Skiing

On Friday I went skiing. I had to wake up at quarter to six to get ready and go to church by six thirty. At church we embarked for Michigan, all the boys in one car and the girls in another. The trip to Swiss Valley Ski and Resort was uneventful but enjoyable. After we arrived, we had a private group lesson. First we became accustomed to being in the skis and moving in them, and then we headed over to the bunny hill/ rope pull. We walked most of the way down the hill and then our teacher demonstrated how to stop; snowplow style. Then we skied down the hill and over to the rope pull. After learning how to ski straight up the hill holding onto the rope pull, down the hill, and stop; our group proceeded to learn how to turn, which took me quite a while to 'master'. Before long, our lesson was over, and a few of us headed over to the 'real' hills. First, I went down the easiest blue square hill, which is intermediate (the resort didn't have anything between the rope pull and intermediate). Next, I went up the ski lift (surprise!), which didn't actually scare me at all, even though I kind of expected it to; then I went down another blue square hill. I didn't fall once before lunch, but I did afterwards. My first real fall was on the biggest blue square hill. I tried to turn too sharply and landed on my head. Eventually, I was convinced by my friends to try the black diamond hill, the hardest at the resort. I made sure that I was not last in line, so I couldn't chicken out, and I flew down and had a blast doing it. I ended up going down the black diamond hill at least seven times. However, when I went down a smaller black diamond hill, I didn't have such luck. First, I tried to go down the hill at an angle and stick in a snow drift to slow me down. Instead, though, I ended up going over the drift like a jump and landed in the snow not standing up. I got up and went down the rest of the hill, whereupon I wiped out on some slick snow/ice at the bottom. I ended up losing both skis, a pole, and my glasses and then I face planted into the snow. It hurt even more because I was sunburned, which I was unaware of. Nonetheless, I had fun, and even went down a few more hills after that. Now I totally want to go again.