Double Black Diamond

There I lay in the snow. Two feet from the cliff’s edge, my left ski stuck vertically like a tombstone.

It was a bluebird day in Crested Butte. There were six of us — one of the annual ski trips I planned — and we were heading to the double black chutes without a moment’s hesitation.

Did I mention that I grew up in the South and didn’t learn how to ski until my thirties? I wasn’t exactly Lindsey Vonn. But I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

I was thirty-five at the time — a VP of a Seattle-based tech company, making great money, attractive, and dating a badass 23-year-old. Nothing was going to stop me.

My beau, Brian — an expert snowboarder and professional cyclist — was elegantly making his way through the steep terrain. He was leading the pack, and I was second in line, smiling, fearless. As we rounded the bend on light, friendly powder, Brian screamed out, “Stop! This is a cliff.”

I immediately made a quick turn to my left, whipping my skis around to stop. That’s when things went sideways. After all, my skiing abilities were intermediate at best. (It turns out that poor people from the South don’t do a lot of snow skiing).

I fell, one ski dangling loose, the other buried beneath the snow, my boot locked in and refusing to let go. I imagined a number of escape ploys — including the 23-year-old riding a horse around the corner and lifting me courageously from my plight.

Instead, Brian had already boarded around the cliff to the base.

Jim, the best skier left among us — and a man with a gift for showing up when it counts, unlike Ted, who had greeted him at 1 am the prior night wearing nothing but tiny whities — came to my aid. He sat by my side, talking sense into me. Use your poles. Regain your balance. Lift the left ski out. Ski uphill to safety.

Yeah right.

This was before the age of cell phones. Before the age of helmets. I was two feet from a cliff, on a double black diamond, wearing nothing but a fashionable beanie on my head.

The longer I lay there, the more panicked I became. There was no way out. I started to cry. I saw the end of my life in front of me, and it was my own false confidence that had put me there.

Jim finally encouraged me to release my skis from my boots.

Really, Jim?

As soon as I released the second boot, I went tumbling. Somersaulting over rocky, steep terrain. Without a helmet. For hundreds of yards.

Finally, Ted — yes, that Ted — literally threw himself on top of me to stop the rolling. Everyone had been holding their breath.

Ted looked down at me. “Melinda, are you okay?”

I wasn’t sure. Time had stood still. I was waiting for the outcome of my own near-death experience.

“I…..I think so.”

Jim brought me my skis. I clicked in and skied down the mountain, shaking, tears in my eyes, miraculously alive, without a scar or bruise to show for it.

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Here’s the irony. Sitting at my desk now, a 62-year-old woman, I look back at that moment on the mountain and wish I had some of that same fearlessness. I got out over my skis that day — literally. But somewhere between then and now, I have stopped doing that.

I miss that version of Melinda. Crazy? Maybe.

But she was fearless. And she was so, so alive.