it very important for us all to stick together. That meant that when they were ready to take a special ski trail over to a stretch of much more difficult mountains, I was coming with. I had heard rumors that there wasn’t really a hill over there that didn’t eventually turn into a black diamond, but they insisted that I would be fine.

The first unforgivably steep hill I approached made me fall instantly. I fell straight down like a little kid when you pick it up but it doesn’t want you to pick it up so it wiggles down to the floor, leaving you dumbfounded as to how a 50-pound thing could outsmart you. I then slid down the rest of the hill slowly, and in perfect control, on my butt, which was totally not a big deal. No pain, I didn’t make a scene, and only one teenage snowboarder yelled at me for being in her way.

But the thing with these hills that get steeper and steeper as you go down them, is that you gain momentum. And when someone who is as bad a skier as I am gains momentum, they start to lose their ability to turn. And if the person is going so fast that they can’t really turn, you can sure as frick bet that “pizza” is a literal impossibility.

What I’m trying to tell you is that one of the black diamond mountains I went on was so steep that I erratically flew straight down it, gaining and gaining speed over what felt like five minutes until I reached the most steep part at the bottom and found myself barreling toward a group of 40 people waiting in line to get on the chair lift. Right before I reached the group, and thus killed everyone in sight by my unpredictable and uncontrollable speed, I gallantly hurled myself into the nearest snow bank, rolled at the speed of light about 20 feet, skidded another 10, and then landed, poles and skiis scattered, body in spread-eagle position, on the bank of the snow at the feet of those 40 skiers, their mouths agape, staring at the spectacle that was me.

I stayed there for a while, maybe two minutes, not moving. I noticed people trying not to notice me. A snowboarder picked up my poles and reverently laid them at my side, not uttering a word.

Ironically, but mostly unbelievably, my only wound from the weekend was a tiny scratch I got from the hotel room table while playing cards.